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Taguchi Loss Function

The Taguchi loss function is a graphical depiction developed by Genichi Taguchi to describe how quality is degraded as a product deviates further from its target specifications. In contrast to the American "goal post" view that quality suddenly drops when specifications are missed, Taguchi argued that quality degradation occurs progressively as variation increases. His loss function models this as a parabolic relationship, showing that losses increase quadratically based on the deviation from the target. This perspective helped advance the concept of continuous quality improvement.

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61 views2 pages

Taguchi Loss Function

The Taguchi loss function is a graphical depiction developed by Genichi Taguchi to describe how quality is degraded as a product deviates further from its target specifications. In contrast to the American "goal post" view that quality suddenly drops when specifications are missed, Taguchi argued that quality degradation occurs progressively as variation increases. His loss function models this as a parabolic relationship, showing that losses increase quadratically based on the deviation from the target. This perspective helped advance the concept of continuous quality improvement.

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sophia787
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Taguchi loss function

The Taguchi loss function is graphical depiction of loss developed by the Japanese business statistician
Genichi Taguchi to describe a phenomenon affecting the value of products produced by a company.
Praised by Dr. W. Edwards Deming (the business guru of the 1980s American quality movement),[1] it
made clear the concept that quality does not suddenly plummet when, for instance, a machinist exceeds a
rigid blueprint tolerance. Instead 'loss' in value progressively increases as variation increases from the
intended condition. This was considered a breakthrough in describing quality, and helped fuel the
continuous improvement movement.

The concept of Taguchi's quality loss function was in contrast with the American concept of quality,
popularly known as goal post philosophy, the concept given by American quality guru Phil Crosby. Goal
post philosophy emphasizes that if a product feature doesn't meet the designed specifications it is termed as
a product of poor quality (rejected), irrespective of amount of deviation from the target value (mean value
of tolerance zone). This concept has similarity with the concept of scoring a 'goal' in the game of football or
hockey, because a goal is counted 'one' irrespective of the location of strike of the ball in the 'goal post',
whether it is in the center or towards the corner. This means that if the product dimension goes out of the
tolerance limit the quality of the product drops suddenly.

Through his concept of the quality loss function, Taguchi explained that from the customer's point of view
this drop of quality is not sudden. The customer experiences a loss of quality the moment product
specification deviates from the 'target value'. This 'loss' is depicted by a quality loss function and it follows
a parabolic curve mathematically given by L = k(y–m)2 , where m is the theoretical 'target value' or 'mean
value' and y is the actual size of the product, k is a constant and L is the loss. This means that if the
difference between 'actual size' and 'target value' i.e. (y–m) is large, loss would be more, irrespective of
tolerance specifications. In Taguchi's view tolerance specifications are given by engineers and not by
customers; what the customer experiences is 'loss'. This equation is true for a single product; if 'loss' is to be
calculated for multiple products the loss function is given by L = k[S2 + ( – m)2 ], where S2 is the 'variance
of product size' and is the average product size.

Overview
The Taguchi loss function is important for a number of reasons—primarily, to help engineers better
understand the importance of designing for variation.

See also
Taguchi methods

Taguchi also focus on Robust design of model.

References
1. Deming, W. Edwards (1993). The New Economics: For Industry, Government, Education.
MIT Press. ISBN 0-911379-05-3.
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