Cumulative sum (CUSUM) control charts are widely used in industry for the statistical process control. The statistical design procedure in CUSUM charts tells how to choose the decision interval value. The decision interval is primarily determied by the desired in - control ARL - that is, by the acceptable frequency of false out-of-control signals. In this paper we propose a new approximation method for calculating the ARL and determining the decision interval. The performance of the proposed method is examined by evaluating the accuracy of estimated ARLs and decision intervals in normal and exponential cases.