A Markovian approach for time series prediction for quality control

Abstract

In this work we aim to predict quality levels of incoming batches of a selected product type to a white goods manufacturer from a third party supplier. We apply a Markov Model that captures the quality level of the incoming batch in order to predict the quality status of the future arrivals. The ultimate aim is to generate reliable predictions for the future incoming batches, so that the manufacturing company could warn its supplier if the predictions indicate a significant deterioration in the quality. Applied methodology is compared to several benchmark approaches and its superior performance is shown using a benchmark dataset from the literature and the dataset provided by the manufacturing company. Proposed algorithm performs better compared to benchmarks in detecting the instances with quality level falling outside the tolerances in the validation data; and proves itself as a promising approach for the company.