On 2^nd of June 2012 the quality profession lost another icon: Genichi Taguchi died at the age of 88 years.

Taguchi is well-known for developing a methodology to improve quality and reduce costs, known as “Taguchi Methods”. He developed the quality loss function which is used to measure financial loss to society resulting from poor quality.

He is also known for his innovations in Design Of Experiments (DOE), where thousands of potential combinations of numerous variables (at different settings or levels) can be evaluated for the best parameters combination for the process, through a very small number of experiments.

Taguchi believed that quality starts from the design stage and not just as at inspection. In short, he believed quality was related to process design.

Taguchi authored more than 40 books with some of the most recent listed below:

• 2004 – Taguchi’s Quality Engineering Handbook
• 2004 – Computer-based Robust Engineering
• 2002 – The Mahalanobis-Taguchi Strategy
• 2002 – Paradoxical Strategy for Technology
• 2002 – Technology Development Using Mahalanobis-Taguchi Systems

Taguchi was a true pioneer of the modern quality movement . His work will be remembered for a long time to come.

Ahmed
BPIR.com