Multivariate control chart based on kernel PCA for monitoring mixed variable and attribute quality characteristics

Abstract

The need for a control chart that can visualize and recognize the symmetric or asymmetric pattern of the monitoring process with more than one type of quality characteristic is a necessity in the era of Industry 4.0. In the past, the control charts were only developed to monitor one kind of quality characteristic. Several control charts were created to deal with this problem. However, there are some problems and drawbacks to the conventional mixed charts. In this study, another approach is used to monitor mixed quality characteristics by applying the Kernel Principal Component Analyisis (KPCA) method. Using the Hotelling’s T2 statistic, the kernel PCA mix chart is proposed to simultaneously monitor the variable and attribute quality characteristics. Due to its ability to estimate the asymmetric pattern of the mixed process, the kernel density estimation (KDE) used in the proposed chart has successfully estimated the control limits that produce ARL0 at about 370 for a=0.00273. Through several experiments based on the proportion of the attribute characteristics and kernel functions, the proposed chart demonstrates better performance in detecting outlier and shift in the process. When it is applied to monitor the synthetic data, the proposed chart can detect the shift accurately. Additionally, the proposed chart outperforms the performance of the conventional mixed chart based on PCA mix by producing lower false alarm with more accurate detection of out of control processes.