Genichi Taguchi Methods

Introduction

Genichi Taguchi is a Japanese engineer who is one of the leading pioneers having made a significant impact to the quality movement, lean manufacturing, and six sigma. Taguchi revolutionized the manufacturing process in Japan through cost savings. From the 1950s, he played an active role in developing methodology for applying statistics to improve the quality of manufacturing goods. He is best known for developing the “Taguchi’s Methods.” His work was greatly influenced by the works of Sir R. A. Fisher, P.C. Mahalanobis, C. R. Rao, and Walter A. Shewhart with whom he came in contact during his time at the Indian Statistical Institute in 1950s. From the start Taguchi stressed that quality was related to process design and is affected by outside influences, such as noise. Taguchi has developed methods of identifying noise factors that have utmost effect on product variability.

Genichi Taguchi was born in 1924 in Tokamachi, Japan. During World War II he served the Astronomical Department of the Navigation Institute of the Japanese Navy. After the war, he joined the Ministry of Public Health and Welfare and the Institute of Statistical Mathematics. There he gained insights into statistical analysis and found interest in the design of experiments. In 1950, when the statistical quality control was beginning to become popular in Japan, Taguchi joined the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NT&T). Here, he was responsible for improving the productivity of the Research and Development (R&D) department. Taguchi spent 12 years in NT&T developing methods for enhancing quality and reliability. Consequently, he started to advice several Japanese companied such as Toyota, on “experimental methods” (1). The Toyota was one of the early adopters of Taguchi’s techniques because they understood its great advantages. Since 1982, Taguchi has been an advisor to the Japanese Standards Institute as well as executive director of the American Supplier...