Methods and apparatus for obtaining diagnostic information relating to an industrial process

A method of obtaining diagnostic information relating to an industrial process, the method comprising:

• obtaining object data for a set of physical product units that have been subjected nominally to the same industrial process, the object data for each product unit representing a residual resulting from one or more parameters measured on the product unit at points spatially distributed across the product unit being subjected to a correction obtainable in the industrial process;
• defining a multidimensional space in which the object data for each of the product units can be represented as a vector;
• performing, by a hardware computer, a multivariate analysis on the object data to obtain one or more component vectors in the multidimensional space;
• extracting diagnostic information about the industrial process using the component vectors;
• and
• based on the diagnostic information, outputting electronic data for configuration or modification of the industrial process or of a measurement process of product units subjected to the industrial process.

A non-transitory computer program product comprising machine readable instructions for causing a general purpose data processing apparatus to:

• receive object data for a set of physical product units that have been subjected nominally to a same industrial process, the object data for each product unit representing one or more parameters measured on the product unit at points spatially distributed across the product unit;
• define a multidimensional space in which the object data for each of the product units can be represented as a vector;
• perform a multivariate analysis on the object data to obtain one or more component vectors in the multidimensional space;
• extract diagnostic information about the industrial process at least partly using certain one or more product units identified out of the set of product units based on the position of the respective vector of the identified one or more product units when projected onto one or more of the component vectors;
• and
• based on the diagnostic information, output electronic data for configuration or modification of the industrial process or of a measurement process of product units subjected to the industrial process.