8 th International Conference On Production Engineering & Design For Development, PEDD8, Cairo, March 9 10, 2010

A Double Neural Network Approach for the Automated Detection of Quality Control Chart Patterns
Ahmed S. Shaban*, Mohamed A. Shalaby**
* Teaching Assistant, Industrial Engineering Department, Faculty of Engineering, Fayoum University. ** Professor of Industrial Engineering, Mechanical Design and Production Department, Faculty of Engineering, Cairo University

ABSTRACT A control chart is one of the key tools in statistical process control. The exhibited pattern on a control chart indicates either a process is in control or out of control. The control chart patterns are classified to natural and unnatural patterns. The presence of unnatural patterns is evidence that the process is out of control. This paper proposes an artificial neural network algorithm to detect and identify any of the five basic control chart patterns; namely, natural, upward shift, downward shift, upward trend, and downward trend. This identification is in addition to the traditional statistical detection of sequential data runs. It is assumed that a process starts in control (has natural pattern) and then may undergo only under one out-of-control pattern at a time. The performance of the proposed algorithm was evaluated by measuring the probability of success in identifying the five basic patterns accurately and comparing these results with previous research. The comparison showed that the proposed algorithm is comparable if not superior. KEYWORDS Thermoplastics, Natural fibres, Composites, Twin screw, Extrusion
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________

1. INTRODUCTION A control chart is a Statistical Process Control (SPC) tool that is widely used to represent actual variability of industrial process attributes such as key dimensions and number of defects per unit product. Control charts are usually integrated with inspection to record such attributes for a consecutive set of sampled production. Recorded data patterns that are exhibited in control charts are classified as natural and unnatural patterns. Examples of unnatural patterns such as Sequential data runs, Existence of a shift in process mean , or Existence of a trend in process mean should signal that the process is going out of control; see Figure [1]. Proper and early identification of an unnatural pattern will warn against potentially bad or defective production early enough. In addition, it may help the quality practitioners to determine potential sources of assignable causes, and may lead to diagnose process malfunctions that generated the unnatural process variations. With the widespread usage of computers in manufacturing and inspection systems, there is a need to automate the on-line recording and analysis of process data (Guh et al., 1999) by devising a computerized detection technique.

__________________________________________________________________________________

A Double Neural Network Approach

__________________________________________________________________________________
6 4 2 0 -2 -4 -6 6 4 2 0
-1

6 4 2 0 -2

6 4 2 0 -2 -4

Natural

-4 -6
7 5 3 1

Upward Shift (2 sigma)

Downward Shift (-2 sigma)

-6

7 5 3 1 -1 -3

Downward Trend (-0.2 sigma)

-2
-3

-4 -6

Natural

-5 -7

Upward Trend (0.2 sigma)

-5 -7

Figure [1] Basic patterns of control chart

Control charts alone cannot provide any pattern related information. Many supplementary rules such as zone tests or run rules have been suggested to assist quality practitioners in detecting the unnatural patterns (Grant and Leavenworth, 1996; Nelson, 1984; Western Electric; 1956). The primary problem with applying run rules are that the application of all the available rules simultaneously can yield an excess of false alarms due to the existing natural variability in the process data. Many researchers tried to automate the analysis of control chart patterns by developing Expert Systems to limit the human intervention in the analysis of the control chart (Lucy-Bouler, 1991; Cheng and Hubele, 1992; Swift and Mize, 1995). Recently, Artificial Neural Networks "ANN" were adopted to identify the control chart patterns. Dislike expert systems, it acquires its knowledge of how to identify patterns by learning. ANN models are also expected to overcome the problem of high false alarm rate; because it does not depend on any statistical tests that are usually required for the traditional methods. Also, no human intervention is being required when applying ANN, and thus pattern identification can be readily integrated with inspection and rapid manufacturing technologies. 2. LITERATURE REVIEW ANN were investigated as an alternative approach to the statistical analysis tools to

develop a reliable and automated pattern identification tool. Smith (1994), Guo and Dooley (1992), Pugh (1989, 1991), Chang and Ho (1999a, 1999b) utilized the ANN to detect a process sudden changes in univariate (one attribute) control charts such as changes in process mean or variance. Cheng (1995) developed a neural network model to detect gradual trends and sudden shifts in the process mean. AlGhanim (1997) presented unsupervised self-organizing neural approach to identify unnatural patterns, and also trained a network with a supervised learning approach. Gauri and Chakraborty (2006) developed two feature-based approaches using heuristics and artificial neural network to identify eight control chart patterns. All features were the shape features of the patterns. They compared results of the neural network with those of the heuristic approach based on the identification accuracy, and concluded that the neural network results are better. Gauri and Chakraborty (2008) selected a set of seven shape features to represent the data patterns and these shapes were used to train a neural network. Hassan et al. (2003, 2006) extracted the statistical features of patterns and used them to construct the needed patterns to train the networks. Guh and Hsieh (1999) proposed a neural network model to estimate key pattern parameters in addition to identifying the patterns. Their network was designed to

__________________________________________________________________________________

154

Ahmed S. Shaban*, Mohamed A. Shalaby**

__________________________________________________________________________________

identify natural, upward shift, downward shift, upward trend, downward trend, and cyclic patterns. Other researchers (Assaleh and Al-assaf, 2005; Guh, 2005; Zan et al., 2006; Chen et al., 2007; Shaban et al., 2009) also adopted ANN to develop pattern recognizers. They all used a single stage neural network and varied in their network design, training, and testing schemes. More Recently ANN were adopted to detect the process out of control behavior in a multivariable process (Chena and Wang, 2004; Cheng and Cheng, 2008). This paper proposes a double stage neural network algorithm to identify the five basic control chart patterns, in addition to the traditional detection of sequential data runs. It is assumed that a process starts in control (exhibits a natural pattern) and then may undergo only one unnatural pattern (or an out-of-control pattern) at a time. The proposed algorithm consists of double stages; the first stage is to identify the upward shift of process mean and upward trend in process mean patterns, and the second stage is to identify the downward shift and downward trend patterns. The algorithm performance is evaluated by measuring the probability of success to identify a pattern correctly. The results are compared with the best known results in the literature. This work extends Shaban et al. (2009) to identify 5 basic patterns and to use double Stage Neural Network. 3. DOUBLE STAGE ALGORITHM The proposed neural network algorithm is devised to detect and identify the five basic control chart patterns. The algorithm consists of two stages, and relies upon a single neural network, denoted here by NN. The NN is trained to identify only four patterns; namely: natural, upward shift, upward trend, and unknown pattern. Thus NN may identify all patterns other than natural, upward shift or upward trend as Unknown. For stage 1 in particular, NN should signal an unknown pattern if the

input data correspond to either a downward (negative) shift or downward (negative) trend. The second stage of the algorithm is used only when NN signals an unknown pattern. For this second stage, same NN is applied again but only after reversing the sign of all input data pattern values. As shown in Figure [3], an unknown pattern for NN can be converted to a known pattern (upward shift or upward trend) if the sign of the pattern data is reversed. Thus, what used to be a negative shift (or trend) to first stage will virtually be a positive shift (or trend) in the second stage, while natural patterns will remain as natural. When NN fails to make a positive identification for any of the above four possible patterns, the algorithm reports an unidentified pattern and terminates with a failure. See Figure [2] for an algorithm flowchart.

Figure [2] Proposed algorithm flowchart

__________________________________________________________________________________

155

A Double Neural Network Approach

__________________________________________________________________________________
6 4 2 0 -2 -4 -6 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19 21 23 25 27 29 31 33 35 37 39

Upward Shift Downward Shift

Figure [3] Downward shift was converted to upward shift pattern by reversing the sign of the pattern data

3.1 Neural Network Design Articial neural networks are biologically inspired intelligent techniques. ANNs are generally made of a number of simple and highly interconnected processing elements (neurons) organized in layers as shown in Figure [4]. ANNs are capable of learning different patterns by being trained with a number of known patterns. Figure [5] represents a single neuron, to explain how the data is processed in a neuron. As shown, the individual element inputs p1, p2, p3... pR are multiplied by weights w1,1, w1,2w1,R and the weighted values are fed to the summing junction. The neuron has a bias b, which is summed with the weighted inputs to form the net input n. This sum, n, is the argument of a transfer function f. The design of a network consists of the determination of the number of hidden layers, the number of neurons in each layer and the type of the transfer function. Although the design of a network affects tremendously its performance, no unified systematic method for selecting the best neural network structure exists (Zorriassatine and Tannock, 1998).
Process Data (40 points) Input Layer (40 n) Hidden Layer 1 (30 n) Hidden Layer 2 (25 n) Hidden Layer 3 (25 n) Output Layer (4 n)
1 4

Identified Pattern

Figure [4] Proposed structure of NN

p1
w1,1

pR w1,R

1 b

Figure [5] A single neuron

156

Ahmed S. Shaban*, Mohamed A. Shalaby**

__________________________________________________________________________________

In this paper, a Multilayer feed forward Neural Network trained with the back propagation learning rule is adopted to develop and train NN. The design of NN is based on Shaban et al. (2009) that reported good performance in identifying the three basic patterns (natural, upward shift, upward trend). NN is designed to consist of three hidden layers, the first hidden layer consists of 30 neurons, the second and the third consists of 25 neurons each; the output layer consists of 4 neurons where each neuron is assigned to one of the four target patterns (natural, upward shift, upward trend, unknown). The sigmoid transfer function was adopted for all the network layers. 3.1 Neural Network Training Training is essential for neural networks to perform their intended functions. It is performed by introducing the training patterns to the network; the relevant actual output neuron value is compared with the target value (usually a value of 1). Differences between the target and the actual values are calculated and represented by their Mean Square Error (MSE). A training algorithm is applied to adjust network weights and biases such that MSE is minimized. 3.1.1 Training Data Generation Simulation is adopted to randomly generate the required training data set that posses some desired pattern characteristics. The following equations are used to generate data sets for five patterns:
Natural pattern Upward shift pattern Downward shift pattern Upward trend pattern Downward trend pattern x(t) = + n(t) x(t) = + n(t) + d x(t) = + n(t) - d x(t) = + n(t) + s t x(t) = + n(t) - s t (1) (2) (3) (4) (5)

process standard deviation, and n(t) is the natural variability element in the process and it follows the standard normal distribution N(0,1). The term d in the shift pattern equations represents the shift magnitude from the natural process mean, and is expressed in terms of units of process standard deviation. The term s in the trend pattern equations represents the trend pattern slope per unit time. The training data for the natural pattern are generated from N(0,1) to ensure the generality of the network for any process parameters. Table [1] exhibits the target values for the four output neurons that correspond to each pattern.
Table [1] Required output vector for each training pattern

In practical situations a process is suppose to start in control and then goes out of control as a result of some tool, material, equipment, operator malfunctions, or other factors. Guh et al. (1999) and Guh (2005) generated training examples that include both in-control and out-of-control points to simulate practical situations. In this paper all the selected unnatural patterns are generated likewise. Thus an example for an unnatural training pattern is generated to have 40 points; the first 25 points exhibit natural pattern and the last 15 points have unnatural pattern. Figure [6] represents a generated training example for a pattern that has a shift in process mean (1 sigma, or d=1) starting from the 26th point.

Where x(t) is a random variable following the normal distribution and represents the sample average value at a certain time t, is the in-control process mean, is the

Figure [6] Upward shift training example

__________________________________________________________________________________

157

A Double Neural Network Approach

__________________________________________________________________________________

The number and diversity (patterns parameters) of the training data sets are very important to the network performance. Preliminary investigations revealed that the small size and diversity of these sets, the better the performance. It is hypothesized that training a network with multiple patterns and multiple parameters for each pattern is expected to make the network confused, and make the learning process more difficult. Table [2] summarizes the adopted training data sets to train the NN; where lesser number of parameters for each pattern is used to avoid NN confusion and training problems. A training scheme that consists of four key training patterns was found to give the better results. The four patterns are: Natural, Upward shift, Upward trend, and an Unknown. The Unknown pattern is used in stage one of the algorithm to represent all downward patterns. For each selected pattern, one or two training parameters are selected; two parameters were selected for hard-toidentify patterns such as Trend patterns. For each pattern-parameter combination, a data set of size 200 examples is generated (see equations (1) to (5)); where each example consists of 40 control data points in a series. Table [2] exhibits the structure of the different data sets.
Table [2] Training data sets contents

2. If 5 out of 6 points above or below the mean value.

4 2 0 -2 -4 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19

(a) Six points above the mean value

4 2 0 -2 -4 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 19

(b) Five out of six points are increasing Figure [6] Generated Patterns Exhibiting Runs

3.1.2 Network Training Results The target of training is to adjust the network weights and biases so as to minimize the MSE. Resilient back propagation algorithm is adopted to train NN to eliminate harmful effects of the selected sigmoid functions (Shaban et al., 2009). MATLAB Neural Toolbox is used to develop and train the network. The network training convergence condition was set to MSE = 10-30 and the maximum number of learning cycles allowed to reach was set to be 100 epochs. While network training by these parameters, the network converged within 75 epochs with MSE = 1.6784110-31. 4. TESTING OF THE NEURAL NETWORK ALGORITHM Probability of success expresses the capability of the algorithm to detect and classify a given pattern to its target class. Al-assaf (2004) and Guh (2005) defined the classification rate (probability of success) as the number of correctly recognized examples divided by total number of

The presence of data runs as the exhibited in Figure [6] effect on the network performance and may make the network to confuse because the network is not trained to detect these patterns (Shaban et al., 2009). Runs should be eliminated from the training data set. Two types of runs are considered here: 1. If 5 out of 6 points are monotone increasing or decreasing

158

Ahmed S. Shaban*, Mohamed A. Shalaby**

__________________________________________________________________________________

examples. Probability of success is assessed through inputting a large number of examples of known true patterns to the NN model, and estimating the percentage that the identified patterns are correct. Thus, new data sets are randomly generated to test the proposed algorithm. A set of 200 testing examples is generated for each pattern parameter. The size and diversity of the testing data sets are summarized in Table [3]. One test example (of a target pattern) consists of a series of 40 randomly generated data points, the first 25 points follow the natural points, while the last 15 follow a desired target pattern with a specified parameter. Table [4] exhibits the algorithm performance for the five tested target patterns, six possible identifications, and the average percentage of success of the algorithm that its identification matches the target pattern. The average is computed by testing 10 different randomly generated data sets (200 examples each) for any given single parameter value. The eighth column in Table [4] represents the percentage that NN was unable to make any identification decision, and it is not the probability of making wrong decision. Authors believe that it is better for a quality practitioner to be informed that A pattern could not be identified rather than relying upon a wrong pattern. Experimental investigation recommended that NN signals Unidentified pattern or fails to make an identification whenever all its output neurons are smaller than 0.01. The following procedure was applied to all generated examples to test and obtain results of Table [4]. Testing Procedure Step 1: Input a test example of a known target pattern to the trained "NN" Step 2: Find NN output (values of the four output neurons v1, v2, v3, v4); and find the maximum output neuron value vmax

Step 3: If vmax>=0.01, then Identification is allowed, identify pattern based on vmax : if v1=vmax then the pattern is natural, terminate, else if v2=vmax then the pattern is upward shift, terminate, else if v3=vmax then the pattern is upward trend, terminate, else if v4=vmax then the pattern is unknown , and go to step 5. Step 4: else, vmax<0.01, NN is unable to make an identification, signal: unidentified pattern, terminate, end . Step 5: Reverse the sign of the 40 input data points of test example, re-input to "NN" Step 6: Find new NN output (values of the four output neurons v1, v2, v3, v4); and find the maximum output neuron value vmax Step 7: If v2=vmax, then pattern is downward shift, terminate, else if v3=vmax, then pattern is downward trend, terminate, Step 8: else signal unidentified pattern, terminate. End
Pattern Natural Upward Shift Downward Shift Upward Trend Downward Trend Testing Parameters = 0, = 1 1 , 2 , 3 -1 , -2 , -3 0.05 , 0.1 , 0.3 , 0.5 -0.05 , -0.1 , -0.3 , -0.5

The results in Table [4] show that the algorithm performs uniformly well in identifying the five basic control chart patterns. The probability of success is higher than 99.2%, and the percentage of unidentified cases is less than 0.55%. Miss identifications happen between natural and the trend pattern of small slope, where 0.4% of the natural testing examples are miss-classified (identified wrongly) as upward trend, 0.8% of the upward trend examples of slope 0.05 are missclassified as natural, and 0.75% of the downward trend examples of -0.05 are miss-classified as natural. Misclassification happens because the trend of small slopes such as 0.05 or -0.05 is very similar to

__________________________________________________________________________________

159

A Double Neural Network Approach

__________________________________________________________________________________

natural variations in a pattern. The term unidentified is used to express the patterns that NN fails to identify, and should be Target Pattern Natural (Nat) Testing Parameter

interpreted also as a type of Probability of Failure.

Table [4] Average probability of success results based on 10 runs

Average Identification Percentages Nat US DS UT DT Unidentified 0 0 0.4 0 0 99.6 1 0 0 0.15 0 0.15 99.7 2 0 0 0 0 0 100 Upward shift 3 0 0 0 0 0 100 (US) Average 0 0 0.05 0 0.05 99.9 -1 0 0 0 0 0.55 99.45 -2 0 0 0 0 0 100 Downward -3 0 0 0 0 0 100 Shift (DS) Average 0 0 0 0 0.183 99.82 0.8 0 0 0 0 0.05 99.2 0.1 0 0 0 0 0 100 Upward 0.3 0 0 0 0 0 100 Trend (UT) 0.5 0 0 0 0 0 100 Average 0 0 0 0 0 99.8 0.05 0.75 0 0 0 0.05 99.2 0.1 0 0 0 0 0 100 Downward 0.3 0 0 0 0 0 100 Trend (DT) 0.5 0 0 0 0 0 100 Average 0.25 0 0 0 0.017 99.8 Nat= Natural, US= Upward Shift, DS= Downward Shift, UT= Upward Trend, DT= Downward Trend 5. COMPARISON OF RESULTS The probability of success for NN is compared with the most recent reported results in the literature; Gauri and Chakraborty (2006, 2008), Guh (2005) and Al-Assaf (2004). The testing conditions of NN are adjusted to match the published ones to facilitate an objective comparison.

Table [5] Results comparison with Gauri and Chakraborty (2006, 2008)

Pattern (Testing Parameters) Natural Upward (1.5 to 2.5 ) Downward (-2.5 to -1.5 ) Average Upward (0.05 to 0.1 ) Downward (-0.1 to -0.05 ) Average

Proposed Algorithm 99.60 99.90 99.82 99.86 99.6 99.6 99.6

Gauri and Chakraborty (2006) 93.50 92.53 88.49 90.51 98.40 97.47 97.94

Gauri and Chakraborty (2008) 94.78 94.56 94.00 94.28 94.89 94.33 94.61

Shift

Trend

160

Ahmed S. Shaban*, Mohamed A. Shalaby**

__________________________________________________________________________________

Table [6] Results comparison with Guh (2005)

Pattern (Testing Parameters) Natural Upward (1.0 to 3.0 ) Shift Downward (-3.0 to -1.0 ) Average Upward (0.05 to 0.1 ) Trend Downward (-0.1 to -0.05 ) Average

Proposed Algorithm 99.60 99.90 99.82 99.86 100 100 100

Guh (2005) 90.59 93.33 90.00 91.67 94.60 94.57 94.59

Table [7] Results comparison with Al-Assaf (2004)

Pattern (Testing Parameters) Natural Upward (1.0 to 3.0 ) Shift Downward (-3.0 to -1.0 ) Upward (0.05 to 0.1 ) Trend Downward (-0.1 to -0.05 )

Proposed Algorithm 99.60 99.86

Al-Assaf (2004) 86.60 93.2

99.73

94.60

The comparison in Tables [5-7] shows that the proposed NN algorithm performs better in the tested ranges. The algorithms identification capability is consistently reliable either upward or downward patterns alike. This is achieved since the network design for both upward and downward is the same, and is also attributed to splitting the identification decision into two (Double) sequential stages. Although the design and training of the network may require some one-shot initial time, but once the Algorithm is coded in MATLAB, it is found to require only few milliseconds to run on a regular Laptop of a Centrino 2.0 GHz processor. 6. CONCLUSIONS The proposed algorithm relies upon devising an artificial neural network NN

to detect and identify five basic control chart patterns; natural, upward shift, downward shift, upward trend, and downward trend. The algorithms idea is to split the identification process into two stages to focus on fewer patterns per stage. The idea of converting a downward (negative) pattern to an upward (positive) pattern by reversing the sign of its data points is also successfully employed to use the same efficient NN in each stage. The probability of success to correctly detect an underlying target pattern is evaluated through large sets of randomly generated test examples of known pattern characteristics. Test results indicate that the algorithm performs well with a success probability higher than 99.5%, and is uniform over the five basic patterns and the tested range of patterns parameters. The algorithm performance

__________________________________________________________________________________

161

A Double Neural Network Approach

__________________________________________________________________________________

is also compared to the most recent in literature and proved to be superior. Thus the algorithm is reliable in detection of a wide range of patterns, fast, and requires no human intervention; which makes it suitable for rapid and automated manufacturing environments. REFERENCES: Al-Assaf, Y. (2004) Recognition of control chart patterns using multiresolution wavelets analysis and neural networks, Computers and Industrial Engineering, 47 (1), pp. 1729. Al-Ghanim, Amjed, (1997) "An Unsupervised Learning Neural Algorithm For Identifying Process Behavior On Control Charts And A Comparison With Supervised Learning Approaches", Computers and Industrial Engineering, 32 (3), pp. 627-639. Assaleh, K. and Al-assaf, Y. (2005) Features extraction and analysis for classifying causable patterns in control charts, Computers and Industrial Engineering, 49 (1), pp. 168181. Chang, S. I. and HO, E. S. (1999a) 'A two-stage neural network approach for process variance change detection and classification', International Journal of Production Research, 37 (7), pp. 1581 1599. Chang, S. I. and HO, E. S. (1999b) 'An integrated neural network approach for simultaneous monitoring of process mean and variance shifts a comparative study', International Journal of Production Research, 37 (8), pp. 1881 1901. Chen, Z., Lu, S., and Lam, S. (2007) A hybrid system for SPC concurrent pattern recognition, Advanced Engineering Informatics, 21 (3), pp. 303-310. Chena, Long-Hui, and Wang, Tai-Yue (2004) 'Artificial neural networks to

classify mean shifts from multivariate 2 chart signals', Computers & Industrial Engineering, 47 (2-3), pp. 195205. Cheng, C.-S., and Hubele, N. F. (1992) 'Design of a knowledge-based expert system for statistical process control', Computers and Industrial Engineering, 22(4), pp. 501517. Cheng, C.-S. (1995) 'A Multi-Layer Neural Network Model For Detecting Changes In The Process Mean', Computers and Industrial Engineering, 28 (1), pp. 51-61. Cheng, C.-S. and Cheng, H.-P. (2008) 'Identifying the source of variance shifts in the multivariate process using neural networks and support vector machines' ,Expert Systems with Applications, 35 (1-2), pp. 198-206 . Gauri, S. K. and Chakraborty, S. (2006) Feature-based recognition of control chart patterns, Computers and Industrial Engineering, 51 (4), pp. 726 742. Gauri, S. K. and Chakraborty, S., (2008) "Improved recognition of control chart patterns using artificial neural networks", Int J Adv Manuf Technol, 36 (11-12), pp. 11911201. Grant, E. L., and Leavenworth, R. S. (1996) Statistical Quality Control, 7th ed., McGraw-Hill, New York. Guh, R.-S. and Hsieh, Y.-C. (1999) 'A neural network based model for abnormal pattern recognition of control charts', Computers and Industrial Engineering, 36 (1), pp. 97-108. Guh, R.-S., Zorriassatine, F., Tannock, J.D.T., and OBrien, C. (1999) 'On-line control chart pattern detection and discriminationa neural network approach', Articial Intelligence in Engineering, 13 (13), pp. 413425. Guh, R.-S. (2005) 'A hybrid learningbased model for on-line detection and

162

Ahmed S. Shaban*, Mohamed A. Shalaby**

__________________________________________________________________________________

analysis of control chart patterns', Computers and Industrial Engineering, 49 (1), pp. 3562. Guo, Y. and Dooley, K. J. (1992) 'Identification of change structure in statistical process control', International Journal of Production Research, 30 (7), pp. 1655-1669. Hassan, A., Baksh, M.S.N., Shaharoun, A.M., and Jamaluddin, H. (2003) Improved SPC chart pattern recognition using statistical features. International Journal of Production Research, 41 (7), pp. 1587-1603. Hassan, A., Baksh, M.S.N., Shaharoun, A.M., and Jamaluddin, H. (2006) Feature Selection for SPC Chart Pattern Recognition Using Fractional Factorial Experimental Design, Intelligent Production Machines and System: 2nd I*IPROMS Virtual International Conference, (Editors: DT Pham, E.E Eldukhri and A.J. Soroka), Elsevier, pp 442- 447. Lucy-Bouler, T.L. (1991) Using autocorrelations, CUSUMs and runs rules for control chart pattern recognition: An expert system approach. PhD dissertation. Tuscaloosa, Alabama: University of Alabama. Nelson, L. S. (1984) 'The Shewhart control chart - tests for special causes', Journal of Quality Technology, 16, pp. 237-239. Pugh, G. A. (1989) 'Synthetic neural networks for process control', Computers and Industrial Engineering, 17 (1-4), pp. 24-26.

Pugh, G. A. (1991) A comparison of neural networks to SPC charts, Computers and Industrial Engineering, 21 (1-4), pp. 253-255. Shaban, A. S., Shalaby, M. A., Abdelhafiez, E., and Youssef, A. S. (2009) 'Automated Identification of Basic Control Charts Patterns Using Neural Networks', Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference on Statistics, Computer Science and Operation Research, Institute of Statistical Studies and Research, Cairo University. Smith, A. E. (1994) 'X-Bar and R Control Chart Interpretation Using Neural Computing', International Journal of Production Research, 32, pp. 309-320. Swift, J. A., and Mize, J. H. (1995) 'Outof-control pattern recognition and analysis for quality control charts using Lisp-based systems', Computers and Industrial Engineering, 28(1), 8191. Western Electric (1956) Statistical Quality Control Handbook, AT&T, Princeton, New Jersey. Zan, T., Fei, R.-Y., and Wang, M. (2006) Research on abnormal pattern recognition for control chart based on neural network, Beijing Gongye Daxue Xuebao / Journal of Beijing University of Technology , 32 (8), pp. 673-676. Zorriassatine, F., and Tannock, J. D. T. (1998) 'A review of neural networks for statistical process control', Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing, 9 (3), pp.

163