Patent ID: 7032816

Claim:
A method of communicating event-based data relating to a material between machines during processing for feed-forward control in an event-based manufacturing system, the method comprising: collecting material-specific event-based data in response to events occurring during manufacturing, said event-based data relating to a type and location of a defect in a material during a first process using or producing the material, said events being substantially randomly spaced in time, said event-based data comprising probabilistic data obtained by correlations of one or more of past machine performance as a function of the event-based data for a component used in the first process, past machine performance as a function of raw material data for a component used in the first process, product quality as a function of the event-based data for a component used in the first process, and product quality as a function of raw material data for a component used in the first process; associating the collected, material-specific event-based data with an identifier identifying the material during the first process; determining, from a label associated with the material, the identifier identifying the material; obtaining material-specific event-based data associated with the determined identifier from a database populated with event-based data obtained from an event-based manufacturing system, wherein the determining and the obtaining occur during a second process occurring subsequent to the first process, wherein the second process produces a product from the material; and governing the second process for the material by a feed-forward process control system responsive to the material-specific event-based data relating to the type and location of the defect to decrease the likelihood of at least one of a delay event, a waste event, or poor quality of the product during the second process.