Principal Component Analysis in Technology

Summary Principal component analysis has not found applications in production engineering so far. This paper demonstrates the usefulness of the method, when an unbiased conclusion should be reached from the synthesis of several variates or testing methods irrespective of their interrelations. The given example studies the selection of the best bottoming tap for a particular purpose based on the measurements of torque, thrust, thrust in reverse, enlargement cut on the effective diameter assessed by measuring methods and the deformation of the produced thread profile. Principal component analysis also enables us to specify the most desirable magnitudes of the variates provided they can be achieved by some means. Thus, a guide is obtained for making improvements the right direction. The method is a procedure of optimization.