Managing product improvement with quality tools and factors

Summary form only given. The design of a product begins with an idea and continues through a variety of planning, design, manufacturing and testing phases until actual production begins and the product is made available to the customer. A design that allows for component and other possible sources of variation, is known as a robust design. This paper discusses robust design from the perspective of established quality philosophies advanced by Crosby, Deming and Juran, and examines how they are related to current views on managing product improvement. This paper also outlines the use of quality factors and tools in the product development cycle and addresses the methodology to convert each quality function into product improvement expressed in producers´ language