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In modern manufacturing processes, massive amounts of multivariate data are routinely collected through automated in-process sensing. These data often exhibit high correlation, rank deficiency, low signal-to-noise ratio and missing values. Conventional univariate and multivariate statistical process control techniques are not suitable to be used in these environments. This article discusses these issues and advocates the use of multivariate statistical process control based on principal component analysis (MSPC-PCA) as an efficient statistical tool for process understanding, monitoring and diagnosing assignable causes for special events in these contexts. Data from an autobody assembly process are used to illustrate the practical benefits of using MSPC-PCA rather than conventional SPC in manufacturing processes.