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Concluding Remarks 291
Statistical
robustness
BH 2
Q

Engineering

USA
TM
Industry
before
1980s

Figure 18.11 Routes to quality via statistical and engineering robustness.

may be more people enjoying fishing than mountaineering, but the discerning and
committed on either route will not fail to be duly rewarded in the end. Many American
companies in particular, notwithstanding the intensity of debates on Taguchi methods
found between the covers of academic journals, have already decided for themselves
on the specific route to take (witness their participation at the Taguchi symposia, for
example); hopefully, in not too distant a future, all will recognize which techniques
are reliable and which are not, and begin to attain a maturity in technique selection
that will ensure both engineering and statistical robustness, as suggested figuratively
in Figure 18.11.

18.8 CONCLUDING REMARKS

Taguchi methods are important because never before in the history of industrial qual-
ity assurance has a set of ideas and methodologies formulated by a single person
created so much interest and so much controversy in so short a time among so many
people in so many spheres -- from the shop-floor to the corporate boardroom and from
hotel seminar rooms to the university lecture theaters. Techniques labeled as Taguchi
methodshaveinfactlongbeenknownintheOrientbytheirgenericnames;thesudden
surge of interest in Taguchi’s teaching in the USA in the early 1980s was not without
its historical and cultural background, the most immediate being the impact on the
international competitiveness of US industries by Japanese achievements in product
quality. Quality improvement methods carrying a Japanese name during this period
would without exception quickly attract attention in the USA, but there are also some
other reasons why interest in Taguchi methods soon turned into unprecedented zeal
and faith.