Computing the Percentage Points of the Run-Length Distributions of Multivariate CUSUM Control Charts

Multivariate CUSUM control charts are often used instead of the standard Hotelling's control charts in many practical problems when detection of small shifts in the process mean is important. However, design of multivariate CUSUM control charts are usually based on the average run length (ARL). In this work, we will compute the percentage points of the run-length distributions of two multivariate CUSUM control charts. It will be shown that interpretations based on ARL can be misleading since the in-control run-length distribution of a multivariate CUSUM is highly skewed. On the other hand, the percentage points of the run-length distribution provide additional information such as the median run length, early false out-of-control signals, and the skewness of the run-length distribution for a particular scheme. These extra information might provide quality control engineers further knowledge of a particular multivariate CUSUM control chart scheme.