APPAREL QUALITY MANAGEMENT

Quality Guru Dr. Genichi Taguchi Presented byYashasvi Shailly(27), Uttam Kumar(25), Madan Mohan (10)

Biography

Genichi Taguchi (January 1, 1924 June 2, 2012), of Tokamachi, Japan was an engineer and statistician. The executive director of the American Supplier Institute, the director of the Japan Industrial Technology Institute, and an honorary professor at Nanjing Institute of Technology in China. Companies such as Toyota, Ford, Boeing and Xerox have adopted his methods. Developed a methodology to improve quality and reduce costs, which are referred to as the Taguchi Methods.

Books Authored

Experimental Design and Life Test Analysis Design Of Experiments for Engineers, 1960 Design of Experiments, Second Edition, 1962

Honours

Indigo Ribbon from the Emperor of Japan Willard F. Rockwell Medal of the International Technology Institute Honorary member of the Japanese Society of Quality Control and of the American Society for Quality Shewhart Medal of the American Society for Quality (1995) Honoured as a Quality Guru by the British Department of Trade and Industry (1990)

Taguchi Methods

Taguchis methodology is fundamentally a prototyping technique that enables engineers/ designers to produce a robust design which can survive repetitive manufacturing in order to deliver the functionality required by the customer. Taguchi's work includes three principle contributions to statistics: Taguchi Loss Function; The philosophy of Off-line Quality Control; and Innovations in the Design of Experiments

TAGUCHI'S LOSS FUNCTION

Taguchi realised that there is a need to produce an outcome on target. He also realised that excessive variation lay at the root of poor manufactured quality and that reacting to individual items inside and outside specification was counterproductive. He therefore argued that quality engineering should start with an understanding of quality costs in various situations. Taguchi insisted that manufacturers broaden their horizons to consider cost to society. Taguchi argued that such losses would inevitably find their way back to the originating,

The quality loss function is given by the expression: L = k ( x - a )2 where L = the loss to society of a unit of output at value x a = the ideal state target value, where at a, L = 0 k = a constant

Taguchis Loss Function Curve

Losses are very small when an item is near to negligible. As we diverge from nominal, losses grow until the point where losses are too great to deny and the specification limit is drawn. Taguchi wanted to find a useful way of representing them statistically. Taguchi specified three situations: Smaller the better Larger the better; and On-target, minimum-variation They are also called as the 3 Signal-to-Noise ratios

Smaller-the-better

This is usually the chosen S/N ratio for all undesirable characteristics like defects etc. for which the ideal value is zero. Example, minimization of heat losses in a heat exchanger

Larger-the-better

For this characteristic type, it is preferred to maximize the result, and the ideal target value is infinity. Example, maximizing the product yield from a process.

Nominal-the-best

This case arises when a specified value is MOST desired, meaning that neither a smaller nor a larger value is desirable. Example, most parts in mechanical fittings.

OFF-LINE QUALITY CONTROL

Taguchi realized that the best opportunity to eliminate variation is during the design of a product and its manufacturing process. Consequently, he developed a strategy for quality engineering. The process has three stages: System design Parameter (measure) design Tolerance design

System Design

The system design stage is where new ideas, concepts and knowledge in the areas of science and technology are utilized by the design team to determine the right combination of materials, parts, processes and design factors that will satisfy functional and economical specifications. To achieve an increase in quality at this level requires innovation, and therefore improvements are not always made.

Parameter Design

Once the concept is established, the nominal values of the various dimensions and design parameters need to be set. In many circumstances, this allows the parameters to be chosen so as to minimize the effects on performance arising from variation in manufacture, environment and cumulative damage. This is also called robustification. Robust parameter designs consider controllable and uncontrollable noise variables; they seek to exploit relationships and optimize settings that minimize the effects of the noise variables.

Robust Parameter design has 4 main steps: Problem Formulation This step consists of identifying the main function, developing the P-diagram, defining the ideal function and S/N ratio, and planning the experiments. Data Collection/Simulation The experiments may be conducted in hardware or through simulation. Factor Effects Analysis The effects of the control factors are calculated in this step and the results are analyzed to select optimum setting of the control factors. Prediction/Confirmation In order to validate the optimum conditions we predict the performance of the product design under baseline and optimum settings of the control factors.

Tolerance Design

This section deals with the problem of how, and when, to specify tightened tolerances for a product or a process so that quality and performance/ productivity are enhanced. It is believed that the quality and performance of any item can easily be improved by merely tightening up on some or all of its tolerance requirements. This can become expensive, however, and is often not a guarantee of much better performance. Thus, only after extensive parameter design studies have been completed should tolerance design be performed as a last resort to improve quality and productivity.

DESIGN OF EXPERIMENTS

Taguchi contended that conventional sampling is inadequate here as there is no way of obtaining a random sample of future conditions. Taguchi proposed extending each experiment with an "outer array. The outer array should simulate the random environment in which the product would function. Later innovations in outer arrays resulted in "compounded noise, combining a few noise factors to create two levels in the outer array.

P - Diagram (P stands for Process or Product)

Noise is shown to be present in the process but should have no effect on the output. This is the primary aim of the Taguchi experiments - to minimize variations in output even though noise is present in the process. The process is then said

P - Diagram (P stands for Process or Product)

The output is supposed to follow input signal in a predetermined manner. Generally, a linear relationship between "input" and "output" is desirable. For example: Accelerator pedals in cars, volume control in audio amplifiers,

8steps In Taguchi Methodology

Step-1: Identify the main function, side effects and failure mode Step-2: Identify the Noise factors, testing conditions and quality characteristics Step-3: Identify the objective function to be optimized Step-4: Identify the control factors and their levels Step-5: Select the orthogonal array matrix experiment Step-6: Conduct the matrix experiment Step-7: Analyze the data; predict the optimum levels and performance Step-8: Perform the verification experiment and plan the future action

Ravella Diagram

CONCLUSION

Genichi Taguchi has made valuable contributions to statistics and engineering. His emphasis on loss to society, techniques for investigating variation in experiments, and his overall strategy of system, parameter and tolerance design have been influential in improving manufactured quality worldwide. The methods are being successfully implemented in diverse areas, such as the design of VLSI; optimization of communication & information networks, development of electronic circuits, laser of photo masks, cash-flow optimization in banking, government policymaking, runway utilization improvement in airports, and even robust eco-design.

Thank you !