Robust engineering design post-Taguchi

A fundamental idea has emerged from the study of the work of Genichi Taguchi in off-line quality control. A product should be designed so that it is robust against variations in the manufacturing process and the environment in which it is used. But the idea is not entirely new. It appears in various forms in the vogues and syntax of modern engineering design. Thus we have ‘design to product’, ‘design for manufacture’, ‘conceptual design and innovation’, ‘systematic methodologies’ and so forth. It is the ability to describe robustness in statistical terms that ought to create a change in design thinking. But for this to happen professionals on both sides need to understand each other’s language. The paper attempts to bridge the gap by drawing heavily on the language of engineering design and giving recent examples of product design where both modes of thinking have benefited from each other.