System of Experimental Design: Engineering Methods to Optimize Quality and Minimize Costs (2 Volume Set) [Hardcover]

Michihiko Esaki (Author)

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Language Notes

Text: English, Japanese (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 1189 pages
• Publisher: ASI Press (2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0941243001
• ISBN-13: 978-0941243001
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,757,061 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5.0 out of 5 stars A Book by Dr. Genichi Taguchi - Quality-Design Genius Far Ahead of His Time, January 15, 2011

By 

James Kowalick (California, USA 95962 USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The System of Experimental Design: Engineering Methods to Optimize Quality and Minimize Costs. TWO VOLUME SET (Hardcover)

I'm a proud and grateful owner of this 2-volume set of books by Dr. Genichi Taguchi: "System of Experimental Design: Engineering Methods to Optimize Quality and Minimize Costs." This book changed the world of product design into a new and far better world of `quality by design.' It also introduced me to the world's best optimization approach - bar none.

Dr. Taguchi's contributions in the 1950s through the 1970s, in my opinion, were the main technical reason for the world-wide success of the Japanese automobile industry. Later in his career, he introduced his approaches to the American car industry. Ford Motor Company grasped them instantly in the 1980s, but the other two car companies appeared to be only half-hearted about using the approaches at their highest levels of application. Yet they persisted.

The fact is that - with several notable corporate exceptions - American industry never equaled the Japanese level of product quality, but learned much from the Japanese. After his initial contributions, Dr. Taguchi continued to develop new and improved tools and approaches for product quality (as well as for manufacturing quality and `tolerance design'), and these were first adopted by Japanese companies.

For his work, Dr. Taguchi received dozens of kudos and international recognitions. If there were a Nobel Prize for either quality or engineering pursuits, he surely would have received the award. He always operated with a spirit of `service to humanity' - not merely `making money.' However, leading international corporations continue to successfully use his approaches to achieve profitability.

Dr. Taguchi is a legend in Japan. He also became recognized in the United States - his associate, Yuin Wu, paving the way by translating, publishing and explaining Taguchi's concepts and approaches in English. Few U.S companies take Taguchi's approaches to the highest level of application - there is, and has always has been, a lag between the level of the Taguchi approach as practiced in Japan, and as practiced in the United States (just a few U.S. companies come near to the Japanese level of application).

This two-volume set of books describes Taguchi's main approach in great detail, and includes case studies for many different types of applications and for different circumstances and from different industries. The Taguchi approach to quality design is a multi-variable approach which leads to robust product designs (or to robust manufacturing designs). These books are a `bible' for experts in multi-variable optimization and quality engineering, for product-design engineers and for manufacturing-design engineers.

The approach is so large in scope that a review like this cannot adequately capture it. Yet, in its essence it is simple: "Pay attention to the quality right in front of your nose, rather than downstream quality, and act accordingly."

An example: I just conducted an `L64' Taguchi corporate-loyalty experiment (in the past, I also conducted corporate experiments on products and manufacturing processes of all kinds). In this experiment there were 63 variables, each of which described members of a certain market (buyers of a certain product). The question was: "Which of these variables are the most critical, and what is the relative importance of the critical parameters (in order to attract and nurture loyal customers)?" This experiment was analyzed in a matter of days - to the satisfaction of the corporate clients.

Note: In an `L64' experiment, the possible number of configurations of variables is quite a large number: 2 to the 63rd power - a number beginning with a 9, followed by 18 zeros (approximation). From this number of configurations, Taguchi's approach chose about a dozen marketing parameters which represented the real `keys' to conducting a successful loyalty program.

I might mention that all Toyota vehicles have immensely benefitted from the Taguchi approach - not to mention a few other automobile companies and thousands of other types of varied products.

By this review I humbly thank Dr. Taguchi for all his contributions to mankind, for his friendship (for I consider him always as my friend first, and my mentor second), and for his genuine interest and brilliance in the fields of engineering in general, and in quality engineering in particular. His work continues in the good hands of other mentors, including his son, Shin Taguchi, and Alan Wu (son of Yuin Wu) both at ASI (American Supplier Institute).

James Kowalick