Robustness Development and Reliability Growth: Value-Adding Strategies for New Products and Processes

Chapter 19. Robustness Optimization Using Taguchi’s Methods

There are choices of tools to achieve robustness, including classical DOE, covered in Chapters 17 and 18, and Taguchi’s methods. In the discussions of quality loss in Chapter 2 and of robustness development in Chapter 7 we introduced some of the concepts that are central to Taguchi’s quality and robustness improvement philosophy. In this chapter we concentrate on Taguchi’s use of designed experiments to improve system robustness.

Both Taguchi’s methods and classical DOE have advantages and disadvantages. Unfortunately the preferences have been polarized. The debate over Taguchi versus classical DOE has been a battle between Taguchi advocates, who say it works, and statisticians, who ...