An analysis of methods to achieve robustness towards a lean product development process

Since Taguchi’s introduction to robustness much has been researched about it, particularly into the field of new product development. Despite the attention given to the subject by academia, recent research has found that industry has yet to fully grasp its benefits. Among the main attributed factors, lie the complexity of the proposed statistical tools and a general misconception of the concept and its implementation. Based on Toyota’s Product Development System, the term Conceptual Robustness is broadly defined based on three forms of variation: physical, design and market. Parting from the this definition and as part of the LeanPPD Project, the objective of this paper’s contribution is threefold: 1), to present the state of the art on research in the area of robustness, 2) propose a taxonomy in order to understand the different scopes of available resources and 3) finally identifying the possibilities to achieve conceptual robustness (that of Sobek et al., 1999) with the available resources presented to the industry by academic research.