Patent ID: 7248998

Claim:
A method for the control of an industrial process through an electronic processing system associated with a production line, including the performance of a statistical test Φ checking the properties of at least one group of products obtained through the process, whose power provides reproducibility/sensitivity information about the decision making outcome of the test, said method comprising: producing at least one pilot sample including a plurality n of exemplars of the product obtained through said process, acquiring a plurality of measurement data (X 1 , . . . , X n ) for at least one observed variable relating to said sample which is indicative of the properties of the product, the measured data relating to the pilot sample having a distribution F n approximating to the unknown distribution F for the observed variable, determining a sample size on which the statistical test should be performed, said sample size being the minimum sample size such that the lower bound ( π ^ F n , , l α1 ⁡ ( m ) ) of a confidence interval having a predetermined level (1−α1) associated with the bootstrap distribution for the pointwise estimate of the power of the test performed on a sample of that size taken from the pilot sample having a distribution F n , is at least equal to or greater than a predetermined desired power value, and producing at least one sample of products to be subjected to said test Φ, including a plurality m of exemplars equal to said sample size determined, the outcome of the test determining control of the process in accordance with a predetermined criterion.