Introduction to Robust Design and

Taguchi Method for Quality Engineering

page 1
 Product Cost and Quality
• The inherent cost to make a product is a
function of its design
• Minimizing the product's cost to the lowest
possible level within the limits set by its
design is largely a matter of avoiding
defects, tolerance deviations, and other
errors during production

page 2
 Costs of Quality Deficiencies
• Scrapped parts
• Larger lot sizes for scrap allowances
• Rework, re-inspection,
• Customer complaints and returns
• Warranty costs
• Lost sales
• Lost good will in the marketplace

page 3
 The Cost of Poor Quality (COPQ) “Iceberg”
Inspection Traditional Quality Costs
Warranty
Scrap (tangible)
Rework
Rejects

Expediting costs Additional Costs of Poor

Quality
Lost sales Lost Opportunity
Late delivery Hidden Factory (intangible)
Excess inventory Lost Customer
Long cycle times Loyalty
Engineering change orders
page 4
 Why Focus on COPQ?
Price Erosion
Profit Profit

Profit
Cost of Cost of
Poor Quality Poor Quality
COPQ COPQ COPQ

Total Cost to
manufacture
and deliver Theoretical Theoretical Theoretical
products Costs Costs Costs

Which Feels Better??

page 5
 Specifications
• Remember their origin
• Specifications are not targets!!
• When we make them targets:

Uniform Distribution

LS US
Zero Defects!

page 6
 Uniform Distribution

Target(customer preference)

C B A A B C
LS Uniform Distribution US

Do we really want as much “C” grade performance as

“A” grade performance? Customers want grade “A”
performance. Why do we insist on providing products
that just pass with a grade of “C”?

page 7
 Adjust to Target
• Target and small normally distributed
variation about the target produce customer
satisfaction.

Target
Normal Distribution

page 8
 Use Specifications, but….
• Think small variation
– make performance consistent
– reduce sensitivity to all forms of variation
• Think target
– bring average performance to customer
preference

page 9
 Traditional Quality Metric
• All products within specifications equality good.
• All products outside specifications equally bad.

unacceptable

All products equally good

LS US

page 10
 Continuous Improvement
• Move specifications closer
• Increase cost
• Quality and cost trade-off!

tighter
tolerances

LS US
page 11
 Taguchi Methods
• G. Taguchi has had an important influence
on the development of quality engineering,
especially in the design area ‑ both product
design and process design
• Taguchi’s contributions include:
1. The Taguchi loss function
2. Robust design
3. Off‑line and on‑line quality control

page 12
 Taguchi Methods
• Taguchi advocates a 3 step, off-line quality control method
for product design
Step 1. System Design
– concept design and synthesis
– innovation and creativity
Step 2. Parameter Design
– parameter sizing to ensure
robustness to variations
Step 3. Tolerance Design
– establish product and process
tolerances to minimize costs

page 13
 The Taguchi Loss Function

• Taguchi defines quality as "the loss a product

costs society from the time the product is
released for shipment"
– Loss includes costs to operate, failure to
function, maintenance and repair costs,
customer dissatisfaction, injuries caused by
poor design, and similar costs
– Some of these losses are difficult to
quantify in monetary terms, but they are
nevertheless real

page 14
 Taguchi Loss Function - continued

• Defective products (or their components) that

are exposed before shipment are not
considered part of this loss
– Instead, any expense to the company
resulting from scrap or rework of defective
product is a manufacturing cost rather than
a quality loss

page 15
 Taguchi Loss Function - continued
• Loss occurs when a product's functional
characteristic differs from its nominal or target
value
• When the dimension of a component deviates
from its nominal value, the component's
function is adversely affected
– No matter how small the deviation, there is
some loss in function
– The loss increases at an accelerating rate
as the deviation grows, according to
Taguchi
page 16
 Determining
Quality Loss Function
• Specifications are set
• Specify a target with minimal variation
• Increase in variation cause loss to society

page 17
Taguchi Loss Function

Lower Upper
Spec Limit Spec Limit

.500
.498 .502

page 18
 Traditional Approach to Quality Control
• If the product dimension is within the
tolerance limits, it is acceptable
– Whether the dimension is close to the
nominal value or close to one of the
tolerance limits, it is acceptable
• The reality is that products closer to the
nominal specification are better quality
– In order to improve quality, one must
attempt to reduce the loss by designing the
product and process to be as close as
possible to the nominal value
page 19
Taguchi Loss Function

Lower Upper
Spec Limit Spec Limit

.500
.498 .502

Loss Loss

Traditional Loss View page 20

Taguchi Loss Function

Lower Upper
Spec Limit Spec Limit

.500
.498 .502

Taguchi Loss Function page 21

Problem with Fraction-defective Measure

page 22
Specify a target with minimal variation

page 23
 Specify a target with minimal variation

• Quadratic Loss Function

page 24
 Taguchi Loss Function

(a) The quadratic quality loss function

(b) Loss function implicit in traditional tolerance
specification
page 25
 The Quadratic Loss Function

L=k(y-m)2 L

A0
k= 2
∆0 A0

A0=cost of corrective action

D0=point of intolerance
m=target value
y= measured value ∆0 y
L=loss ($) m

page 26
 Robust Design

• A basic purpose of quality control is to

minimize variations
• Taguchi calls these “noise factors”
– Sources of variation that are impossible or
difficult to control and that affect the
functional characteristics of the product

page 27
 Robust Design - continued
A robust design is:
• A design in which the product's function and
performance are relatively insensitive to
variations in design and manufacturing
parameters
– Involves the design of both the product and
process so that the manufactured product will
be relatively unaffected by all noise factors

page 28
 Robust Design Concept
• Traditional approach:
– Minimize noise & variation by better control of
design parameters of product/process
– Often expensive and may or may not work

• Robust design approach:

– Identify design parameters and noise factors
– Determine an optimal set of parameters which
makes product/process insensitive to variation of
parameters and noise factors via design of
experiments
– Determine the optimal trade-off among
parameters page 29
Three Types of Noise Factors in Robust Design
1. Unit‑to‑unit - random variations in the
process
2. Internal - variations internal to the product or
process, such as wear or improper settings
on the production machine
3. External - variations external to the product
or process, such as outside temperature,
humidity, raw material supply

page 30
 Off‑Line and On‑Line Quality Control
• Off‑line quality control - concerned with
design issues, both product design and
process design
– It precedes on‑line control
• On‑line quality control - concerned with
production operations and customer
relations after shipment
– Objective is to manufacture products
within the specifications defined in
product design, using methods and
procedures developed in process design
page 31
 Two Stages in Off‑Line Quality Control
1. Product design stage - involves development of
a new product or a new model of an existing
product
– Goals: to properly identify customer needs
and to design a product that meets those
needs but can also be made consistently and
economically
2. Process design stage - the manufacturing
engineering function
– Concerned with specifying the processes
and equipment, setting work standards,
documenting procedures, and developing
clear and workable specifications for
manufacturing page 32
Three Step Approach in Product Design and
Process Design
• System design - application of engineering
knowledge and analysis to develop a prototype
design that will meet customer needs
• Parameter design - determining optimal
parameter settings for the product and process
– This stage is where a robust design is
achieved
• Tolerance design - attempts to achieve a
balance between setting wide tolerances to
facilitate manufacture and minimizing
tolerances to optimize product performance
page 33
 The Quadratic Loss Function

L=k(y-m)2 L

A0
k= 2
∆0 A0

A0=cost of corrective action

D0=point of intolerance
m=target value
y=measured value y
L=loss ($) ∆0
m

page 34
 Loss Function
• The steeper the slope, the more important the
loss function
• Assuming that the functional tolerance range is
m-∆, m+∆ and we know the consumer loss as
A($) we calculate:
A = k∆2 or k = A/∆2

So

L(y) = (A/∆2)(y-m)2
page 35
 Expected Loss
• Expected loss is the mean loss over over n products
• The expectation is taken with respect to the
distribution of the quality characteristic y
E[L(y)] = E[k(y - m)2]
= k(variance of y + squared bias of y)
= k[Var(y) + (µ – m)2]
= k (MSD)
Where Mean Square Deviation - MSD is given
by
 n 2
MSD =  ∑ ( yi − m)  / n
 i =1  page 36
 Example
• The customer tolerance for the height of a steering
mechanism are 1.5±0.02mm. For a product that
just exceeds these limits, the cost to the consumer
for getting it fixed is $50.

• Ten products are randomly selected and yield the

following heights
1.53 1.49 1.5 1.49 1.52
1.54 1.53 1.51 1.52 1.48
• Find the average loss per unit of the product
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 Example
Loss given by
L(y) = k(y - m)2
Given information and nominal, m = 1.5m yields
K = A/∆2 = 50/(0.02)2 = 125000
Giving
L(y) = 125000(y – 1.5)2
And expected loss is

E[L(y)] = 125000 E(y – 1.5)2

page 38
 Example
E(y – 1.5)2 is estimated as

 10 2
=  ∑ ( yi − 1.5)  / n
 i =1 
= 0.0049 / 10
= 0.00049
Hence, expected loss per unit is

E[L(y)] = 125000 (0.00049)

= $61.25
page 39
 Exercise
• A medical company produces a part that has a hole
measuring 0.5" + 0.050". The tooling used to make the
hole is worn and needs replacing, but management doesn't
feel it necessary since it still makes "good parts". All
parts pass QC, but several parts have been rejected by
assembly. Failure costs per part is $0.45. Using the loss
function, explain why it may be to the benefit of the
company and customer to replace or sharpen the tool
more frequently. Use the data below
• Measured Value
0.459 | 0.478 | 0.495 | 0.501 | 0.511 | 0.527
0.462 | 0.483 | 0.495 | 0.501 | 0.516 | 0.532
0.467 | 0.489 | 0.495 | 0.502 | 0.521 | 0.532
0.474 | 0.491 | 0.498 | 0.505 | 0.524 | 0.533
0.476 | 0.492 | 0.500 | 0.509 | 0.527 | 0.536
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