Title: Product development processes – from deterministic to probabilistic: a Design for 6-Sigma approach to lean product validation, Part II

Authors: Faysal Khalaf, Kai Yang

Addresses: Ford Motor Company, 9060 Trillium Lane, Plymouth, MI 48170, USA. ' Wayne State University, Industrial and Manufacturing Engineering, 4815 4th Street, Detroit, MI 48202, USA

Abstract: An important phase of any product development process is design validation. This phase ensures through a predetermined testing strategy that the product is capable of delivering its functional requirements robustly for a specified duration of time. This testing strategy should reflect the type of products designed and produced in a particular era. Nowadays, product requirements are changing and their designs are becoming even more complicated which represents a challenging opportunity to manage and perform associated required validation. This paper capitalises on proven concepts of Design for 6-Sigma (DFSS), axiomatic design, Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA), and robust design to present a lean approach to validating a product. The focus of this approach is to minimise redundancy and potential waste that can be observed in conducting hardware/CAE testing. An alternative to widely used ad hoc testing is a prescribed integration and sequence of testing that are performed to study specific families of failure modes in order to gain valuable information in reaching design validation.

Keywords: design for six sigma; DFSS; axiomatic design; product development; design validation; lean product validation; computer aided engineering; CAE; failure mode and effects analysis; FMEA; failure mode analysis; FMA; design of experiments; DOE; quality function deployment; QFD; risk priority number; RPN; product design; probabilistic representation; product quality; product robustness.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPD.2006.008873

International Journal of Product Development, 2006 Vol.3 No.1, pp.18 - 36

Published online: 01 Feb 2006 *

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