Multiresponse optimization of a multistage manufacturing process using a patient rule induction method

Most manufacturing industries produce products through a series of sequential stages, known as a multistage process. In a multistage process, each stage affects the stage that follows, and the process often has multiple response variables. In this paper, we suggest a new procedure for optimizing a multistage process with multiple response variables. Our method searches for an optimal setting of input variables directly from operational data according to a patient rule induction method (PRIM) to maximize a desirability function, to which multiple response variables are converted. The proposed method is explained by a step-by-step procedure using a steel manufacturing process as an example. The results of the steel manufacturing process optimization show that the proposed method finds the optimal settings of input variables and outperforms the other PRIM-based methods.