Statistical process monitoring of complex shapes via Gaussian process modeling

We face the problem of monitoring complex shapes machined by a manufacturing process. The proposed method is based on combining a statistical model of the manufactured surface with multivariate control charting. In particular, a Gaussian Process model of the in-control surface pattern is firstly used as baseline. Then, multivariate control chart is used to monitor the difference between predicted and actual surface data. This procedure is compared with another method recently proposed in the literature. Two simulated case studies are used as reference test cases, throughout the paper.