You can diagnose autocorrelation with an autocorrelation plot created with the ARIMA procedure.
ods graphics on; ods select ChiSqAuto SeriesACFPlot SeriesPACFPlot; proc arima data=Chemical plots(only)=series(acf pacf); identify var = xt; run; quit;
Refer to SAS/ETS User's Guide for details on the ARIMA procedure. The output, shown in Figure 18.193 and Figure 18.194, indicates that the data are highly autocorrelated with a lag 1 autocorrelation of 0.83.
Figure 18.193: Autocorrelation Check for Chemical Data
| Individual Measurements Chart |
| Autocorrelation Check for White Noise | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| To Lag | Chi-Square | DF | Pr > ChiSq | Autocorrelations | |||||
| 6 | 228.15 | 6 | <.0001 | 0.830 | 0.718 | 0.619 | 0.512 | 0.426 | 0.381 |
| 12 | 315.34 | 12 | <.0001 | 0.360 | 0.364 | 0.380 | 0.347 | 0.348 | 0.354 |
| 18 | 406.76 | 18 | <.0001 | 0.349 | 0.371 | 0.348 | 0.353 | 0.368 | 0.341 |
| 24 | 442.15 | 24 | <.0001 | 0.303 | 0.261 | 0.230 | 0.184 | 0.141 | 0.098 |
Figure 18.194: Autocorrelation Plots for Chemical Data


The partial autocorrelation plot in Figure 18.194 suggests that the data can be modeled with a first-order autoregressive model, commonly referred to as an AR(1) model.
![\[ \tilde{x}_{t} \equiv x_{t} - \mu = \phi _{0} + \phi _{1} \tilde{x}_{t-1} + \epsilon _{t} \]](images/qcug_shewhart0383.png)
You can fit this model with the ARIMA procedure. The results in Figure 18.195 show that the equation of the fitted model is
.
ods select ParameterEstimates; proc arima data=Chemical; identify var=xt; estimate p=1 method=ml; run;
Figure 18.195: Fitted AR(1) Model