Fault Detection of Drinking Water Treatment Process Using PCA and Hotelling's T2 Chart

This paper deals with the application of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and the Hotelling’s T2 Chart, using data collected from a drinking water treatment process. PCA is applied primarily for the dimensional reduction of the collected data. The Hotelling’s T2 control chart was used for the fault detection of the process. The data was taken from a United Utilities Multistage Water Treatment Works downloaded from an Integrated Program Management (IPM) dashboard system. The analysis of the results show that Multivariate Statistical Process Control (MSPC) techniques such as PCA, and control charts such as Hotelling’s T2, can be effectively applied for the early fault detection of continuous multivariable processes such as Drinking Water Treatment. The software package SIMCA-P was used to develop the MSPC models and Hotelling’s T2 Chart from the collected data. Keywords— Principal Component Analysis, Hotelling's T2 Chart, Multivariate Statistical Process Control, Drinking Water Treatment.