Configuration effects Manufacturing rate, and product cost and quality, depend upon how the equipment at various steps of manufacture is configured. Flow rates, temperatures, etc. all affect the product, often due to interactions with later stages of the manufacturing process. We offer two ways to determine the effects of each configuration on the finished product:

Data mining: Modern manufacturers now gather much data from all points in the process, and from quality control checks of the manufactured products. This data can be mined to reveal the relationships between process configuration and product quality.

Modeling: Our system allows a process to be modeled, the effects of the equipment configuration at each stage having its cumulative effect on the finished product's quality, and on the total running costs of the process.

Of course, data mining can be performed as a prelude to modeling, to increase model accuracy.

Optimizing configuration Given information about how process configuration relates to product cost and quality, we can simulate very many possible configurations in parallel, to gather performance predictions for many combinations of configuration options. Then, our interactive, graphical visualization environment can be used by the operator to investigate the tradeoffs between cost and quality, and to discover the process configuration settings that realize their chosen point on that tradeoff. Although an operator may use our system to investigate the effects of various configuration settings, they do not need to in order to configure the process according to their preferences. Being able to choose configuration based on process performance offers an effective, rapid means of maximizing process profitability, and of reacting to changing demands and circumstances.