Customer Reviews

Introduction to Quality Engineering: Designing Quality into Products and Processes

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This is about the only publication of Taguchi's theories that you'll be able to buy for pocket-change. Though I haven't finished it yet, it strongly resembles the contents of a seminar that used to cost more than $3,000 -- if you can remember how to use a textbook, then this is a bargain. If you've had advanced algebra, intermediate stats, or basic calculus, you should be able to handle the equations.

Taguchi's breakthrough is to evolve a method of quasi-statistical analysis (strongly resembling some elements of catastrophe theory & chaos dynamics) that can efficiently pare a multivariate real-world problem down to small handful of most-likely sets.

Don't think assembly lines here. I was introduced to Taguchi as a possible solution for consulting on how to best apply a shrinking advertising budget: you've got X dollars for the year, you can expand/cut staff, you can do billboards or flyers, TV large- or small-market, peak or way-dark hours, direct mail or Internet... or some combination of varying amounts. In short, constraining each variable to a few choices, & with a finite budget, still left literally millions of possible combinations.

It may take a few hours of head-pounding, but an understanding of Taguchi's methods might save your company thousands, or even millions.