Preface to John MacGregor Festschrift

There are very few people in Academia that have had aprofound influence in solving engineering problems and

even fewer that have had such an influence in several fieldsduring the span of their career. Dr. John MacGregor is one ofthe few. Dr. MacGregor’s contributions span the areas ofdatabase modeling, advanced process control, polymer reactionengineering, and image analysis. Throughout his career, he hasdeveloped novel methods for modeling chemical processes andapplied them to numerous laboratory and industrial systems.Over the last 20 plus years, he has been recognized as THEleader in application of statistical methods to chemicalengineering systems. His pioneering research on latent variablemodeling approaches to interrogate large industrial databasesled to an explosion in the use of these methods for the analysis,monitoring, and control of industrial processes. His research onbatch processes has been particularly influential. His earlierresearch on polymer reaction engineering, involving funda-mental modeling and advanced polymer property control, wasinstrumental in helping to define that field. Recent research ondigital imaging for process control and on the rapiddevelopment of new products is also noteworthy. In the pastfew years, he has been active in extending batch analysis andimaging methodologies into the area of medical imaging,resulting in new approaches to the collection and analysis ofimages from MRI and electrical impedance tomography (EIT).It is not an exaggeration to say that throughout the industry, beit semiconductor, chemical, food, polymer, mining, pulp and

paper, or pharmaceutical, you meet people that know ofMacGregor through a solution in an engineering problem theyhad faced.A graduate of the Chemical Engineering Department of

McMaster University (1965), he received Masters degrees inboth chemical engineering (1967) and statistics (1967) at theUniversity of Wisconsin. During his M.S., he studied withWilliam G. Hunter, an accomplished statistician and chemicalengineer. He then spent three years working as a processspecialist with Monsanto in Texas where he developed his greatinterest in solving complex industrial problems. He returned tothe University of Wisconsin to complete his Ph.D. in statisticsunder the supervision of George Box, one of the world’seminent statisticians. He attributes much of his success to thelessons and approaches he learned from Dr. Box. He joined theMcMaster University, Department of Chemical Engineering, asan Assistant Professor in 1972. Since then, he has had morethan 60 masters and 40 Ph.D. students, 200 publications, servedas Departmental Chair, held the Dofasco Professor of processautomation and information technology (1999−2008) and is oneof the few at McMaster to hold the title of Distinguished University

Special Issue: John MacGregor Festschrift

Received: July 23, 2013Accepted: July 23, 2013Published: September 4, 2013

Editorial

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Professor since 2003. Added to this are 130 invited lectures(last 20 years), 5 patents, and over 100 industrial short courses.Dr. McGregor’s interest in seeing academic research adopted

by industry is evident by his involvement in three consortia thatare among the most outstanding in the world. Through theseconsortia countless industrial practitioners became familiar withcutting edge developments and were able to apply them in theircompanies:

McMaster Institute for Polymer Production Technology(MIPPT) cofounded with Dr. A. E. Hamielec1 andseveral other colleagues in 1982. This was one of themain industrially oriented research organizations on theMcMaster campus for many years and one of only twointernational institutes in this area. It brought togetherresearchers in polymer reaction engineering and interna-tional polymer production companies for many yearswhen this research area was in its early stages.McMaster Advanced Control Consortium (MACC) co-founded with Drs. J. Wright, P. A. Taylor, C. Crowe, andT. E. Marlin in 1987, is still a thriving consortiumsponsored by many international companies. Each of thetwo consortium meetings a year typically draw about 50senior engineers from the member companies, andalmost every M.S. and Ph.D. student in the control grouphas some form of positive involvement with one or moreof the companies. The consortium has been responsible for atremendous amount of two-way technology transfer betweenMcMaster and the companies. The 2002 Kalev PugiAward from the Society of Chemical Industry wasawarded jointly to Drs. J. F. MacGregor and T. E. Marlinfor “outstanding work in bringing together the McMasterAdvanced Control Consortium (MACC) as a modelresearch and development project with Canadian andinternational industry”. The Natural Science andEngineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canadaalso awarded a synergy award to Drs. MacGregor and T.Kourti and two companies (Tembec and Dofasco) ofMACC in 2003 and their highest award for anorganization to MACC at 2009 for being an innovativemodel of long-standing university−industry partnership.McMaster Steel Centre founded in 2000. Dr. MacGregorwas one of the principal faculty members involved in thefounding of this center. It brings together faculty andresearchers from materials, chemical engineering, andmechanical engineering and a consortium of steelcompanies and companies supporting the steel industry.

The contributions to industrial training were furtherenhanced with numerous industrial courses such as PolymerReaction Engineering (with Dr. A. E. Hamielec), AdvancedProcess Control (with Dr. P. A. Taylor), SPC interfaces (withDrs. Stuart Hunter and Tom Harris), and Multivariate Analysiscourses (with Drs. S. Wold, T. Kourti).Currently, Dr. John MacGregor holds the title of Distinguished

University Professor (Emeritus) and is President of ProSensus,Inc., a high-tech company that continues to develop innovativetechnologies and make them available to industry. Prosensus wasincorporated as a spin-off company, from McMaster, by Dr.MacGregor with several of his former M.S. and Ph.D. students in2004. This is a high tech company aimed at exploiting themultivariate analysis technology developed in his research group tocreate advanced solutions in the areas of multivariate imaging forprocess and product quality control, to develop advanced solutions

for process analysis, monitoring and control, particularly for batchprocesses and to help companies in the rapid development of newproducts. It currently employs 10 engineers (Ph.D., M.S., and B.S.)and has a diverse client base that includes mostly Fortune 500companies. Many leading companies use ProSensus’ softwareproducts, and many engineers are receiving invaluable experiencethrough their employment with ProSensus.It is very interesting to see in more detail Dr. MacGregor’s

exceptional impact on at least four fields.

■ POLYMER REACTION ENGINEERINGThis is an important area of research in which Dr. MacGregorwas engaged during the period between 1975 and the early1990s. Much of it was published jointly with Dr. A. E. Hamielecand a series of graduate students, post docs, and researchersthat they co-supervised. Some major contributions in this areawere as follows:

- The modeling work they pioneered with Dr. Hamielecon emulsion polymerization helped to really establishthat field2,3 and the modeling of Ziegler−Nattapolyolefin processes.4

- The use of models to provide a new fundamentalunderstanding of polymerization processes and noveldesigns to treat sustained oscillations in continuousemulsion polymerizations2 to optimize them and to controlthem and nonlinear control of these systems throughenforcing necessary conditions for optimalitys.5

- Pioneer work on real time analysis of polymer propertieswhere the first online particle size determination bydynamic light scattering was reported.6

This research with Dr. Hamielec, together with that of Dr.Harmon Ray’s group7 at the University of Wisconsin, to a largeextent defined the emerging area of polymer reactionengineering and formed the basis for much of the subsequentresearch and development in this area in both industry andacademia. For example, the inferential estimation and controlwork4 on polyolefin polymerization processes, according toindustrial experts, still forms the basis of the models used by themajority of industrial producers of polyolefins to optimize andcontrol their processes. The emulsion polymerization modelsdeveloped3 similarly are still at the heart of most models usedtoday.

■ ADVANCED PROCESS CONTROL ANDOPTIMIZATION

Throughout his career, Dr. MacGregor has carried out researchon advanced process control methods. His earlier research (upto the early 1990s) involved the development of multivariablecontrol methods based on traditional stochastic control theoryusing linear empirical models for continuous processes8 andfundamental nonlinear models for batch processes.5 Thesepapers and his closely related work on state estimation withstochastic systems had an impact on the control communitythrough the insight they provided on the role of the modeleddisturbances in the controller and state estimator. His work onthe importance of incorporating meaningful models of theimportant disturbances into state estimators and advancedcontrollers was only recognized by the control community decadeslater. Most researchers now take more care to incorporatedisturbance models in their algorithms in a manner proposed byDr. MacGregor. His research on the control of polymerizationprocesses based on nonlinear fundamental polymer reaction

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engineering models5 and papers related to refs 4 and 9 have beenwidely referenced and used in various forms by industry. Theconcept of designing simplified controllers based on satisfyingnecessary conditions for optimal control (originally proposed inref 5) has recently been adopted, extended, and popularized byother researcher groups (most notably by Prof. D. Bonvin,Laboatoire d’Automatique, ETH, Lauzanne).Since the mid-1990s, Dr. MacGregor has focused on

developing an entirely new class of control and optimizationmethods for batch and continuous processes. These are basedon the use of multivariate latent variable models that computethe control and optimization decisions in the low dimensionallatent variable space of the model. Their use for the control offinal product quality in batch processes represents a completelynew approach to these problems.10 They have been shown tobe as powerful as the fundamental model-based controlapproaches but much simpler to develop and implement. Theconcept of optimizing processes in the low-dimensional spaceof latent variable models11 also represents a new type ofapproach to optimal design and operation. In spite of theirrecent development, these control optimization approachesalready have been successfully applied in the chemical andpharmaceutical industries.Dr. MacGregor’s research on the control of batch processes,

particularly the use of PLS models with midcourse correctionsto control all the final product properties, forms the futuredirection of advanced batch control.Dr. MacGregor’s most recent research has been in the area of

product engineering,12 more specifically on the rapid develop-ment of new products. It involves the use of latent variablemodels to combine information from diverse industrialdatabases on pilot plant and production processes and fromdatabases on raw material properties to simultaneously selectnew raw materials, new recipes, and new manufacturingconditions in order to achieve products with a desired sets ofproperties. He is particularly excited about the potential of thisresearch because it is represents a unique technology for thispurpose and because it has shown great initial success in rapidlydeveloping new products at Mitsubishi Chemicals.

■ DEVELOPMENT OF NOVEL MULTIVARIATESTATISTICAL METHODS FOR THE ANALYSIS ANDMONITORING OF INDUSTRIAL PROCESSES

The BIG DATA concept, that makes headlines currently, wasrecognized and acted upon by Dr. John MacGregor 20 yearsago. In one of his three most cited papers13 published in 1995,reference is made to concepts such as “massive amounts ofprocess data being collected and stored in databases for mostindustrial processes” and “overwhelming size of the databases”;the authors then proceed with providing solutions for suchissues via multivariate analysis.Dr. MacGregor recognized that with computers having been

installed to collect data from almost every type of process,laboratory, and business system, large amounts of data werebeing generated. And although a major justification for theirinstallation was that the data they collected could be used toanalyze the process to gain improved understanding, detect anddiagnose problems, and monitor and control processes in real-time, the problem with this vision was that the volumes of datawere so overwhelming and the data were so ill-conditioned thatscientists and engineers had no idea how to treat them.Traditional statistical methods were not applicable to theseproblems. Professor MacGregor started the development of

methods to treat these large data sets while with MonsantoCompany in the late 1960s, but he found that the computers anddatabases at that time were inadequate to enable easy applicationof the methods. In 1985, he initiated a major research program atMcMaster University to develop a whole new class of approachesaimed directly at these industrial data problems. These approacheswere based around new developments in multivariate statisticalmethods (latent variable methods such as partial least squares,PLS, and principal component analysis, PCA) that specificallyaddressed the main characteristics of these databases. In order toutilize these methods, Dr. MacGregor and his co-workers also hadto extend the fundamental theory and methodology behindthem.14,15 Over the last 20 years, his research group has beenresponsible for the development of an entirely new slate ofapproaches for the analysis and monitoring of both continuousand batch industrial processes.13,16,17 Since the mid 1990s, Dr.MacGregor popularized the use of MSPC in semiconductors,chemicals (polymer processing), steel, pulp and paper, andpetrochemicals. Dr. MacGregor’s development of methods for theanalysis, monitoring, and control of batch processes was ofparticular importance because no prior methodology existed forefficiently treating data from this important class of time-varyingprocesses. His research group’s approaches have now becomealmost a standard for the analysis of data from batch processesThe uptake of this work by the international community is evidentby the citations of the papers that came out of his research group(references13,16, and 17 with citations 695, 924, 872, respectively,as of July 2013).This research from Dr. MacGregor’s group has become so

pervasive within chemical engineering that it is now the topic ofseveral sessions at every AIChE and CSChE annual meetingand at nearly all international meetings on process systemsengineering and advanced control. Prior to his research, thesetopics were not part of any of these meetings. These approacheshave also become topics of research at many universities aroundthe world. The significance of these contributions have beenrecognized by prestigious awards such as the Shewhart Medalfrom the American Society for Quality. However, it was thewidespread and early acceptance of Dr. MacGregor’s methods byindustry that provided the impetus for its spread into universityresearch programs and into international conferences. Thisindustrial impact has been recognized by awards such as theGuido Stella award from the World Batch Forum, the IndustrialPractice Award from the CSChE, and the Kalev Pugi Award fromthe Society of Chemical Industry.

■ IMAGE ANALYSISMany industrial sponsors of MACC were from the solidsprocessing industries (e.g., Frito Lay, Tembec, Dofasco) whereonline sensors were generally unavailable, and as a result,advanced control in these industries was limited. In response tothis, Dr. MacGregor initiated a research program in the late1990s on developing multivariate analysis methods for usingmultispectral digital imaging sensors (color and NIR) formonitoring and controlling these processes. This has led to aseries of recent publications18 that appear to be generatingtremendous interest in this new area.

The contributions discussed above became possible becauseof Dr. MacGregor’s special strength: his ability to identify andformulate innovative solutions to meaningful engineeringproblems rather than spending time in the development ofelegant mathematical solutions to existing solutions. Coming from

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a different background than most of the other PSE researchers wasno doubt one reason why he took different directions than most inthe field. A lot of this focus came to him from George Box, whowas a master at insightful formulations to all sorts of problemsThe strength of his work defined an entirely new field in

chemical engineering, so that today, a chemical engineeringconference without papers on multivariate statistics isunthinkable. Dr. MacGregor has extended these insights intomany new topics central to chemical engineering, such as batchcontrol, block process analysis, product development, productquality inference, and image processing, all of which involvelarge data sets of nonspecific measurements. He continues hisresearch, now concentrating on the applications of statistics tomedical diagnostics, a field with many nonspecific measuresthat have challenged cliniciansHe has made, and continues to make, a significant and lasting

contribution to the theory and practice of multivariate statisticalmethods in the chemical process industry and beyond.I have worked with John MacGregor as a student in the

polymer reaction engineering area and a colleague in themultivariate analysis area. He taught me to tackle any problemno matter how enormous it appears. His credo is as follows:“There must be a solution, so why do not we attempt to find it?”He is one of a select group of individuals who have an

enormous interdisciplinary understanding: a remarkable abilityto understand the process and relate it to the available methods.When he interacts will another person (be it a student,colleague, or CEO of a company) he gives 100% of hisattention, relates to the problem, and has a productive solution.He does this despite the busiest of schedules, tightest ofdeadlines, and constant time pressure.He is one of the few people I know that will encourage you

to look at alternative ways of tackling a problem and will beextremely happy if you prove him wrong. For him, theimportant thing is the scholarly activity and the challenge, notthe competition of personalities. He has created an excellentintellectual environment in every group he has been part of.As a person, he is a very humble individual. His many qualities

are appreciated by all of his students, colleagues in academia, andprofessionals in industry, and he draws the utmost respect, asevidenced by testaments at numerous special conference sessions,citations for awards, and publications in his honor.19,20 Reviewerscite his enormous contributions, the impact he has had onimproving quality and enhancing product design, and the influencehis research has had on hundreds of other researchers, and theysimply describe him as THE BEST in his areas of research.

■ AWARDS AND HONORS

1. Elected Fellow of the American Statistical Association(1993) “by virtue of signal contributions to the field ofstatistics”.

2. Recipient of the 1993 W. G. Hunter Award from theStatistics Division of the American Society for QualityControl “for excellence in statistics as a communicator, aconsultant, an educator, an innovator, an integrator ofstatistics with other disciplines, and an implementer whoobtains meaningful results”.

3. The Engineering Medal (Research and DevelopmentCategory) (1993) from the Association of ProfessionalEngineers of the Province of Ontario “in recognition ofvaluable contributions made while furthering the

technical advancement of the engineering professionand its application to the public welfare”.

4. Recipient of the first President’s Award for Excellencein Graduate Student Supervision (1996) awarded byMcMaster University.

5. 1997 Computing in Chemical Engineering Award fromthe American Institute of Chemical Engineers “foroutstanding contributions to the fundamentals andpractical application of methods for polymerizationreactor modeling, advanced process control, andstatistical monitoring, and for distinguished service toour profession through advanced courses, developmentof consortia, and conference contributions”.

6. 1997 Bell Canada Forum Award from the CorporateHigher Education Forum “in recognition of outstandingcooperative research of major significance”.

7. 1997 Shewhart Medal from the American Society forQuality. Awarded annually to “the individual deemed tohave made the most outstanding contribution to thescience and techniques of quality control or who hasdemonstrated leadership in the field of modern qualitycontrol”.

8. Century of Achievement Award (2000) from theCanadian Society for Chemical Engineering as “one ofthe top 20 achievers in Chemical Engineering in the 20thCentury” in Canada.

9. 2001 Herman Wold Medal from the Swedish ChemicalSociety. Awarded every two years to an individual whohas made outstanding contributions to the field ofChemometrics.

10. Inaugural W. G. Fisher Award (2001) from the Systemsand Control Division of the Canadian Society forChemical Engineering for “lifelong contribution andcommitment to both scholarship and practice in systemsand control engineering at the national as well as theinternational level”.

11. 2002 Kalev Pugi Award (jointly with T. E. Marlin) fromthe Society of Chemical Industry for “outstanding workin bringing together the McMaster Advanced ControlConsortium (MACC) as a model research and develop-ment project with Canadian and international industry”.

12. 2002 Shewell Award (2002) from the American Societyfor Quality and American Statistical Society; Inducted asa Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

13. Inducted into McMaster Alumni Gallery (2003).14. Awarded title of Distinguished University Professor

(2003), McMaster University.15. NSERC Synergy Award (2003) with Dr. T. Kourti and

industrial partners Dofasco and Tembec.16. 2005 Dr. Guido Carlo Stella Award from the World

Batch Forum for having “demonstrated technicalexcellence and inspired others in the process industry”.

17. CSChE Award in Industrial Practice (2006) CanadianSociety for Chemical Engineering.

18. Elected a Fellow of Royal Society of Canada (2007).19. Eastern Analytical Society (EAS) Award for Out-

standing Achievements in Chemometrics (2008).20. Nordic Process Control Award (January 2009).

Awarded every 1.5 years by the Scandinavian ControlSociety to a university or industry individual around theworld who has “made lasting and significant contribu-tions to the field of process control”.

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21. NSERC Synergy “Leo Derikx” 2009 Award to theMcMaster Advanced Control Consortium as an estab-lished innovative model of long-standing university−industry partnership in precompetitive R&D that hasimproved the general well-being of an industry.

Theodora Kourti,* Senior Technical DirectorGlobal Manufacturing and Supply, GlaxoSmithKline

■ AUTHOR INFORMATION

Corresponding Author*E-mail: kourtit@mcmaster.ca.

NotesThe authors declare no competing financial interest.Views expressed in this preface are those of the author and notnecessarily the views of the ACS.

■ REFERENCES(1) Archie, E. Hamielec Festschrift. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 1997, 36,937.(2) Kiparissides, C.; MacGregor, J. F.; Hamielec, A. E. Continuousemulsion polymerization: Modelling oscillations in vinyl acetatepolymerization. J. Appl. Polym. Sci. 1979, 23, 401−418.(3) Hamielec, A. E.; MacGregor, J. F.; Penlidis, A. Multi-componentfree-radical polymerization in batch, semi-batch, and continuousreactors. Makromol. Chem., Macromol. Symp. 1987, 10/11, 521−570.(4) McAuley, K. B.; MacGregor, J. F.; Hamielec, A. E. A kineticmodel for industrial gas-phase ethylene copolymerization. Am. Inst.Chem. Eng. J. 1990, 36 (No. 6), 837−849.(5) Kozub, D.; MacGregor, J. F. Feedback control of polymer qualityin semi-batch copolymerization reactors. Chem. Eng. Sci. 1992, 47,929−942.(6) Nicoli, D. F.; Kourti, T.; Gossen, P. D., Wu, J.-S.; MacGregor, J.F.; Chang, Y.-J. On-line Latex Particle Size Determination by DynamicLight Scattering, designed for an Industrial Environment. In ParticleSize Characterization. In Particle Size Distribution II: Assessment andCharacterization; Provder, T., Ed.; ACS Symposium Series 472;American Chemical Society: Washington, DC, 1991; pp 86−97.(7) Harmon Ray, W. Festschrift. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2005, 44, 2349.(8) Harris, T. J.; MacGregor, J. F. Design of discrete multivariablelinear-quadratic controllers using transfer functions. Am. Inst. Chem.Eng. J. 1987, 33 (No. 9), 1481−1495.(9) McAuley, K. B.; MacGregor, J. F. On-line inference of polymerproperties in an industrial polyethylene reactor. Am. Inst. Chem. Eng. J.1991, 37, 825−835.(10) Flores-Cerillo, J.; MacGregor, J. F. Within-batch and batch-to-batch inferential adaptive control of semi-batch reactors: A partial leastsquares approach. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2003, 42, 3334−3345.(11) Jaeckle, C. M.; MacGregor, J. F. Product design throughmultivariate statistical analysis of process data. Am. Inst. Chem. Eng. J.1998, 44, 1105−1118.(12) Muteki, K.; MacGregor, J. F.; Ueda, T. On the rapiddevelopment of new polymer blends: The optimal selection ofmaterials and blend ratios. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2006, 45, 4653−4660.(13) MacGregor, J. F.; Kourti, T. Statistical process control ofmultivariate processes. Control Eng. Pract. 1995, 3 (3), 403−414.(14) Nelson, P.; Taylor, P. A.; MacGregor, J. F. Missing datamethods in PCA and PLS: Score calculations with incompleteobservations. J. Chemometrics Intell. Lab. Syst. 1996, 35, 45−65.(15) Westerhuis, J.; Kourti, T.; MacGregor, J. F. On the use of multi-block and hierarchical PCA and PLS models. J. Chemometrics 1998, 12,301−321.(16) Nomikos, P.; MacGregor, J. F. Monitoring of batch processesusing multi-way principal components analysis. Am. Inst. Chem. Eng. J.1994, 40, 1361−1375.

(17) Nomikos, P.; MacGregor, J. F. Multivariate SPC charts for batchprocesses. Technometrics 1995, 37, 41−59.(18) Yu, H.; MacGregor, J. F.; Haarsma, G.; Bourg, W. Digitalimaging for on-line monitoring and control of industrial snack foodprocesses. Ind. Eng. Chem. Res. 2003, 42, 3036−3044.(19) Special Issue Honouring J. F. MacGregor on his 65th Birthday.Can. J. Chem. Eng. 2008, 86 (5), 813−970.(20) Special Issue Honouring J. F. MacGregor on his 60th Birthday.J. Chemom. 2009, 17 (1), 1−109.

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