Abstract Sensing networks provide nowadays massive amounts of data that in many applications provide information about curves, surfaces and vary over a continuum, usually time, and thus, can be suitably modelled as functional data. Their proper modelling by means of functional data analysis approaches naturally addresses new challenges also arising in the statistical process monitoring (SPM). Motivated by an industrial application, the objective of the present paper is to provide the reader with a very transparent set of steps for the SPM of functional data in real-world case studies: i) identifying a finite dimensional model for the functional data, based on functional principal component analysis; ii) estimating the unknown parameters; iii) designing control charts on the estimated parameters, in a nonparametric framework. The proposed SPM procedure is applied to a real-case study from the maritime field in monitoring CO2 emissions from real navigation data of a roll-on/roll-off passenger cruise ship, i.e., a ship designed to carry both passengers and wheeled vehicles that are driven on and off the ship on their own wheels. We show different scenarios highlighting clear and interpretable indications that can be extracted from the data set and support the detection of anomalous voyages.
River water quality assessment using APCS-MLR and statistical process control in Johor River Basin, Malaysia