DCamp Eventspace : Designing robust quality systems using Taguchi Methods

was Designing robust quality systems using Taguchi Methods.nbsp An interesting twist on experimenting and optimizing.

Talk with Dan Nathan-Roberts (DanNathanRoberts"AT"gmail"DOT"com) about:

Quality: meeting customer needs & having features that differentiate @ time of market
Robust Design: Building a system where quality is delivered on target with a minimum of variance because of noise
Taguchi Methods: Using control factors to minimize variance and move the mean on target

Notes by Rinku Gajera

Overview: Dan introduced following methods from field of Mechanical engineering, known as methods for "Robust Design" that meets customer needs and differentiate your product from other quality products; with the notion of its usage to gain some insights to identify company goals and directions around user experience and Design strategy.
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Kano Model

Overview

Quality Engineering

Kano Model
House of Quality

Introduction to Robust Design & Taguchi Design Methods

Robust Design example - ina tile company
Overview of Taguchi Design Methods

Kano Model – can be used to map all the quality features in the matrix as shown above in 3 areas; Expected, Revealed, & Exciting.

Expected- basic requirements expected from any product/ service. It must be fulfilled. For ex. Refrigerator must be cold.
Revealed- Satisfy in proportion to the present trend. For ex. Fridge storage capacity.
Exciting- Beyond expectation, new! And hence exciting! For ex. Fridges that use expelled heat to reduce load on your water heater!

Note: “Exciting” eventually becomes “Revealed” and then “Expected” as it is adopted by the Users and Industry.

Thought Trigger: In context of Web 2.0, what is more exciting? May be tagging… speed…etc…

House of Quality– An organizational framework for decision making process to identify company goals and directions around user experience and Design strategy. Useful in identifiying strengths and weaknesses in your product and competitors, as well as opportunity areas. Shows which features are related, and where energy should be focused.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/55304415@N00/148889459/in/photostream/

One can map the relationships between each Design Attribute [ feature/ new Idea / solution ] to

Customer Needs and also map competitor’s positioning in that particular Customer Need in order to realize products strengths and weaknesses.

Taguchi Methods- [ **Links:Wikipedia - Genichi Taguchi ]

Genichi Taguchi, Born in 1924, was a Textile Engineer, went to Army and started doing Planning.

Overview-

Experiments are often hard, time consuming and expensive. Taguchi methods helps minimizing these costs by simulating full factorial experiments while maintaining the goal of making a robust product.
One can use Taguchi methods to identify the most and the lease important control factors that affect varrience & mean performance.
Types of Taguchi Problems-

Statics ( nominal, smaller or larger)
Dynamic- find the relation between two properties

Links