Meeting Specifications is Not Good Enough—The Taguchi Loss Function

摘要

Variation is not free; not even when all outcomes appear to meet specifications. Variation consumes resources, money, and time. Where a significant proportion of technical personnel's time is expended investigating OOS results, time is wasted that could have been spent improving the process and the product. Reducing variation by achieving a stable state and then minimising variability is particularly crucial in highly regulated industries such as the pharmaceutical and aeronautical industries. Close enough is not good enough; nor is being satisfied with meeting specifications.