Biscuits are a highly demanded product worldwide. Its success makes their manufacture process a challenging task, needing new strategies to maintain the high production levels and a high-quality standard. This is determined by two key processes: the kneading and the rolling. This manuscript aims to reflect the improvements that the application of a novel soft multiclass compliant classification method (PLS2-CM) entails regarding the traditional chemometric class modelling. With this new approach, the intention is to detect possible deficiencies in biscuit doughs (excess of water, lack of water or little kneading time) during both industrial processes by using NIR spectroscopy.
In PLS2-CM, the coding of the classes is done using an Error Correcting Code Matrix (ECOC), which implies to employ several binary learners so that their number and structure are not predetermined beforehand but are function of the data set to be modelled. The optimization criterion in PLS2-CM is the sensitivity and specificity matrix evaluated by the Diagonal Modified Confusion Entropy (DMCEN), a new index inspired by the Shannon's entropy that is more sensitive to changes in the elements of that matrix than the usual total efficiency. The results obtained according to this index are better with this new soft classification method than the ones obtained when using other soft class modelling techniques such as soft independent modelling of class analogy (SIMCA) or unequal dispersed classes (UNEQ).
In this work it is shown that it is possible to completely distinguish a correct kneaded dough from another defective one with a specificity equal to 1 during the kneading process, but the class corresponding with water deficit dough, accepts a very high percentage (80 % in training and 92 % in prediction) of the excess-water dough spectra. Despite that, after the fermentation and during the rolling process, the same doughs are modelled with complete sensitivity and specificity in prediction (100 %), which indicates that the physico-chemical changes produced during the fermentation are decisive to characterize the absence of defects in biscuit doughs kneading by NIR spectroscopy.
