Control Theory Methods in Product Quality Assurance: An Illustration of Open LoopControl. Rev

摘要

This is the first of a series of papers that we are hoping to write, on the useof control theory methods for controlling the quality of manufactured items. Such methods involve decision making under uncertainty for a system whose dynamics are defined by equations that are suggested by physical or plausible laws. The emphasis of our paper is a single stage production system with open loop control. The output quality can be controlled via an optimal scheduling of machine maintenance and/or a switch to better input quality. We advocate a simple structure for undertaking the above task. Our hope is that future work in this area will involve an improvisation of our theme. The key virtue of the proposed approach is the optimality of decisions; its disadvantage is the need to make realistic assessments of prior distributions and loss functions. (AN).