Quality Variation Control Method and Process 2011-01-0509

This paper describes the development of a design method and process for quality variation control. Conventional approaches utilizing Taguchi method [6,7,8] can quantify the sensitivities of parts characteristics on a system characteristic from both viewpoints of nominal value and variation. But the interpretation of the sensitivities depends on engineers' judgments. At the new process, function deployment has been introduced as the tool for breaking down hierarchically vehicle performance to the level of parts characteristics. And the relation between vehicle performance and parts characteristics is formulated based on a physical model in order to interpret the sensitivities more technically. The methodology combining the formulated function deployment and Taguchi method is referred to as design response analysis and variation effect analysis. These approaches can facilitate the interpretation of the quantified sensitivities considering the mechanism. This is the distinctive feature against the conventional approaches and makes it possible to determine the design nominal values and important control characteristics more systematically.