Our "Guru of the Month," Dr. Genichi Taguchi was born in 1924. Throughout his career, Taguchi worked in the Ministry of Public Health and Welfare, Institute of Statistical Mathematics, Ministry of Education, consultant to Morinaga Pharmaceuticals and Moriaga Seika. In 1950, Taguchi was employed as a visiting professor at Indian Statistical Institute, it was also the year he met Walter Shewart. In 1965, Aoyama Gakuin University in Japan invited Taguchi to teach and he stayed on for seventeen (17) years and helped develop the university's engineering department. In the early 80’s, Taguchi was invited to provide seminars to the executives of Ford Motor Company, by 1983 he was the executive director of the Ford Supplier, Inc.

Taguchi is recognized for his definitions of product specifications in relation to Quality and its translation into cost-effective production. He believed that product acceptance completely based on specification limits is thoroughly flawed. Taguchi states that the concept of quality and reliability should be addressed in the design stage in order to cap variation in the manufacturing process.

The Quality Loss Function, which was developed in the 1970’s, provides a technique to assess product tests before the product hits production. Although loss will occur within acceptable limits, it will be viewed that in the case of an increase or decrease in a quality characteristic, then the loss function also changes in relation.

Taguchi’s product development system consisted of three (3) stages including: 1) The system design stage which is the non-statistical stage for engineering, marketing and customer knowledge; 2) The parameter stage, which includes how the product should perform against the stated parameters; and 3) The tolerance design stage, which includes defining the balance between manufacturing cost and loss.

Taguchi’s accomplishments were measured with the Deming Application prize (1960), Deming awards for literature on quality (1951, 1953 and 1984), Willard F Rockwell Medal by the International Technologies Institute (1986). Taguchi also received the Indigo Ribbon from the Emperor of Japan (1986) for his outstanding contributions to Japanese economics and industry. In 1995, the Japanese Society of Quality Control made him an honorary member.