  Classical statistical process control often relies on univariate
characteristics. In many contemporary applications, however, the quality of
products must be characterized by some functional relation between a response
variable and its explanatory variables. Monitoring such functional profiles has
been a rapidly growing field due to increasing demands. This paper develops a
novel nonparametric $L$-1 location-scale model to screen the shapes of
profiles. The model is built on three basic elements: location shifts, local
shape distortions, and overall shape deviations, which are quantified by three
individual metrics. The proposed approach is applied to the previously analyzed
vertical density profile data, leading to some interesting insights.
