Process control: From developer charging to production shop management

A revolution in process control theory occurred in academia during the 1960s - 80s. A. plethora of mathematical techniques were developed that promised to stabilize arbitrary processes against disturbances. The applications of these techniques have yielded economic benefits in aerospace, chemical process and automotive industries where stability and performance under tightly constrained operational conditions were required by performance, economic, safety, or regulatory constraints. The elements of the document production process from materials design to work processes on the shop floor are fit subjects for migration of function and predictable performance to silicon-based sensing, computation, and actuation. Xerox is taking the idea of feedback control as a model for driving changes in hardware design, machine operation, work process, and services delivery.