A Windows-based computer software for Taguchi methods

摘要

Since Taguchi's introduction of quality engineering concepts, a great deal of research and case studies have been conducted to better understand and examine the usefulness of robust design. However, there is no single software which handles all aspects of Taguchi methods to help practitioners to avoid tedious computations.;Taguchi Methods Program (TMP) is a Windows-based application uniquely developed for the use of Taguchi methods. It is written in Visual Basic programming language and executed on Microsoft Windows operating systems-Windows 3.1 or Windows 95. The dissertation details the background and objectives of the computer software and a review of Taguchi methods methodology. TMP assumes the user has some background in design of experiments, analysis of variance, and Taguchi's off-line quality control methods. The dissertation also includes the Visual Basic source code for the program as well as a detailed user's manual. Further, TMP also provides a user-friendly on-line help system for new users. Users may check on topics or functions which are not familiar to them from the help system while the program is executing. A major objective of this work is to make the software user-friendly, for both experienced and new users. This allows practitioners to gain a great deal of knowledge about concepts in design of experiments and Taguchi methods.