Process Improvement in Feedback Adjustment

Process adjustment, also called engineering process control(EPC), is applied to maintain process output close to a target value by manipulating controllable variables, but special causes may still make the process deviate from the target and result in significant costs. Thus, it is important to detect and mediate deviations as early as possible. We propose a one-step detection method, the moving search block(MSB), with which the time and type of a special cause can be identified in short periods. A modified control rule that can entertain the effects of the special cause is proposed. A numerical example is presented to evaluate the performance of the proposed scheme.