Genichi Taguchi is famous for his pioneering methods of robust quality engineering. One of the major contributions that he made to quality improvement methods is Taguchi designs.

Designed experiments were first used by agronomists during the last century. This method seemed highly theoretical at first, and was initially restricted to agronomy. Taguchi made the designed experiment approach more accessible to practitioners in the manufacturing industry.

Thanks partly to him, design of experiments (DOE) has become quite popular in many companies, and these methods are widely taught in universities and engineering schools. Here I would like to describe differences between Taguchi DOEs and standard factorial DOEs.

Taguchi designs

Both Taguchi designs and factorial designs are available in the DOE menu in Minitab Statistical Software. To select a design go to Stat > DOE.

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