Robustness Development and Reliability Growth: Value Adding Strategies for New Products and Processes

This book integrates key tools and processes into a comprehensive program for developing more robust and reliable technology-based products. Drawing on their extensive product development experience, the authors present a complete process for ensuring product performance throughout the entire lifecycle, from understanding customers’ needs through manufacturing and post-launch support.   The authors begin by presenting broad insights and high-level strategies for improving product quality. Next, they demonstrate how to implement robustness and reliability strategies that complement existing governance and decision processes. A section on tools and methods shows how to institutionalize best practices and apply them consistently. Finally, they tie strategies, decisions, and methods together through a case study project.   Product developers will learn how to Understand critical drivers of value in technology products, including reliability and durability Implement a process model and roadmap for improving reliability and robustness Increase robustness early in development, leading to shorter cycle times in later phases Improve the stability of production performance under stress conditions Assess both organizational and process capabilities for delivering robust and reliable products Understand and manage customer-driven requirements Use tools including descriptive and inferential statistics and DOE-based empirical models Managers will understand expectations for Design concepts supported by rigorous analyses of alternatives Products and processes delivering higher value to customers Products with higher reliability and longer useful lives Product processes with lower costs and higher capabilities Development projects having shorter, more predictable cycle times Readers are introduced to many thought leaders whose writings can be sources of further learning. This book is a valuable resource for anyone responsible for delivering reliable, profitable technology products, including general managers, program managers, engineers, scientists, and reliability and quality professionals.

Table of Contents:
Preface xxi Acknowledgments xxix About the Authors xxxi   Section I: Critical Drivers of Value   Chapter 1: Time, Money, and Risks 3 Quality, Costs, and Schedules 4 Management of Process Improvements 7 Soft Causes of Poor Reliability and Durability 12 Key Points 20 Discussion Questions 20   Chapter 2: Reliability, Durability, and Robustness 21 Reliability as an Element of Value to Customers 22 Essential Elements of Reliability 23 The Taxonomy of a Failure 26 Reliability Metrics 29 The Anatomy of Quality Loss 33 The Reduction of Performance Variations 39 Key Points 44 Discussion Questions 44   Chapter 3: Strategies for Reliability Development 45 Are Better Strategies Important? 45 Strategies for Ongoing Processes 48 Strategies Specific to Product Development 51 Capabilities of the Organization 57 Key Points 63 Discussion Questions 63   Section II: Framework for Reliability Development   Chapter 4: A Process Model for Product Development 67 What Is a Product Development Process? 67 Integration of Key Development Principles 71 A Process Model for Product Development 76 Advanced Product-Planning Process 77 Technology Development Process 79 Product Development Process 81 Older versus Better Methods 98 Key Points 100 Discussion Questions 100   Chapter 5: Road Map for Reliability Development 103 Build a Compelling Case for Your Reliability Project 103 Linking Activities to the Product Development Phases 104 Key Initiatives of a Reliability Development Project 104 The Role of Testing 116 Key Points 119 Discussion Questions 119   Chapter 6: Effective Decisions 121 Qualities of a Good Decision-Making Process 122 Types of Project Reviews 132 Key Points 144 Discussion Questions 145   Chapter 7: Robustness Development for Product Designs 147 Technology and Product Development 147 Functional Diagram 150 Stressful Conditions 151 Parallel Development of Products and Processes 155 Robustness Development 158 Examples of Robustness Development 162 Robust Design 165 Robustness Development Fixtures 167 Key Points 168 Discussion Questions 169   Chapter 8: Reliability Growth and Testing 171 Product Testing 172 Reliability Growth Testing 174 Drivers of Reliability Growth Rate 181 Accelerated Tests 183 Understanding Stress versus Strength 185 Tools and Systems That Support Testing 190 Overview of Various Types of Tests 196 Key Points 197 Discussion Questions 197   Section III: Tools and Methods Supporting Reliability Development   Chapter 9: Understanding and Managing Customer-Driven Requirements 201 Objectives for Product Development 202 Types of Requirements 203 How Requirements Affect Project Success 206 How Requirements Flow Down 213 VOC Activities Vary Throughout the Development Process 214 The Major Steps in Requirements Gathering 215 Processing and Analyzing Interview Data 221 Key Elements of Requirements Management 227 How Can Your Requirements Efforts Fail? 228 Key Points 229 Discussion Questions 230 Additional Reading 230 Additional Authors Worth Following 230   Chapter 10: Quality Function Deployment 231 What Is Quality Function Deployment? 231 Expected Benefits of QFD 233 The Structure of QFD 234 Sequence of Matrices 244 The QFD Team 245 Suggestions to Improve the Facilitation of QFD 246 Key Points 247 Discussion Questions 248 Further Reading 248   Chapter 11: Concept Generation and Selection 249 Decisions in Product Development 249 Concept Generation and Selection 250 Process Guidance 256 Teamwork 259 Key Points 260 Discussion Questions 260   Chapter 12: Axiomatic Design 261 Axiomatic Design 262 Improvement of Design Concepts 272 System Decomposition 274 A Familiar Example 279 Key Points 282 Discussion Questions 282   Chapter 13: Tools to Reduce Risks 285 Project Team Meetings for Risk Reduction 285 Useful Tools Provide Valuable Benefits 286 Risk Analyses 289 Matrix Analyses 294 Flowcharts 296 Tree Analyses 301 Key Points 307 Discussion Questions 307 Further Reading 307   Chapter 14: Descriptive Statistics 309 Why Do You Need Statistics? 309 Graph the Data First 310 Descriptive Statistics 322 The Normal Distribution 325 Key Points 329 Discussion Questions 329   Chapter 15: Inferential Statistics 331 Questions You Need Statistics to Help Answer 331 Population versus Samples 332 The Power of Averaging 333 Making Comparisons and Assessing Progress 335 Hypothesis Testing, Confidence Intervals, and p-Values 339 Equivalence Testing 364 Some Concerns with Significance Tests 368 Key Points 369 Discussion Questions 370   Chapter 16: Building Models Using ANOVA and Regression 371 Uncovering Relationships and Proving Cause and Effect 371 Empirical Models 375 ANOVA 376 Model Building Using Regression 380 Summary 391 Key Points 392 Discussion Questions 393   Chapter 17: Building Empirical Models Using DOE 395 Overview of DOE 395 Important Questions to Answer before an Experiment 400 Important Questions to Answer after Running the Experiment 404 Some Important Considerations 406 Types of Experiments 409 Sequential Approach to Experimentation 412 A Simple Example 412 Key Points 414 Discussion Questions 415   Chapter 18: Developing System Robustness Using DOE 417 Using System Models and Noise to Improve Robustness 417 Robustness Optimization of the Machining Process 421 Additional Options for Optimization 426 Key Points 429 Discussion Questions 429   Chapter 19: Robustness Optimization Using Taguchi’s Methods 431 Taguchi’s Contributions to Robust Design 431 Building a Detailed Model versus Improving System Robustness 433 Signal-to-Noise Ratio (S/N) 437 Example Problem 440 Key Points 452 Discussion Questions 454   Chapter 20: Tolerance Optimization 455 The Tolerance Design Problem 455 Controlling Variability 458 How Do Tolerances Affect Product Performance? 459 Steps for Tolerance Design 462 Tolerances and the Cost of Quality 464 Analysis of Tolerance Stacks 466 Optimization of Functional Responses 474 Key Points 477 Discussion Questions 477   Chapter 21: Reliability Functions and Life Distributions 479 Fundamental Reliability Functions 479 Useful Life Distributions 483 Key Points 493 Discussion Questions 494   Chapter 22: Life Data and Their Implications 495 Sources of Life Data 495 Competing Failure Modes, Mixtures of Life Distributions, and the Importance of Failure Analysis 496 Preventive Maintenance of Repairable Systems 499 Fitting a Life Distribution to a Data Set 501 Accelerated Life Testing (ALT) 506 Mixed Failures from Time and Actuations 510 Key Points 512 Discussion Questions 512   Section IV: Integration of Framework and Methods   Chapter 23: Critical Parameter Management 515 CPM and the Domains of Product Development 515 Linking Customer Satisfaction and Critical Parameters 519 Assessing Difficulty 522 Assessing Importance 525 Critical Parameters and Risk 528 Critical Parameter Measurement 531 CPM: A Process for Creating, Using, and Maintaining Information 532 Key Points 532 Discussion Questions 533   Chapter 24: An Illustration of Process Methods and Tools 535 Advanced Product Planning 536 Product Development 538 Epilogue 559   Chapter 25: Balancing Schedules, Budgets, and Business Risks 561 Ongoing Attention to Product Development Capabilities 563 Be a Student of the Process 572   Glossary 573 Bibliography 585 Index 593