Key Process Variable Identification for Quality Classification Based on PLSR Model and Wrapper Feature Selection

In modern manufacturing, hundreds of process variables are collected, and it is usually difficult to identify the most informative ones. Partial Least Square Regression provides an efficient way to evaluate each variable, but it cannot evaluate any variable subset as a whole. In the paper, a new framework of key process variable identification is proposed. It combines PLSR model and wrapper feature selection to firstly assess every variable individually and then the top variables in groups. Five datasets are tested, and the average classification accuracy is higher and the key process variables identified are less than the available approaches.