Practices of robust design methodology in practice
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a design of experiments application in a company that works with robust design management (RDM) reflects the principles and practices of RDM.
Design/methodology/approach
The findings of this paper are based on an empirical study of a medium‐sized Swedish enterprise that develops and manufactures consumer products for domestic use and actively uses RDM. The study is comprised of an analysis of internal company documents, semi‐structured interviews and e‐mail correspondence.
Findings
The study reveals a gap between principles and tool use; a feasible tool is applied but in a suboptimal mode with a low contribution in terms of increased robustness. This gap could be bridged by practices that describe, on an activity‐based level, what needs to be done in order to fulfil the principles.
Originality/value
The results of this case explain the difficulties that companies face when trying to introduce RDM. It also provides insights into RDM implementation work at the company in question.
Keywords
Citation
Gremyr, I. and Hasenkamp, T. (2011), "Practices of robust design methodology in practice", The TQM Journal, Vol. 23 No. 1, pp. 47-58. https://doi.org/10.1108/17542731111097489
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2011, Emerald Group Publishing Limited