Patent ID: 6336106
Filing Date: 2002-01-01
Classification: G06F,G06N

Abstract:
A method of dividing a real-valued process attribute representative of a characteristic of a production process and having values associated with a first class representative of a first result of the production process generally windowed by values associated with a second class representative of a second result of the production process into ranges, the method comprising:a step for separating the values of the real-valued process attribute into a first set if the values are associated with the first class and into a second set if the values are associated with the second class; a step for calculating a statistical property of the second set; a step for defining a first subset as the values in the first set to one side of the statistical property of the second set and a second subset to include values of the second set; and a step for repeating: (a) a step for calculating a statistical property of the first subset and a statistical property of the second subset; and (b) a step for removing values from the first subset and the second subset based on the calculated statistical properties of the first and second subsets; and a step for determining a first range breakpoint between the first and second subsets from one or more of the statistical properties of the first subset and the second subset calculated in step (a), wherein the first range breakpoint generally represents a division between values of the real-valued process attribute corresponding to the first result of the production process and values of the real-valued process attribute corresponding to the second result of the production process.