Patent ID: 6859756

Claim:
A method for diagnosing a cause of deviation from an intended form in a workpiece produced by a manufacturing process, in which at least one form is defined for the workpiece and manufacturing equipment acts upon the workpiece according to the manufacturing process to impart the form, the method comprising the steps of: defining a plurality of measurements for the workpiece, each relative to a respective reference datum; taking the defined measurements for the workpiece; generating a record of the measurements; comparing the recorded measurements for each workpiece; and inferring from the comparison of the measurements the existence of an alert condition associated with the action of the manufacturing equipment on the workpiece, wherein the measurements correspond to a hierarchic set of forms characterizing the workpiece, each form corresponding to an action of the manufacturing equipment, wherein the hierarchic set of forms comprises two categories: a first category of forms characterizing the shape of a portion of the workpiece, and a second category of forms characterizing sets of portions of the workpiece.