Calibrations to existing cost of doing business in space indicate that to establish
human presence on the Moon and Mars with the Space Exploration Initiative (SEI) will
require resources, felt by many, to be more than the national budget can afford. In order
for SEI to succeed, we must actually design and build space systems at lower cost this
time, even with tremendous increases in quality and performance requirements, such as
extremely high reliability. This implies that both government and industry must change
the way they do business. Therefore, new philosophy and technology must be employed to
design and produce reliable, high quality space systems at low cost.
In recognizing the need to reduce cost and improve quality and productivity,
Department of Defense (DoD) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
have initiated Total Quality Management (TQM). TQM is a revolutionary management
strategy in quality assurance and cost reduction. TQM requires complete management
commitment, employee involvement, and use of statistical tools.
The quality engineering methods of Dr. Taguchi, employing design of experiments
(DOE), is one of the most important statistical tools of TQM for designing high quality
systems at reduced cost. Taguchi methods provide an efficient and systematic way to
optimize designs for performance, quality, and cost. Taguchi methods have been used
successfully in Japan and the United States in designing reliable, high quality products at
low cost in such areas as automobiles and consumer electronics (Cullen and Hollingum,
1987; Logothetis and Salmon, 1988; Sullivan, 1987; Wille, 1990). However, these
methods are just beginning to see application in the aerospace industry.
The purpose of this paper is to present an overview of the Taguchi methods for
improving quality and reducing cost, describe the current state of applications and its