Process Enhancement Through SPC/APC Techniques: Process Enhancement Through Integrated Statistical and Automatic Process Control Techniques

Process Enhancement is the key to achieve production targets and to improve product quality. Statistical Process Control (SPC) and Automatic Process Control (APC) are considered as two sets of toolkits for enhancement. Major focus of SPC is on process monitoring, while that of APC is on process adjustment. Both SPC and APC were initially thought to be in conflict with each other, and their integrated use was totally out of question, until their advocates realized the fact about the techniques applied by them being complementary rather than contradictory. In this thesis, we will present different enhancement schemes which are based on dual application of SPC and APC techniques. Starting by conducting literature survey and covering technical background on our topic, moving to effective initial setting of the process parameters, passing by proper selection of control parameters, then proceeding towards process monitoring and assessment schemes, all of that will be our work path. All previous topics will be the building blocks for a fuzzy integrated SPC/APC scheme that obtains enhanced level of: process quality, performance, and robustness.

Muneeb A. Akram is an Advanced Application Engineer in the area of Industrial Automation. He did his M.Sc. in Systems Engineering from King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals, and received his B.Sc. in Control and Instrumentation Systems Engineering from the same institute.