Taguchi Techniques for Quality Engineering: Loss Function, Orthogonal Experiments, Parameter and Tolerance Design

An introduction to the Taguchi methodology as a systematic strategy for designing product and process tests that will reduce product or process variation. This text aims to make this method understandable to all professionals in quality control and non-statisticians and it does this very well. Having been educated from an engineering perspective I found these ideas were in common usage, however the techniques were not applied to organisations, especially services until the mid 90s through the influence of Lean Manufacturing and a mature quality movement.

I have been a fan of Taguchi methods for some 16 years now due to their simplicity and understandability. Dr. Taguchi gave all engineers a great gift when he took statistical design of experiments(DOE) out of the realm of esoteric statistical academia and made it digestable for the average engineer. Mr. Ross has furthered this noble effort by writing an easily-read compendium explaining DOE per Taguchi's approach! Highly recommended!

Maybe the most known and recurrently used Taguchi techniques are the Orthogonal Arrays for DOE; but they're not the only ones that Taguchi developed in order to achieve a quality product design. The Loss Function, the S/N ratio and the Tolerance Design are part of the "Robust Engineering" that consolidated Taguchi as the quality guru he is.Many general DOE concepts are so well explained in this book that it represents a great introductory text to this subject. Nevertheless this is a Taguchi techniques book, not a complete DOE text, so it's possible that you'd like to look for "Design and Analysis of Experiments" by Douglas C. Montgomery. This book is highly valuable if you want to understand the Taguchi philosophy for developing quality products and a must have for DOE beginners.

Seems to be written for people with no background in designing experiments. Gives you a good start and gives you the basic information on Taguchi methods. A favorite of Engineering students since it is extremely easy to follow. Great first book for someone starting out with Design of Experiments. Covers the full problem solving process with DOE being a part of the process.Minimal information is given regarding Classical DOE. If you have an academic or Engineering background and are interested in learning experimental designs other than Taguchi methods, then buy the "Statistics for Experimenters: An Introduction to Design, Data Analysis, and Model Building" By: George E. P. Box, et al. -- the Classical DOE reference handbook for Engineers.