Lower control limits

Davide - remember that control limits are not goals and variation will NEVER be zero unless your measurement system is incapable of measuring the characteristic of interest.

The intent of control limits is to tell you when a true change has occurred (as opposed to random variation being mistaken for a real change). This not only applies to ‘things gone wrong’ but for ‘things gone right’. Too often people will claim victory whenever a single point goes in the direction they want. This includes the within subgroup variation. So if you made a change to reduce the variation then the lower control limit adn it’s associated rules would tell you that you have indeed made a real change to the variation - or it will tell you that you have not. (As Zeno said)

The other reason for the lower control limit is to warn of an unexpected reduction in variation which may be the result of ‘data manipulation’ (intended and unintended).