Assessing the visual quality of sanitary ware by fuzzy logic

•An example of fuzzy logic application is studied first in the field of product auditing.•This paper gives a unique application of visual quality assessment of vitreous china ceramic sanitary wares by using fuzzy logic method.•The fuzzy model developed in the study was quite satisfactory to make a clear quality distinction among the product lots.•It performed better than the ongoing approach with respect to the measurements of coefficient of variation and confidence level.•Besides finished products, the method can be used for visual quality assessment of parts, subassemblies, and materials as well. Quality control systems focus on maintaining standards in manufactured products. To improve the homogeneity of batches received by final users and to detect manufacturing defaults, a visual control stage is integrated into production line before the packing operation. At this stage, the products are inspected, mostly by human eye, for their obvious external defects; e.g., chips, cracks, scratches, holes and pitting, lumps, spots, notches, and glazing. This task is often referred to as visual inspection which is important to categorize the final products into quality-constant batches. Prototypes are of invaluable help while inspecting the visual attributes of products. Visual quality of products is assessed with respect to these standard units and some quality ratings are made there on the results. However, assessing visual quality is somewhat an ambiguous and troublesome work. Therefore, it will be helpful to utilize a decision making technique, such as fuzzy logic, to facilitate and improve the process. This paper addresses first to the significance of visual inspection and assessment of visual quality of industrial products, and second, gives a unique application of visual quality assessment of vitreous china ceramic sanitary wares by using fuzzy logic method.