Introduction to Intelligent Quality Management

Intelligent manufacturing is becoming more and more attractive for industrial societies especially after the introduction of industry 4.0 where most of industrial operations are to be carried by robots equipped with intelligent capabilities. This explicitly implies that the manufacturing systems will entirely be integrated and all manufacturing functions including quality control and management will have to be made as much intelligent as possible in operating with minimum human intervention. This Chapter will present a brief overview of some implications about intelligent quality systems. It intends to provide the readers of the book to understand how the concept of artificial intelligence is to be embedded into quality functions. It is known that the interoperability is the rapid transformation requirement of industry specific operations. This requires the integration of quality functions to other manufacturing functions for sharing the quality related knowledge with other manufacturing functions in order to sustain total intelligent collaboration. Achieving this, on the other hand, ensures the improvement of manufacturing processes for better performance in an integrated manner. Note that, although some general information about intelligent manufacturing systems are given, this chapter is particularly focused on discussing intelligent quality related issues.