A Review of Manufacturing Process Control

Smart manufacturing concepts are being integrated into all areas of manufacturing industries, from the device level (e.g., intelligent sensors) to the efficient coordination of business units. Vital components of any manufacturing enterprise are the processes that transform raw materials into components, assemblies, and finally products. It is the manufacturing process where smart manufacturing is poised to make substantial impact through process control, i.e., the intelligent manipulation of process variables to increase operation productivity and part quality. This article discusses three areas of manufacturing process control: control-oriented modeling, sensing and monitoring, and the design and construction of controllers. The discussion will center around the following manufacturing processes: machining, grinding, forming, joining, and additive. While many other important processes exist, the discussions of control of these mechanical manufacturing processes will form a framework commonly applied to these processes and the discussion will form a framework to provide insights into the modeling, monitoring, and control of manufacturing processes more broadly. Conclusions from these discussions will be drawn, and future research directions in manufacturing process control will be provided. This article acknowledges the contributions of two of the pioneering researchers in this field, Dr. Yoram Koren and Dr. Galip Ulsoy, who have made seminal contributions in manufacturing process control and continued to build the body of knowledge over the course of many decades.