1. A hospital developed a design process consisting of the following steps: Plan, Design, Measure, Assess, and Improve. Below is a list of specific activities that comprise these five steps in random order. Place the activities in the most appropriate order within the correct step of the design process.

• Pilot or test design
• Submit proposal
• Define measures to assess design performance
• Implement design
• Identify potential solutions to reduce out of control conditions
• Develop business plan
• Disseminate improvements throughout the organization
• Monitor process performance Select the best solution to improve control Identify out-of-control conditions
• Propose new concept
• Create design to meet requirements
• Identify new improvement opportunities
• Monitor the new process design
• Implement the best solution to improve control
• Verify proposal alignment with strategic objectives
• Establish design team Identify causes of out of control conditions Analyze causes Identify and validate customer requirements Identify and evaluate best practices

2. A blueprint specification for the thickness of a refrigerator part at Lafrigeradora, Inc. is 0.040 ` 0.035 centimeters (cm). It costs $30 to scrap a part that is outside the specifications. Determine the Taguchi loss function for this situation.

3. An automatic cookie machine at ACM, Inc. must deposit a specified amount of 25 ` 0.3 grams (g) of dough for each cookie on a conveyor belt. It costs $0.03 to scrap a defective cookie. A sample of 50 cookies was drawn from the production process, which has been determined to be approximately normally distributed, and the results, in grams, can be found in worksheet tab Prob. 7-12 in the Excel file C07Data.

a. What is the value of k in the Taguchi loss function? b. Determine how much the process varies from the target specification, based on the mean dif- ference and standard deviation of the sample

results. What is the expected loss per unit? (Hint: Use Descriptive Statistics tool in the Excel Data Analysis menu)

4. At Elproparts Manufacturers' integrated circuit

business, managers gathered data from a customer focus group and found that any output voltage that exceeds 60 ` 3.5 volts was unacceptable to the customer. Exceeding these limits results in an esti- mated loss of $90. However, the manufacturer can still adjust the voltage in the plant using a quick diagnostic test that costs $3.75.

a. Determine the Taguchi loss function. b. Suppose the nominal specification remains at 60 volts. At what tolerance should the inte-

grated circuit be manufactured? (Hint: Use the Taguchi Template)

5. Massive Corporation's tested five motors in a 900- hour test. Compute the failure rate if, three failed after 200, 475, and 750 hours and the other two ran for the full 900 hours each.

6. A manufacturer of MP3 players purchases major electronic components as modules. The reliabilities of components differ by supplier (see the system diagram below).