Automated interframe alignment monitoring for sheet manufacturing applications

A method of operating a sheet making system that produces a continuous sheet that moves in a machine direction (MD), which includes one or more actuator beams, wherein each beam includes a plurality of actuators arranged along a cross direction, a first sensor which is positioned downstream of the one or more actuator beams at a first position along the MD, and a second sensor which is positioned downstream of the first sensor at a second position along the MD, the method comprising:

• (a) measuring a sheet characteristic of the continuous sheet with the first sensor and generating a first sheet characteristic profile and recording the first sheet characteristic profile in a database of historical first profiles;
• (b) measuring a sheet characteristic of the continuous sheet with the second sensor and generating a second sheet characteristic profile;
• (c) comparing the second sheet characteristic profile with one or more first sheet characteristic profiles from the database to determine one or more offset values between the first and second sheet characteristic profiles;
• (d) comparing the one or more offset values with previous offset values to determine if the one or more offset values exceed a threshold value, wherein the previous offset values are determined based on historical first sheet characteristic profiles and historical second sheet characteristic profiles;
• (e) sending an alert to a user based on the one or more offset values exceeding the threshold value;
• and
• (f) repeating steps (a), (b), (c), (d), and (e).