A course in Design for Quality

Although many companies with world class products/processes use robust design methodologies, few engineers graduating today with a BS degree have much if any exposure to these methods. As a result of demand from industry for these skills in our graduates, we have developed a senior technical elective (or graduate course) entitled Design for Quality. This course is intended to define quality and to present a systematic approach to achieving quality products and processes at a low cost. Essentially the course teaches the Taguchi method of robust design. This paper discusses the rationale for the course, gives an overview of the key materials covered, and discusses some of the issues and difficulties related to developing such a class (selecting a textbook, overlap with a course in traditional design of experiments, etc.). A case study which is performed in-class by the students is also discussed