acceptance number

The highest number of defects that a sample of products from a manufacturing process can have in order for the inspection lot to be accepted. For example, software manufacturers may produce a defective CD in 10 out of every 1,000 duplications. But as long as the number of tested units does not exceed 10 within that lot, the batch is considered good and shipped to market. Many process improvement initiatives are often used to reduce the number of defects in a process in order to avoid exceeding the acceptance number.