| During the last decade, the use of the Six Sigma methodology has significantly improved product quality, and a vast majority of enterprises now implement Design for Six Sigma initiatives. Despite considerable advances in this area, there has been no formal research attempt to develop a multidisciplinary robust design system to minimize uncertainty at every stage of the product development life cycle. The primary objective of this research is to establish fundamental understandings from a decision point of view and to develop an integrated robust engineering paradigm to make an overall manufacturing system more compatible, thereby reducing the inherent variability of these systems. This work will provide support for human judgment in design synthesis and improve overall product or process quality by combining engineering disciplines with design objectives from development through manufacturing within a systems framework.; This research establishes a theoretically sound foundation and scientifically rigorous base for robust design modeling and optimization without loss of generality and accuracy, while still achieving the primary goal of robust design. Providing the foundation for this work is the synthesis of specific research tools from design of experiments, response surface methodology, reliability engineering, goal programming, physical programming, decision-support problems, and quality function deployment. The outcome of this synthesis embodies the integration of design flexibility, predictive capability of system performance, and variation reduction, which results in optimal robust design solutions. |
