Quality Guru
Genichi Taguchi
In May 1998, Taguchi was made an honorary member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ), one of many awards and commendations bestowed on him. In support of his nomination it was said that his leadership in the quality control field was unsurpassed, and his influence would be felt for a long time in engineering, quality fields and industry sectors, throughout the world.
Taguchi is famous for his pioneering methods of modern quality control and low-cost quality engineering. He is the founder of what has come to be known as the Taguchi method, which seeks to improve product quality at the design stage by integrating quality control into product design, using experiment and statistical analysis. His methods have been said to fundamentally change the philosophy and practice of quality control.
Life and career
Genichi Taguchi, born in Japan in 1924, served in the Navigation Institute of the Japanese Navy during the Second World War. He then worked in the Ministry of Public Health and Welfare and in the Institute of Statistical Mathematics of the Ministry of Education, meeting the renowned statistician, Matosaburo Masuyame, who nurtured Taguchi's statistical skills.
In 1950, Taguchi joined the Electrical Communication Laboratory (ECL) of Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Company, gaining six years experience in experimentation and data analysis while developing telephone switching systems. The commercial benefits resulting from his ECL work helped Taguchi to earn the Deming prize in 1960, for his contribution to the field of quality engineering. He went on to win this award, one of Japan's most prestigious commendations, a further three times.
In 1962, Taguchi was awarded his doctorate by Kyushu University, after working with industrial statisticians (and beginning his work on the signal to noise ratio) at Bell Laboratories in the US. He continued working for ECL in a consulting role and became part of the associate research staff of the Japanese
In May 1998, Taguchi was made an honorary member of the American Society for Quality (ASQ), one of many awards and commendations bestowed on him. In support of his nomination it was said that his leadership in the quality control field was unsurpassed, and his influence would be felt for a long time in engineering, quality fields and industry sectors, throughout the world.
Taguchi is famous for his pioneering methods of modern quality control and low-cost quality engineering. He is the founder of what has come to be known as the Taguchi method, which seeks to improve product quality at the design stage by integrating quality control into product design, using experiment and statistical analysis. His methods have been said to fundamentally change the philosophy and practice of quality control.
Life and career
Genichi Taguchi, born in Japan in 1924, served in the Navigation Institute of the Japanese Navy during the Second World War. He then worked in the Ministry of Public Health and Welfare and in the Institute of Statistical Mathematics of the Ministry of Education, meeting the renowned statistician, Matosaburo Masuyame, who nurtured Taguchi's statistical skills.
In 1950, Taguchi joined the Electrical Communication Laboratory (ECL) of Nippon Telephone and Telegraph Company, gaining six years experience in experimentation and data analysis while developing telephone switching systems. The commercial benefits resulting from his ECL work helped Taguchi to earn the Deming prize in 1960, for his contribution to the field of quality engineering. He went on to win this award, one of Japan's most prestigious commendations, a further three times.
In 1962, Taguchi was awarded his doctorate by Kyushu University, after working with industrial statisticians (and beginning his work on the signal to noise ratio) at Bell Laboratories in the US. He continued working for ECL in a consulting role and became part of the associate research staff of the Japanese