Int J Adv Manuf Technol (2005) 25: 1180–1190
DOI 10.1007/s00170-003-1962-x
ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Kun-Lin Hsieh · Lee-Ing Tong
Process quality improvement of a qualitative response
with dynamic characteristic
Received: 4 July 2003 / Accepted: 18 September 2003 / Published online: 29 March 2004
 Springer-Verlag London Limited 2004
Abstract To achieve quality improvement in manufacturing
environments, the design of experiment (DOE) and Taguchi
methods are two efficiency approaches to address such prob-
lems. Applying those methods to resolve quality improvement
frequently focuses on the measurable quality response (or quan-
titative response). However, the complexity of products or pro-
cesses is gradually increased and due to the limitation of measur-
ing equipment, the quality response could not be directly meas-
ured. Visual inspection or measurement is then used to judge
the quality for nonmeasurable response (or qualitative response).
Basically, for assessing the quality of a qualitative response, it is
initially divided into several classes or ordered categories. As for
customers’ requirements gradually changing and applications’
flexibility gradually increasing, a dynamic structure for this pro-
cess will be another important consideration for manufacturers.
That is, it causes the work of quality improvement to be dynami-
cally analyzed. Dr. Taguchi had proposed a dynamic method to
analyze such issues. However, only several studies focused on
quality improvement of a qualitative response during the static
characteristic. Parameter optimization approaches were seldom
proposed to address quality improvement of a qualitative re-
sponse with the dynamic characteristic. Therefore, in this study,
we proposed an integrated parameter-optimization approach to
resolve quality improvement of a qualitative response with dy-
namic characteristics. An illustrative example, quality improve-
ment of lead twist during the stamping process for lead frame
manufacturing at Science-based park in Taiwan, is employed to
demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.
Keywords Dynamic characteristic · Parameter optimization ·
Quality improvement · Qualitative response
K.-L. Hsieh (u) · L.-I. Tong
Department of Information Management,
Nanhua University,
32 Chung Keng Li, Dalin Chiayi 622, Taiwan, R.O.C.
Assistant professor
E-mail: klhsieh2644@mail200.com.tw
Tel.: +886-5-2721001, ext. 56430
1 Introduction
Fierce market competitiveness has driven manufacturers to focus
on the work of enhancing their product’s quality. Off-line quality
control is a well-known cost-effective means of optimizing the
product or process quality. Design parameters and noise param-
eters are the factors heavily influencing quality of responses for
the product or manufacturing processes. Herein, experimental
designers can control design parameters and the noise param-
eters cannot be directly controlled by them. The technique of
experimental design is frequently applied to study the relation-
ship between quality response and design factors or noise factors.
The primary goal is to improve quality via a robust design. A ro-
bust design is desired to obtain the optimum setting of design
parameters for a product or a manufacturing process in such
a manner that the product attains its desired target with minimum
variation.
For most products, the measurable (or quantitative) qual-
ity response is frequently considered due to the inherent na-
ture of the quality response. Conventional experimental design
techniques were used to investigate the relationship between
a quantitative quality response and the design dimensions. Ad-
ditionally, it had been applied well for many regions: e.g., op-
timization of chemical processes or manufacturing processes.
Taguchi’s method [10] combines experimental design techniques
with quality loss considerations, which will make it be an ef-
ficient approach for process improvement. In some cases, the
quality response of interest may be a nonmeasurable response
(qualitative). The nonmeasurable response can also be described
linguistically [15, 16]. For instance, in assessing the uniformity
of quality of the ion implanting process on a wafer for semi-
conductor manufacturing, linguistic descriptions, such as perfect
uniformity, acceptable uniformity, and worst uniformity, could
define efficiently the performance of quality. Using a linguis-
tic description allows practitioners to obtain more information
hidden in engineering philosophy. Taguchi [12] had proposed
an accumulation analysis (AA) to achieve the parameter opti-
mization of an ordered categorical response. In a later work,

Nair [9] also developed a scoring scheme (SS) and, Jean and
Guo [4] modified Nair’s SS to propose a weighted probabil-
ity scoring scheme (WPSS) for addressing the parameter op-
timization of an ordered categorical response. Fuzzy set the-
ory [5] is a well-known approach used to manage the uncer-
tainties of the qualitative type or the linguistic description of
response, especially for decision making for weight for several
items [1]. In this study, the fuzzy set theory is also applied to as-
sess the weight value of the linguistic category for a qualitative
response.
Requirements of customers gradually change and the flexi-
bility of applications gradually increase, causing the work of
quality improvement to be dynamically analyzed. Restated, the
quality of response may be varied with some conditions and it
can be viewed as a dynamic system. For instance, a plating pro-
cess can be viewed as a dynamic system – the thickness of plat-
ing varies with the amount of passing current. Taguchi [10, 14]
also developed a solution for the dynamic system. The variabil-
ity and sensitivity of the response are simultaneously considered
in Taguchi’s dynamic system. In this study, we extend Taguchi’s
dynamic method to a robust structure. Not only the variabil-
ity and sensitivity of a qualitative response are considered, but
the performance of response is also included in the integrated
approach. Until now, only several studies focused on quality
improvement of a qualitative response during the static charac-
teristics. Parameter optimization approaches were seldom pro-
posed to address quality improvement of a qualitative response
with dynamic characteristics. Therefore, in this study, we pro-
pose an integrated parameter optimization approach to resolve
quality improvement of a qualitative response with dynamic
characteristics.
The rest of this study is organized as follows. Section 2 re-
views pertinent literature involving optimization techniques of
a qualitative response, Taguchi’s dynamic system, and the fuzzy
set theory. Subsequently, Sect. 3 systematically describes the de-
tailed procedure of the proposed parameter optimization. Sec-
tion 4 provides an illustrative case involving the lead twist prob-
lem during a stamping process from a lead frame manufacturer
in Taiwan’s Science-Based Park to demonstrate the effectiveness
of the proposed approach. Concluding remarks will be made in
Sect. 5.
2 Literature review
2.1 Parameter optimization for the qualitative (or linguistic)
response
To resolve the parameter optimization of a qualitative response,
Taguchi [12] had developed the accumulation analysis (AA) to
address it. Four steps are constructed in Taguchi’s AA: (1) defin-
ing the categories and the number of categories for a qualitative
response, (2) drawing the effects of the factor levels upon the
probability value, (3) plotting the accumulated probabilities, and
(4) deciding the optimum parameter setting and predicting the
accumulated probabilities of each category under optimum con-
1181
ditions. Taguchi also recommended using techniques of Omega
(Ω) transformation. Omega transformation, which transfers the
accumulation probability of factor level to a corresponding Ω
value. Then it can yield the predicted accumulated probability.
Next, the optimum parameter setting can be screening on the fac-
tors’ effect diagram. Subjective judgment, while attempting to
determine the optimum parameter setting from the factors’ effect
diagram, will be frequently used.
Nair [9] presented two scoring schemes (SS) to separately
study the dispersion and location effects. The mean square is rec-
ommended as evidence of the important effect. Correspondingly,
the optimal condition solutions of both effects can be obtained
according to the contribution of the dispersion effect and the lo-
cation effect of each control factor. The final optimal control fac-
tor level combination is obtained by making an adjustment action
between the dispersion effect and the location effect. This ap-
proach is computationally complex for practitioners. Moreover,
the final adjustments are limited to well-experienced engineers,
who must use their subjective judgment to compromise disper-
sion and location effects.
Jean and Guo [4] proposed a weighted probability scoring
scheme (WPSS) to reduce Nair’s SS drawbacks. Their approach,
which is simpler and more straightforward than Nair’s SS, com-
bines the dispersion and location effects into a single mean
square deviation (MSD). According to the ordered categorical
data definition, the appropriate characteristic is employed and
the expected mean square deviation can be solved. The optimal
control factor level combination is obtained by selecting the min-
imum mean square deviation. Although simpler than Nair’s SS,
their approach suffers two drawbacks: (1) Their approach must
still use subjective judgment to compromise the dispersion and
location effect and (2) the weight given might confuse an inex-
perienced engineer.
2.2 Taguchi’s dynamic system
Parameter design is also commonly referred to as robust de-
sign [10]. Taguchi’s parameter design can be divided into two
classes, depending on the system’s characteristics: static and
dynamic. These two classes differ primarily in that the latter
employs the signal factor to analysis and the former does not.
As is well recognized, the dynamic characteristic is an import-
ant class in Taguchi’s parameter design. It can describe a real
problem well by using Taguchi’s dynamic system. The design
parameters and noise parameters can influence a product and op-
erational process. The design parameters, as controlled by the
designer, can be divided into (1) signal factor, which only influ-
ences the average of the quality response, and (2) control fac-
tors, which will influence the variability of quality response. The
noise parameters cannot be controlled or they are too expensive
to control. Parameter design of Taguchi’s method concentrates
primarily on selecting parameters settings to minimize the effect
of the noise factor. Restated, the design parameters for a prod-
uct or process should be set up so that the response is close to
the desired target with the minimum variability [10, 14]. Experi-
mental design is frequently employed to explore the relationship
1182
between the design parameters and response. In a Taguchi ex-
periment, the design parameters and noise parameters are first
arranged in an orthogonal array (OA). Then a signal-to-noise
ratio (SN ratio) is computed for each experimental combination.
The SN ratio, one of Dr. Taguchi’s major contributions to quality
engineering, is an essential evaluation of parameter design [10].
The quality characteristic Y is generally regarded as a function
of signal factor M for a dynamic system. The relationship be-
tween signal factor and quality characteristics is assumed to be
linear, i.e.,
Y = βM + ε, (1)
where β denotes the sensitivity and ε represents the error term.
By considering the different level combination of the control fac-
tors, Eq. 1 can be rewritten as
Y = β(d)M + ε(d), (2)
where d denotes the level combination of control factor, β(d)
represents the system sensitivity under d, and ε(d) is the random
error term under d. To resolve a system’s robustness, Taguchi
proposed the formula
β2
η = 10 log (3)
MSE
for evaluating the SN ratio in decibels (dB). The mean square
of error (MSE) represents the mean square of the distance be-
tween the measured response and the best-fit line. SN ratio and
sensitivity (S) are utilized as the index for evaluating variability
and sensitivity. For understanding the detailed contents about SN
ratio and S value, readers can refer to [10].
Wasserman [14] presented a case study of parameter de-
sign with dynamic characteristics by using multiple regression
models. However, practitioners with limited statistical training
have difficulty in comprehending such a method. Lunani et
al. [7] proposed two graphical methods, the sensitivity-standard
deviation plot and the gamma plot, for identifying suitable
measures of dispersion and for performing data analysis. The
two plots provide different views of the data and, they recom-
mended that two plots be used jointly to supplement the dif-
ferent sources of information. However, the statistical theory
for constructing two plots is more complicated. McCaskey and
Tsui [8] discussed that Taguchi’s dynamic model can be di-
vided into a multiplicative model and an additive model. They
also recommended that two-phase optimization in Taguchi’s dy-
namic system can only be used for the multiplicative model.
A new procedure was proposed to resolve the additive model
in Tauchi’s dynamic system. However, the complicated com-
putation of their procedure will be difficult for those having
limited statistical training. Su and Hsieh [11] proposed a novel
means of applying neural networks to achieve quality improve-
ment for a response with dynamic characteristics. Although the
application of their methodology is flexible for others, the en-
gineering analysis for design factors cannot be included in their
methodology.
2.3 Fuzzy set theory
The grade of representation in real life may have uncertainties [5].
Some possible misunderstandings may occur when the uncertain-
ties are represented in conventional binary form. The uncertainties
among the grade of the representation can be represented well by a
linguistic description. There are few differences between fuzzy set
and traditional set: the traditional set takes a characteristic func-
tion only with values 0 and 1 to describe a set, and the fuzzy set
take a membership function (MF) with the interval [0, 1] to de-
scribe a set. Zadeh [15, 16] proposed a method based on fuzzy
set to formalize linguistic assessment. Basically, the fuzzy set can
be constructed by set elements with respect to the correspond-
ing problem. Herein, set elements can also be defined as possible
factors affecting the linguistic description. Employing the MF in
the fuzzy set can possess the defuzzied activity. That is, the MF
can transform the linguistic assessment into a value in the interval
[0, 1]. The magnitudes of the membership values are the member-
ship degree of a fuzzy term with respect to the set elements in the
fuzzy set. Accordingly, the possible misunderstandings using the
conventional binary set can be avoided by using the concept of
the fuzzy set. Lai and Chang [6] proposed a fuzzy multiresponse
optimization procedure to derive an appropriate combination or
process of parameter setting. A strategy of optimizing the most
possible response values and minimizing the deviation from the
most possible values is used because one must consider not only
the most possible values but also the imprecision of the predicted
response. Tong and Su [13] also proposed a procedure, capable
of applying fuzzy set theory to multiple-attribute decision making
(MADM) [2], to optimize a multiresponse problem. That investi-
gation also applied a similar technique for ordering performance
by the similarity to an idea solution index to determine the opti-
mum parameter setting. For detailed content of the fuzzy set the-
ory, readers can refer to [5, 15, 16]. Chen [1] had applied fuzzy
set theory to study the parameter optimization for multiple re-
sponse problems for considering the weight values of the multiple
responses. Then Hsieh [3] proposed an integrated methodology
to achieve quality improvement for processes with the qualita-
tive response. His approach applied fuzzy set theory to resolving
the uncertainties between linguistic categories for a qualitative
response. However, the significance of design factors cannot be
studied in this approach. Restated, the flexibility for engineering
application or engineering analysis will be limited.
3 Procedure for parameter optimization of
a qualitative response with dynamic characteristic
Five phases are included in the proposed procedure. Phase 1 will
define initially the category and the number of the category. Then
the weight of the corresponding category for a qualitative re-
sponse incorporating the engineer’s knowledge and experience
into decision making will be computed. In Phase 2, a summa-
rized evaluation value is computed by using the weight value
derived from Phase 1. The difference between the summarized
evaluation value and the target for each category can be de-
 1183

termined in Phase 3. Next, in Phase 4, we will determine the Table 2. The reference table of crisp number
optimum parameter setting by screening those factors in the
sequence affecting the variability, sensitivity, and quality with SCALE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
respect to the result obtained from Phase 2 and Phase 3. Fi- No. of terms Two There Five Five Six Seven Nine Eleven
nally, depending on the predecided criterion and carrying out
confirmed experiments, one will verify the effectiveness of the 1. Excellent 0.954
optimum parameter setting. The detailed procedure will be given 2. Very high 0.909 0.917 0.909 0.917 0.864
3. High–very high 0.875 0.701
as follows. Figure 2 graphically depicts the flowchart of the pro- 4. high 0.750 0.833 0.717 0.885 0.750 0.773 0.750 0.667
posed approach. 5. Fairly high 0.7 0.584 0.630
6. Mol high 0.637 0.590
Phase 1: define the categories, the number of categories for 7. Medium 0.583 0.500 0.500 0.500 0.500 0.500 0.500
a qualitative response, and compute their corresponding weight 8. Mollow 0.363 0.410
9. Fair low 0.300 0.416 0.370
values 10. Low 0.166 0.283 0.115 0.250 0.227 0.250 0.333
11. Low–very low 0.125 0.299
For analyzing engineering problems, engineers’ knowledge or 12. Very low 0.091 0.083 0.091 0.083 0.136
experience can provide more available information about it. Es- 13. None 0.046
pecially, the knowledge and experience are available for decision
making about weight value for several items. The fuzzy set the-
ory will be employed to incorporate the engineers’ knowledge
being chosen are employed to represent such three
and experience into analysis; two steps are included in this phase.
categories. However, if the different scales are consid-
Step 1: The definition of categories and the numbers of cat- ered, the scale with the minimum categories should
egories will be determined with respect to engineers’ be used, e.g., two engineers choose three linguistic
knowledge or the judgment of the experienced engineers. descriptions (high, medium, low) to represent quality
Step 2: To decide the weight value of each category. of response, six scales (SCALE 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8) from
(i) Incorporating the concept suggested by Chen [1] Table 1 can be the choice. Herein, we should choose
with engineers’ knowledge or experience, the impor- scale 2 for including the minimum linguistic terms.
tance of each category can be represented as several (iii) After choosing the linguistic descriptions from
linguistic descriptions. Thirteen descriptions are fre- Table 1, the crisp number can be determined by
quently used. Table 1 lists the definition of linguistic screening out Table 2, e.g., scale 2 is chosen from
descriptions. Table 1 and three linguistic descriptions (high,
(ii) In Table 1, eight corresponding scales are also pro- medium, low) are also determined. Then three crisp
vided. The linguistic term and the corresponding scale numbers 0.833, 0.500, and 0.166 are screened out
will be denoted as yes in Table 1. The scale can be from Table 2. The summation of the crisp numbers
regarded as the maximum numbers for including lin- being screened out does not equal 1. Hence, they
guistic terms, e.g., scale 3 denotes that we can describe should be standardized into a weight value lying be-
a response by the maximum categories of five (very tween 0 and 1. The weight value will be viewed
high, high, medium, low, very low). If a response just as the weight of each category, denoted as (Lw) K ,
has three categories, the three linguistic descriptions where k = 1, 2,
. . . , s and k means the number of
categories and sk=1 (Lw)k = 1.
(iv) Assuming a engineers assess the weight value of the
Table 1. The reference table of eight scale category, n weight values can be obtained (n ≤ a).
The ratio of the nth is an /a, where an denotes the
SCALE 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 numbers of engineers in the nth term. If the weight
No. of terms Two There Five Five Six Seven Nine Eleven value of the kth category in the nth term is (Lw)nk ,
the weight value Wk of the kth category will be given
1. Excellent Yes as follows:
2. Very high Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
3. High–very high Yes Yes 
n
4. High Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Wk = (Lw) pk × (a p /a). (4)
5. Fairly high Yes Yes Yes p=1
6. Mol high Yes Yes
7. Medium Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
8. Mollow Yes Yes
9. Fair low Yes Yes Yes Phase 2: design experiments and compute the summarized eval-
10. Low Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes uation value for each trial
11. Low–very low Yes Yes
12. Very low Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Step 1: Engineers utilize brainstorming to screen out the possible
13. None Yes
design factors. Then the level of each design factor can
1184

also be determined and an orthogonal array (OA) L x will
be chosen, where x denotes the number of experimental
trial (x = 1, 2, . . . , h).
Step 2: Compute the accumulatively weighted ratio value Cxuk
for the xth experimental trial for the kth category under
the uth signal factor. Assuming m xuk (k = 1, 2, . . . , s)
denotes the number of the kth observation for the xth
(x = 1, 2, . . . , h) experimental trial

under the uth (u =
1, 2, . . . , g) signal factor, where sk=1 m xuk = m and m
denotes the number of observations. The accumulatively
weighted ratio value can be computed as follows:

e by using summarized evaluation value Yx and the signal
Cxue = Rxuk Wk , e = 1, 2, . . . , s, (5)
k=1
where Rxuk = m xuk /m denotes the ratio value of the xth
experimental trial for the kth category under the uth sig-
nal factor; Wk denotes the weight value of the kth cate-
gory.
Step 3: The summarized evaluation value Yxu for the xth (x =
1, 2, . . . , h) experimental trial under the uth signal factor
will be given as follows:

s cept of the qualitative response can be viewed as the
Yxu = Cxuk . (6)
k=1
Phase 3: compute the difference between the ratio of each cate-
gory and the target for each experimental trial
2 between the ratio value R
Step 1: Compute the difference d xu xuk
of the xth experimental trial for the kth category and the
target value Tk under the uth signal factor:
denotes the target value.
Step 2: Integrate the difference values of all g levels for signal
factor into an assessment index for the xth experimental
trial. Such an assessment index will be given as follows:
 g 

Dx = − log10 d xu .
2
(8)
u=1
Phase 4: determine the optimum factor/level combination
Step 1: Compute the estimated slope value β̂ and variability σ̂ 2
factor. Then plot the response diagram by utilizing the
SN ratio and the S ratio. Screen out those factors affect-
ing variability and sensitivity.
Step 2: Utilizing Eq. 8 to screen out the adjustable factors to
adjust the fitted regression line to the target line. That
is, the performance can be enhanced after doing the
work.
The adjustable factors, which are the factors that can
be changed without affecting variability or sensitivity,
only have effect on the performance. Besides, the con-
larger-the-better (LTB) and the goal of the adjustable
factor is to move the fitted regression line to the tar-
get line. Figure 1 depicts the concept of adjustable
factor.
Step 3: Determine the optimum parameter setting in the se-
quence of variability reduction, sensitivity, and perform-
ance enhancement.
Phase 5: Confirm and compare with the given criteria


s The comparison criteria can be predecided according to the real
2
d xu = [Wk (Rxuk − Tk )]2 (7) requirements. To verify the effectiveness of the result, we must
k=1 conduct a confirmed experiment. If the result cannot be accepted
where or it cannot arrive at the criteria on which we predecided, it must
 go back to phase II to reanalyze the design factors and signal
1, k = 1 factor or redesign The experiment or repeat the entire procedure
Tk =
0, k = 2, 3, . . . , s until the criteria can be met.

Fig. 1. The concept diagram of the ad-

justable factor

Fig. 2. The flowchart of the proposed parameter optimization
4 Illustrative case study – quality improvement of
lead twist in Taiwan’s lead frame manufacturer
4.1 Problem description
An illustrative example, from a lead frame manufacturer at
Science-based park in Taiwan, is employed to demonstrate the
detailed procedure for our proposed approach. Lead frame is
a necessary material for conventional integrated circuit (IC)
packaging. A basic manufacturing flowchart of lead frame can
be divided into four processes: stamping, plating, downsetting,
and taping processes. The purpose of the stamping process is to
cut the unnecessary part from a patterned bare and the proto-
type of lead frame can be formed. Lead twist, lead planarity, lack
Ag plating, Ag nonplating, over downset depth or under downset
depth are the defective statuses frequently being inspected dur-
ing lead frame manufacturing. Among those defect statuses, lead
twist has been recognized as an important source for causing bro-
ken wire during the wire bonding in the later packaging process.
1185
Lead (or finger) could be twisted for external torque or external
force and, it would lead to a cost loss and lower yield. Hence,
the lead frame manufacturer decided to institute quality improve-
ment for the defect status of lead twist. By the way, the effects
of design factors are also studied. For the stamping process, the
bare will be injected initially into the stamping station. Then the
upper mode will press downward to cut the unnecessary part bare
to locate it correctly on the guide. Next, the prototype of the lead
frame will be injected out of the stamping station after a given
operating time (or cutting time) and a given operating pressure.
Different cutting speed, cutting force, torque of upper and lower
mode, planarity of punch and dies, or thickness of bare will af-
fect the quality of stamping. If lead twist occurs, the gold wire
line cannot be mounted well on leads during the bonding process.
Restated, it will lead to wire breaking and will increase yield loss
for the packaging process.
In this improvement project, quadratic flat package (QFP)
lead frame is initially chosen. The reason is that this type of
QFP gradually has a huge amount of production and the cost is
1186

higher than other types. The chosen QFP has 100 leads, where
each side has 24 leads. Figure 3 depicts the architecture diagram.
The quality response we focused on is lead twist, and no equip-
ment can directly measure the twist angle. The manufacturer had
self-designed a line-scanning matcher to evaluate the twist angle
now. That is, in such equipment, there are several ordered cate-
gories with different angle ranges. The scanning signal obtained
from measuring is then compared with those categories in the
laser scanning matcher and the matching category can be deter-
mined. The result obtained by the line scanning matcher will be
a range, the definition of twist angle being that angle between
the horizontal line and the maximum twist side. Figure 4 de-
picts the definition of twist angle. From the definition of twist Fig. 5. The relationship between ratio of width and thickness and twist angle
angle, the quality response can be viewed as an ordered categor- less than 30
ical response.
To satisfy the customer’s requirements, the design of the lead
frame could provide several ratios of width-thickness. Under dif-

Fig. 6. The location diagram of 20 leads

ferent ratios of width-thickness, the quality response could lead

to a significant result. To analyze the mechanism of the stamp-
ing process and the material feature of the lead frame by utilizing
engineering knowledge or engineering experience, the larger the
ratio of width-thickness, the smaller is the twist angle. From his-
torical data analysis, the relationship between the twist angle and
the ratio of width-thickness will be close to linear. It is depicted
in Fig. 5. After recognizing the condition, it is viewed as a dy-
namic system and the ratio of width-thickness can be extracted
to be the signal factor. Hence, this project can be viewed as
Fig. 3. The diagram of lead frame
the quality improvement of a qualitative response with dynamic
characteristics.
The inspected leads are determined as 20 leads and the cor-
responding location is depicted in Fig. 6. The inspection for the
20 leads primarily depends on historical inspection conditions
and engineering experience.

4.2 Analysis result

The analysis procedure is given as follows:

Phase 1: Determine the categories, the number of categories for
a qualitative response, and compute their corresponding
weights.
Step 1: Five ordered categories for the range of twist
Θ: angle are firstly determined by engineers’ know-
ledge and experience. The definition of five
: categories is given in Table 3.
Step 2: For involving the relative importance of five
: categories into analysis, five experienced en-
Fig. 4. The definition of twist angle gineers (marked as A1 , A2 , A3 , A4 and A5 )
 1187

Table 3. The definition of category for the qualitative response Table 5. The weight value of each category

Category Range of twist angle Explanation Engineers I II III IV V

I 0–15◦ ← Best A1 0.379 0.280 0.209 0.095 0.038

II 15◦ –30◦ A2 0.435 0.239 0.174 0.109 0.044
III 30◦ –45◦ ← Moderate A3 0.380 0.235 0.199 0.133 0.054
IV 45◦ –60◦ A4 0.435 0.239 0.174 0.109 0.044
VI > 60◦ ← Worst A5 0.379 0.280 0.209 0.095 0.038

Table 4. The crisp number derived from transformation Table 6. The weight value (Wk ) of each category after integration

Engineers I II III IV V Engineers I II III IV V

A1 0.909 0.670 0.500 0.227 0.091 Weight 0.402 0.254 0.193 0.108 0.043
A2 0.909 0.500 0.363 0.227 0.091
A3 0.954 0.590 0.500 0.333 0.136
A4 0.909 0.500 0.363 0.227 0.091
A5 0.909 0.670 0.500 0.227 0.091 Step 2: Compute the accumulatively weighted ratio
value for different experimental trials under
each level of signal factor by using Eq. 5. Partial
brainstormed to determine the relative impor- results are listed in Table 7.
tance according to Table 1. Then a crisp number Step 3: Summarize the accumulatively weighted ratio
of each category for each engineer was derived value of each category under each experimen-
from the transformation of Table 2. The results tal trial for each level of signal factor according
of these crisp numbers are listed in Table 4. to Eq. 6. The obtained results are then regarded
Next, utilizing standardization of these crisp as the summarized evaluation value for each
numbers, the weight of each category deter- experimental trial under each level of signal fac-
mined from engineers can be obtained, and they tor. Table 8 lists the partial results.
are listed in Table 5. Substituting the result of Phase 3: Compute the difference between the ratio value of each
Table 5 into Eq. 4, the weight value of each category and the target for each experimental trial.
category integrating the experience for all engi- Step 1: Initially compute the difference value d2 be-
neers can be derived. Table 6 lists the result. tween the ratio value of each category and the
target for each experimental trial under each
Phase 2: Design experiments and compute the summarized eval- level of signal factor.
uation value of each trial. Step 2: Integrate the difference value d2 of each level
Step 1: Five control factors are chosen in this example. of signal factor into a distance index Dx ,
During those factors, factor A has two levels x = 1, 2, . . . , 18, for each experimental trial.
and the others have three levels and an orth- Table 9 lists the results.
ogonal array (OA) L 18 is then utilized. Phase 4: Determine the optimum parameter setting.

Table 7. The accumulatively weighted ratio value

SIGNAL 0.8T 1.0T 1.2T

FACTOR
Exp. No (I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (I) (II) (III) (IV) (V) (I) (II) (III) (IV) (V)

1 0.020 0.122 0.170 0.197 0.199 0.141 0.204 0.243 0.259 0.261 0.221 0.259 0.278 0.300 0.300
2 0.000 0.000 0.067 0.116 0.125 0.080 0.118 0.167 0.199 0.203 0.181 0.219 0.277 0.282 0.284
3 0.000 0.013 0.090 0.133 0.139 0.040 0.142 0.190 0.206 0.211 0.120 0.159 0.255 0.255 0.257
4 0.000 0.000 0.077 0.131 0.135 0.060 0.187 0.245 0.245 0.247 0.161 0.212 0.269 0.280 0.280
5 0.000 0.013 0.138 0.160 0.164 0.000 0.153 0.182 0.192 0.199 0.100 0.164 0.231 0.242 0.244
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
16 0.020 0.147 0.205 0.211 0.215 0.120 0.210 0.238 0.249 0.254 0.181 0.232 0.289 0.295 0.295
17 0.000 0.178 0.217 0.222 0.224 0.181 0.257 0.276 0.292 0.292 0.321 0.321 0.350 0.356 0.356
18 0.000 0.178 0.217 0.217 0.221 0.000 0.102 0.160 0.181 0.186 0.060 0.175 0.242 0.248 0.248
1188
20.000

Step 1: Integrating the concept of Taguchi’s dynamic

system and the results from Table 8, those fac- 18.000

tors having significant effect on variability or 16.000

sensitivity can be then determined. Herein, fac- 14.000

tors A and B significantly affect the variability 12.000

and they can be determined from Table 10 and

10.000
Fig. 7. Factors A, B, and D will be the factors
significantly affecting the sensitivity and they 8.000
A1 A2 B1 B2 B3 C1 C2 C3 D1 D2 D3 E1 E2 E3

are determined from Table 11 and Fig. 8. Fig. 7. Response diagram for S/N ratio
Step 2: By involving the concept mentioned on Fig. 1
and the distance index Dx in Phase 3, the fac-
tors that significantly move the fitted regression Table 11. Response table of sensitivity
line to the target line can be determined. Then
Level
Control factor 1 2 3 Max-min
Table 8. The summarized evaluation value of each experimental trial under
each signal factor’s level A −0.696 0.788 — 1.484
B 1.036 −0.527 −0.041 1.564
Signal factor C 0.297 0.255 −0.084 0.382
D 1.147 −0.693 0.014 1.840
Experimental trial 0.8T 1.0T 1.2T E 0.236 0.040 0.192 0.196

1 0.708 1.107 1.358

2 0.308 0.768 1.243
3 0.375 0.789 1.046
4 0.343 0.986 1.202
5 0.474 0.725 0.983
• • • •
• • • •
• • • •
16 0.215 0.254 0.295
17 0.224 0.292 0.356
18 0.221 0.186 0.248

Fig. 8. Response diagram for sensitivity

Table 9. The distance index Dx

factors B and C are initially determined as the
Exp. no A B C D E Dx
candidate of adjustable factors from Table 12
1 1 1 1 1 1 0.268
and Fig. 9. According to the definition we made,
2 1 1 2 2 2 0.330 factor C can meet the condition: with an effect
3 1 1 3 3 3 0.403 on the performance and without an effect on
4 1 2 1 1 2 0.370 variability and sensitivity.
5 1 2 2 2 3 0.463
• • • Step 3: We can separately find out the significant fac-
• • • tors for variability, sensitivity and performance
• • • by screening out the difference between the
16 2 3 1 3 2 0.308
Max and Min evaluation value on response
17 2 3 2 1 3 0.257
18 2 3 3 2 1 0.504 table. And, they will be marked on Tables 10

Table 10. Response table of S/N ratio Table 12. Response table of distance index

Level Level
Control factor 1 2 3 Max-min Control factor 1 2 3 Max-min

A 12.175 18.357 — 6.182 A 4.655 5.524 — 0.869

B 18.121 12.827 14.849 5.294 B 5.855 4.528 4.847 1.327
C 17.176 14.318 14.303 2.873 C 6.969 5.268 4.899 2.070
D 15.995 13.827 15.975 2.169 D 5.758 4.963 5.109 0.795
E 15.536 14.608 15.652 1.045 E 5.530 5.306 4.994 0.537
 1189

Table 13. The accumulated probability of each category for the current set-
tings

Accumulated probability of category (%)

25 pieces
(total 500 leads) I II III IV V

Current Settings
A1 B3 C2 D3 E1 43.6 52.4 78.6 91.8 100

Fig. 9. Response table of distance index

to 12 with bold entries (i.e. the difference
value). Analyzing the results from Step 1 and
Step 2, factors A and B simultaneously affect
the variability and sensitivity. And factor B
has an effect on the performance. According
to the sequence of decision-making criteria for
variability, sensitivity, and performance, factor
A and factor B will be recognized as the fac-
tors affecting variability and, the optimum level
for factor A and factor B will be set as level
2 and level 1 for reducing variability. Not only
the variability can be reduced, but the sensi-
tivity can be increased at the same time when
setting the same level for factors A and B. Fac-
tor D can be viewed as the factor affecting the
sensitivity and its level is set as level 1. Al-
though factors B and C will be regarded as the
candidates for adjustable factor, factor C is the
only one affecting the performance. So factor
C will be viewed as the adjustable factor and
it will be set as level 1. Finally, factor E does
not affect the variability, sensitivity, and per-
formance and its level setting can be determined
according to the considerations of cost or op-
eration. After discussions with senior engineers
and the manager, factor E will be set as level
1 according to the operation conditions. Hence,
in this quality improvement project, the opti-
mum parameter setting can be determined as
A2 B1 C1 D1 E1 .
Phase 5: Perform a confirmation and compare with the prede-
cided criteria.
To verify the effectiveness of the optimum parameter
setting obtained from the proposed approach, the se-
nior engineers and manager initially decided the cri-
teria depending on the yield requirement (please re-
fer to Table 13): the accumulated probability of the
categories I and II must exceed 60%. After applying
the optimum parameter setting to the QFP production
line, the quality engineer randomly detected 25 pieces
for three times from the production line after apply-
ing the optimum setting to QFP production. That is,
a total of 500 leads for each time are required to be
detected. The comparison result for the current set-
tings and the optimum parameter setting are listed in
Table 14. The result of the optimum parameter settings
Optimum setting Accumulated probability of category (%)
A2 B1 C1 D1 E1
(total 500 leads I II III IV V
each time)
1 54.8 72.8 83.6 93.4 100
2 52.4 74.6 82.8 95.2 100
3 56.2 73.2 84.2 93.2 100
Table 14. The accumulated probability of category (I
and II) for each time significantly exceeds 70%; the
criterion is met. Hence, the optimum parameter set-
ting for QFP production can be confirmed. By the way,
from the viewpoint of cost effectiveness, cost can be re-
duced by applying the optimum parameter setting we
derived.
5 Concluding remarks
Until now, most studies primarily focused on optimization of the
measurable response. As for quality improvement of a qualitative
(or linguistic) response, only a few studies had been mentioned.
Besides, for the limitation of measuring equipment, the increas-
ing of a product’s complexity and flexible utilization of a user’s
application, a qualitative response with dynamic consideration
will be necessary in the future. In this study, a parameter op-
timization approach addressing such case is proposed. After
demonstrating an illustrative example, several concluding re-
marks can be made:
1. The proposed approach does not require a huge amount of
statistical computation. It is an easy approach to use for those
practitioners having limited statistical training.
2. Incorporating engineers’ knowledge and experience into an-
alysis it can provide more available engineering information
during the analysis. And the derived result will describe the
real problem well.
3. In this study, a new schema of adjusting the fitted regres-
sion line to the target line is proposed. By doing the work,
the performance or quality can be studied and enhanced.
Integrating the concepts of variability reduction, sensitivity
increase, and performance enhancement will lead to an accu-
rate result.
1190
4. The proposed approach can be not only employed to quality
improvement of a qualitative response with dynamic consid-
eration, but it can also be employed to a qualitative response
with static consideration.
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