ROBUST DESIGN

Presented by
PRIYANKA MENONA S
M-Tech ES
ROLL NO:08
What is Robust?
A system (product or process) is robust if it
performs properly in a wide range of
conditions.
ROBUST PRODUCTS PRODUCTS THAT ARE
NOT ROBUST

A Pen that writes until the Pen that stops writing after
ink is empty. a few months

A car that starts at -20 A car that does not start

degrees

A vacuum cleaner that A vacuum cleaner that loses

maintains suction levels suction.
Robust Design
A Robust Product (or Process) is one that
performs as intended even under non ideal
conditions such as manufacturing process
variations or a range of operating situations.

The term “NOISE” is used to describe

uncontrollable variations that may effect
performance.

Robust Design is the Product Development activity

of improving the desired performance of the
product while minimizing the effect of NOISE.
In the design of a new product any design activity
can be called robust , if it leads the product:

 To have longer life(higher reliability)

 To be more consistent with use

 To be more consistent from product to product

 To perform consistently as temperature & other

conditions change.
General Rules for robust Design
 Always identify critical characteristics (CTQs) that quantify
customer satisfaction.

 Always look for ways to reduce variations in CTQs

Robust Design Contd…
 Robust Product design ,developed by
DR.Genichi Taguchi

 It is defined as reducing variations in

various product characteristics

 In other words,making the product or

process insensitive to variation.This
variation(sometimes called noise)can come
from a variety of factors.
Three Types of undesirable and uncontrollable factors can
cause deviations(sometimes called NOISE)from the desired
performance.

 EXTERNAL NOISE FACTORs

Operating environmental variables such as temperature,
humidity, are examples of external noise factors.

 Internal noise factors

The problems caused by deterioration such as wearing of parts,
manufacturing imperfections like machine setting etc. are internal noise
factors.

 Unit to Unit or variational noise factors

It indicates the difference between individual products, which are
produced to same specifications.
• Tauguchi suggested a robust design method
which is a systematic method
for identifying process parameters that are most
sensitive to inherent process variation
& minimize the effect of causes of variation.

• The primary goal of robust design is to

evaluate these losses and effects and determine the
process conditions that would assure the product
manufactured is initially on target and the
characteristics of a product, which would make
performance insensitive(robust) to environment and
other factors.
Designing performance into
Product
• Taguchi has recommended a three stage
process for building performance and
quality into the products.
Three stages are:
1. System(Primary or Functional)design
2. Parameter design
3. Tolerance design
1. System(Primary or Functional) design

 This is the 1st step in the design

It make use of technical knowledge to reach the
initial design.
At this stage we will only focus to the initial design of
the product  that delivers the basic desired function
performance.
2. Parameter Design
This step aims at finding the optimum setting of the
design parameters.
At this stage, to obtain the optimum parameters, a
physical or mathematical prototype is built for the
product based on the functional design
Ie. Setting up of parameters,
specification of the product  The shape , the size &
the other parameters will be finalized in the parameter
design.
3. Tolerance design
In this step
Tolerance on the product design parameters are
determined
There are 2 parameters
 Manufacturing cost
 The effect of Noise factors
So when we are setting the specifications of the
tolerance range we have to ensure that the design is
insensitive to the noise parameters.
Example
Of a bottle to explain 3 points:
1st stage – system design.
• So here the functional requirement of the
bottle is is to carry water or fluid
(not only water sometimes we use sampe
plastic bottles to bring oil or petrol)

So it can say that for a bottle the functional

design is to carry fluid or liquid.
2nd stage- parameter Design
In this stage we must set the parameters
• Specify shape
We must ensure what must be the shape of
of the bottle?
• It should look good
What should be the color of the plastic bottle?
• Specify Quantity
What should be the capacity of the water bottle?
So we have to ensure all these parameters for the
design of the product
3RD Stage- Tolerance Design
• If it is manufactured what must be the
tolerance given to the mould .
so that it is consistent with the performance.
Performance means : It must carry a 1ltr of the
liquid , so it must not happen that the dye is
designed in such a way that it is only able to
carry 1 or 2% less quantity than the actual
design.
So we have to ensure in tolerance design stage, we can see
when the bottle have to closed by the caps, the threads inside
the cap& the outer periphery of the bottle are consistent to each
other & follow the concept of interchangeability.

Ie. For any sample from the bottle and any sample from the cap
should be able to assemble each other.

So we have to set tolerance in such a way that the performance

of assembly of the bottle and the cap done properly& there is
no error in that particular thing.

These 3 sages of design will ensure that the product is robust &
it achieves its target for which the product has been designed.
ADVANTAGES OF ROBUST DESIGN
Robust design has many advantages.
1. The effect of robustness on quality is great.
2. Robustness reduces variation in parts by
reducing the effects of uncontrollable variation.
More consistent parts equals better quality.

3. Lower quality parts or parts with higher

tolerances can be used and a quality product can
still be made.
This saves the company money, because the less
variable the parts can be the more they cost.
 Disadvantages of robust design

One of the disadvantages of robust design is that

 To effectively deal with the noise, the designer must be aware of the
noise.

• Another disadvantage to robust design done Taguchi’s way is that

The problem becomes large quickly.
If you had a lot of different things to consider as control variables and/or
noise variables, it would take a great deal of time to run all the experimental
trials. Controlling noise variables is expense, and when lots of trials are
required the dollars add up.
The Robust Design Process
1. IDENTIFY CONTROL FACTORS, NOISE FACTORS,& PERFORMANCE
FACTORS

2. FORMULATE AN OBJECTIVE FUNCTION

3. DEVELOP THE EXPERIMENTAL PLAN

4. RUN THE EXPERIMENT

5. CONDUCT THE ANALYSIS

6.SELECT AND CONFIRM FACTOR SETPOINTS.

7. REFLECT & REPEAT.

1. Identify control factors, noise factors,&
performance metrics
THANK YOU