Automation would increase the speed and reduce the cost of development by decreasing the amount of time needed from experts and knowledge engineers.
Automation could also uncover knowledge that might otherwise be overlooked by those involved in the knowledge acquisition process.
Thus, machine learning can help to systematise and make the knowledge that is embedded in manufacturing data more explicit.
A great deal of research in machine learning has focused on classification, the task of developing a model, from a set of previously classified examples, that can correctly categorise new examples from the same population.
Many manufacturing problems fall under the category of classification.
