Predictive Quality: Towards a New Understanding of Quality Assurance Using Machine Learning Tools

摘要

Product failures are dreaded by manufacturers for the associated costs and resulting damage to their public image. While most defects can be traced back to decisions early in the design process they are often not discovered until much later during quality checks or, at worst, by the customer. We propose a machine learning-based system that automatically feeds back insights about failure rates from the quality assurance and return processes into the design process, without the need for any manual data analysis. As we show in a case study, this system helps to assure product quality in a preventive way.