Taguchi methods in off-line quality control and application to the sulphurdioxide absorbant citrat method

ABSTRACT The discipline of off-line quality control enables the product or process development engineer to do his job in a quality manner and at the same time produce a quality product or process at the lowest possible cost. This discipline is based on an understanding of the loss function and is done in three stages: system design, parameter design and tolerance design. It is a common fact that quality is destroyed by variability and this variability affects customers negatively. Taguchi's approach to prevent this variability makes this approach different from other methods of quality control. Taguchi's complete and integrated system assists to determine product(process) specifications, develop design and manufacture the product(process) according to these specifications. Rather than remove the sources of noises affecting the performance, Taguchi method seeks to build products and processes that are robust against sources of noises, using inexpensive components and materials. In the application of this study, the optimal control factors levels that are robust against the sources of noises have been tried to determine for the citrat process.