Abstract: In a smart manufacturing system, a large number of sensors are installed to monitor machine status, process variables, product quality, and the overall system performance. It is always a challenging problem on how to analyze those massive amounts of hydrogenous data effectively for cost reduction and in-process quality improvements in all manufacturing companies. This presentation will discuss research opportunities, challenges, and advancements in this important research area, especially how artificial intelligent or machine learning concepts and algorithms can be used to solve challenging in-process quality improvement problems. Examples of ongoing research projects will be used to articulate the frontiers of this research area. All examples come from real data and challenging problems in industrial production systems. This presentation will emphasize the motivations of these research undertakings: challenges to be overcome, new AI/ML methods that were developed, validation/implementation undertook, as well as the potential impacts.

Biography: Jianjun Shi is the Carolyn J. Stewart Chair and Professor at the H. Milton Stewart School of Industrial and Systems Engineering, Georgia Institute of Technology. His research interests focus on the integration of AI/ML, statistics, and data science with engineering domain knowledge for quality improvement in advanced manufacturing.

Dr. Shi is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) of USA, an Academician of the International Academy for Quality, and a Fellow of 5 societies (ASME, IISE, INFORMS, ISI, and SME). His work is recognized by the ASA Deming Lecturer Award (2025), the ASQ Shainin Metal (2025), the ENBIS George Box Medal (2022), the ASQ Walter Shewhart Medal (2021), the SME/NAMRI S. M. Wu Research Implementation Award (2021), the ASQ Brumbaugh Award (2019), the Horace Pops Medal Award (2018), IISE David F. Baker Distinguished Research Award (2016), and the IIE Albert G. Holzman Distinguished Educator Award (2011).

Dr. Shi is the founding chair (1998-1999) of the Quality, Statistics and Reliability (QSR) Subdivision at INFORMS, and served as the Editor-in-Chief of the IISE Transactions (2017-2020).