Quality
Function Deployment (QFD)
A Three Day Workshop
David G. Ullman offers four workshops designed to bring the latest in proven design processes to practicing product design engineers and others involved in product development.
The first workshop Modern Design Methods for Engineers is an introduction to current design process support best practices. This workshop introduces and integrates successful design best practices currently used in industry. It provides engineers and managers with the tools to assess their design process and to determine which design methods can best be integrated to improve product quality, cost and time to market. The workshop is an extension of The Mechanical Design Process, a text used in mechanical engineering design process courses at many Universities throughout the world.
The next two workshops, Robust Design Using Taguchi Methods and Quality Function Deployment (QFD) cover proven design methods which can show immediate results in improving product quality.
The forth workshop, Decision Making for Product Design Teams using DecisionLab, is a new presentation which will be available in the Fall of 1998. This workshop is based on the results of recent research on how to best support team decision making during the design process.
Details about these courses and other work by Dr. Ullman can be found at www.engr.orst.edu/~ullman, or by contacting him at:
541-754-3609, or 541-737-2336
ullman@engr.orst.edu
A brief vita of Dr. Ullman
David G. Ullman, P.E., Ph.D. ME, is Professor of Mechanical Engineering Design at Oregon State University and a Professional Engineer in Oregon and New York. He is a certified Taguchi Expert. He is author of The Mechanical Design Process, a text book, in its 2nd edition, used in most major universities to teach a unified product development process to mechanical engineers.
Dr. Ullman is an experienced product designer of medical products, aircraft control systems and bicycles. He founded and was first president of the BikeE Corporation, a manufacturer of unique bicycles. This company has experienced rapid growth producing products designed by Dr. Ullman. He holds two patents for current products.
Dr. Ullman is a machine design professor with over twenty years teaching
experience in mechanical engineering design methods. Dr. Ullman is the
founder and first chairman of the ASME Design Theory and Methodology Committee
and was chairman of the 1989 and 1990 Design Theory and Methodology Conferences.
He is a fellow of the ASME. He holds a Masters in Aerospace Engineering
from the University of Cincinnati and a Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering
from Ohio State University. He has provided design consultation services
to Hewlett Packard, Schlumberger, Boeing, Rockwell, SDRC, Metronic, Tektronix,
Brudi, Sequent, Lucent, Mentor Graphics and others.
There are many new methods and tools available and being developed to support the mechanical engineer. Some of these aid in simulation and graphical representation, others are best practices which assist in organizing the design process itself. This course focuses on these best practices. The course explores how many of the recent methods are integrated into the design process and what can be expected when using them.
This workshop gives an overview of important issues in product design. It begins with the assessment of the product design process in your company. It then shows how to employ the best of modern design methods resulting in higher quality products in shorter time. Emphasis is put on successful methods used in other companies.
You will learn how to:
- Assess your design processes
- Choose how best practices affect your product quality, cost and time to market
- Generate product requirements using Quality Function Deployment, QFD
- Apply the basics of Failure Modes and Effects Analysis, FMEA,
- Determine if you want training in concept generation with TRIZ
- Determine the benefits of Robust Design using Taguchi methods
- Apply six questions to determine technology readiness
- Make design decisions everyone can live with
Benefits you can realize
- Increased ability to identify the sources of product quality
- Increased understanding of your company's product development process
- Ability to assess design process tools successful in industry
- Ability to assess new design methods
- Improved ability to understand and resolve design team problems
- Improved product quality through improved design process
Who should attend:
* Product/Process designers and managers
* Product/Process technology developers
* Research and Development engineers
* Others responsible for insuring product quality
Quality
Function Deployment (QFD)
Company success depends on engineers developing new products with innovative features using the latest technologies. Thus, product development teams must be able to thoroughly understand the customers= present and future needs, and based on this understanding, rapidly develop new product concepts. To assist engineers in meeting this challenge, QFD helps engineers collect the voice of the customer and the capability of current company and competitor's products. It then aids in translating this information into measurable engineering specifications. QFD is a powerful planning, prioritizing and communication tool that ensures the customers= needs are thoroughly and rigorously explored early in the development process. In brief, QFD provides an efficient and effective way to develop, document and control engineering requirements.
You will learn how to do:
- Identify who your customers are
- Effectively benchmark your competition
- Develop clear/communicable product specifications
- Propagate the specifications to down-stream engineering and manufacturing
- Identify the customers' requirements both present and future
- Identify product features which are important before you design them
Benefits you can realize:
- Increased product quality
- Clear, realistic and manageable engineering specifications
- Reduced creeping specifications
- Reduced "fire fighting" before product launch
- Time savings by investing early in the design process
- A forum for negotiation about specifications
- Specification buy-in by marketing, manufacturing and engineering
Who should attend:
* Product designers and managers
* Marketing representatives
* Product/Process technology developers
* Others responsible for identifying and specifying new products
Robust
Design Using Taguchi Methods
This workshop covers the robust design techniques developed over the last 30 years by Genichi Taguchi. These techniques are widely used in Japan and are, in part responsible for the quality of Japanese products.
Robust design differs from traditional methods in that emphasis is on engineering strategies rather than the mechanics of executing experiments and conducting numerical analysis. Problem formulation through the identification of system function (what to measure and how to measure it), control factors (those parameters the designer can change) and noise factors (those factors outside the designer=s control) is the first key to achieving robustness of products and processes. Only after crafting the problem are analytical and experimental methods applied. These methods have been developed to minimize experiment and analysis time, minimize the effect of noise on the product/process and maximize the sensitivity of system. It is the combination of the engineering strategy with the analytical methods which make Taguchi's robust deign techniques so powerful and useful.
Published Results from using Taguchi's robust design techniques:
* 96% improvement of NiCAD battery life on board communication satellites (JPL for NASA)
* 10% size reduction, 80% development time reduction and 20% cost reduction in design of a choke for a microwave oven (L.G. Electronics)
* 80% time reduction in setting parameters for finite element analysis (Allergan Medical Optics)
* $50,000 annual cost savings in design of heat staking process (Ann Arbor Assembly Corp.)
* 60% reduction in mean response time for computer system (AT&T Bell Labs)
* $900,000 annual savings in the production of sheet-molded compound parts (Chrysler)
* $1.2M annual savings due to reduction in vacuum line connector failures (Flex Technologies)
* 96% reduction in brake squeal rate and reduced brake system weight (Nissan Motor)
* 67% manufacturing time reduction and 82% variation reduction in Space Shuttle nozzle brazing (Rockwell)
* 66% reduction in variability in arrival time and paper orientation (Xerox)
* 90% reduction in encapsulation variation (LSI Corp.)
You will learn how to:
- Make your products insensitive to aging, the environment, manufacturing variations and other noises.
- Take quality issues into consideration during product/process development.
- Identify the ideal function of a technology
- Evaluate robustness using signal-to-noise ratio
- Effectively design experiments for technology development
- Optimize parameter values and tolerances for products/processes
Benefits you can realize:
- Reduced product variability
- Robust new/current technologies
- Increased quality designed into product
- Reduced time in product development
- Better control of new technologies
- Better understanding of technology for transfer to future product generations
- Assurance that laboratory results are reproducible in manufactured product
Who should attend:
- Product/Process designers and managers
- Product/Process technology developers
- Research and Development engineers
- Others responsible for insuring product quality
Decision
Making for Product Design Teams
Decisions made during the design process determine the cost of the product; the methods and ease of manufacturing the product; the customers' opinion of the product; and the quality of the product. Yet, most product development teams pay very little attention to how they make decisions. There may be discussion of options, concern for criteria and constraints, but there is little work done to insure the completeness and effectiveness of the decision making process.
This course is unique in its focus on making effective decisions during the product realization process. It is based on the ConsensusModelTM of design deliberation. This model insures the right information is organized to lead to the best possible decision. It takes into account that each person on the design team has unique and significant knowledge and opinions about what is important. It shows how to integrate these differences to reach a robust decision which is improved as the project progresses. DecisionLabTM is a PC based program which embodies the Consensus ModelTM . Using DecisionLab a design team can readily see the effects of their evaluation of the alternatives and assess how each team members' view point affects the decision.
You will learn how to:
- Identify key issues
- Generate consistent criteria for evaluating alternatives
- Evaluate alternatives in a balanced and fair manner
- Manage argumentation and negotiation
- Reach a consensus everyone can live with
- Decide where to apply scarce resources (i.e. time, people and money)
to improve decision quality
- Avoid wasting time discussing unimportant issues
- Use DecisionLabTM to support the decision making process
Benefits you can realize
- Improved decisions on key product issues
- A clear and consistent decision making methodology
- Decision buy-in from all parties
- Documentation generated with no additional effort
- Ability to revisit decisions with new information
Who should attend:
* Product/Process designers and managers
* Marketing and manufacturing personnel responsible for product development
* Product/Process technology developers
* Research and Development engineers
* Others responsible for insuring product quality