EM-807: Problem Solving and Decision

Making in Engineering Organziations

DMTS – College of E&ME Dr. Uzair Khaleeq uz Zaman

 From
Week
01

DMTS – College of E&ME Dr. Uzair Khaleeq uz Zaman

 Decision-Making / Problem Solving in Organizations
• Frequency and Information Conditions. From Week 01
 Frequency = How often a particular decision situation recurs?

 Information conditions = How much information is available about

the likelihood of various outcomes? Tell DMakers which
alternative to choose based
Decision-rules to
upon pre-determined
Frequency of recurrence is be developed
information about decision
determined by whether a situation
decision is programmed or Highly
non-programmed. structured
Recurs every time same
situation occurs
Poorly
structured
Problem-Solving
When problem or decision DMaker can’t rely on (special form of
situation has not been previously established DM where issue
encountered before decision rules is unique) 3
 What is a System?
From Week 02
• A system components can be quite diverse:
➢ Persons and Organizations
➢ Software and Data
➢ Equipment and Hardware
➢ Facilities and Materials
➢ Services and Techniques

4
DMTS – College of E&ME Dr. Uzair Khaleeq uz Zaman
Systems – System and Behaviour Characterization
• For Dynamic Systems, behavior with respect to following
Fromis usually
Weekof02
interest:
✓ Equilibrium
✓ Steady State
✓ Transient State
✓ Equifinality
✓ Stability
Example: Management Fad (to Never let the organization reach
a steady state, but rather to keep
characterize a change in philosophy
it in a continual transient state of
or operations implemented by a perceived higher productivity.
business or institution)
After a while, the transient In order to raise the productivity,
Enthusing the effect disappears, and the another transient is introduced in
workforce organization settles into a the form of another management
steady state, possibly of fad whose effect after a while
perceived lower productivity also disappears.
Fad: an intense and widely shared enthusiasm for something, especially one that is short-lived; a craze

DMTS – College of E&ME Dr. Uzair Khaleeq uz Zaman

Systems – System and Behaviour Characterization
From isWeek
• For Dynamic Systems, behavior with respect to following usually02
of
interest:
Steady state + Closed System (No interaction with
✓ Equilibrium
environment)
✓ Steady State
✓ Transient State When a system reaches the one final state from
✓ Equifinality different initial conditions → Only possible
✓ Stability with open systems

Refers to a system adopting a certain

state with time after a stimulation is
removed.
Stable systems have a tendency or
preference for a desired state—they
have a property of finality or
teleology.
Closed-loop systems, adaptive systems, and self-organizing systems tend to be stable.

DMTS – College of E&ME Dr. Uzair Khaleeq uz Zaman

 Phases in Design
What is Integrated Product-Process Design (IPPD)?
Optimization vs Decision-making (SELECTION)
Material and Process Selection (MPS) problem is an interdisciplinary effort.

Multi-Objective Optimization

Several conflicting objectives

Multi-Criteria Decision
From Week 03 Making (MCDM)

The idea is to get one solution (ranked) which is a

good compromise and acceptable to the entire team.
(Zaman et al. 2017)
(Deng and Edwards, 2007)

DMTS – College of E&ME Dr. Uzair Khaleeq uz Zaman

Phases in Design
What is Integrated Product-Process Design (IPPD)?
How complex can decision-making become in AM MPS?
From Week 03

Zaman et al. (2019)

 Manufacturing System Design
Business, Process and Data ModelsDecision System
Process or activity model Business and process models:
• IDEF
• Unified Modeling Language
(UML)
• Workflow

From Week 03
Product model and Data Model
manufacturing process • UML
Functional Model Structural Model Geometric Model

Data Exchanges
• Extensible Markup Language
(XML)
…
… …

… … …

DMTS – College of E&ME Dr. Uzair Khaleeq uz Zaman

 Phases
Materialin Design
and Process Selection - MOO vs MCDM
From Week 03
Quality

DMTS – College of E&ME Dr. Uzair Khaleeq uz Zaman

 Module 3: Quality and Design of Experiments

Quality ZAMAN
 What are we doing?

1. Introduction to Quality
2. Introduction to Design of Experiments – the heart of QA and QC
3. DOE main principles
• Randomization
• Replication
• Local control of error
3. Complete Randomized Design
4. Randomized Complete Block Design
5. T-tests and ANOVA
6. Introduction to factorial Designs ….. Taguchi DOE

Quality ZAMAN
 What is Quality?

• Quality is about making organizations perform for their stakeholders

by improving
– Products
– Systems
– Processes
• Constantly pursuing excellence
• Customers are the most important group of stakeholders along with
investors, employees, suppliers and members of wider society
• ISO 9000 definition: a degree to which a set of inherent
characteristics that fulfils a need or expectation that is stated,
generally implied or is obligatory.
Quality ZAMAN
 Why should organizations care about Quality?

• To survive and thrive by good quality management

– Enhance organization’s brand and reputation
– Protect organization against risks
– Increase efficiency and profits
• Failures resulting from poor governance, ineffective assurance
and resistance to change → dire consequences for business,
individuals and society

Quality ZAMAN
 What does Quality apply to?

• Everything
– Product
– Service How good is it?
– Process Is it good enough?
– Task How can we make it better?
– Action DIMENSIONS
– Decision

Quality ZAMAN
 What are the dimensions of Quality?

• Performance → Will the product do the intended job?

• Reliability → How often does the product fail?

• Durability → How long does the product last?

• Serviceability → How easy it is to repair the product?

Quality ZAMAN
 Reliability vs Durability

• Reliability → the probability of success

“The conditional probability, at a given confidence level, that the

equipment will perform its intended functions satisfactorily or without
failure, i.e., within specified performance limits, at a given age, for a
specified length of time, function period, or mission time, when used in
the manner and for the purpose intended while operating under the
specified application and operation environments with their associated
stress levels.”

Kececioglu, Dimitri, Reliability Engineering Handbook, Vol. 1, Prentice-Hall, 1991.

Quality ZAMAN
 Reliability vs Durability

• Reliability → the probability of success

Reliability is always stated in terms

of probability, and always over a
period of time.

Reliability for systems or assemblies

of components can be calculated by
combining the reliabilities of the
components probabilistically.

Weibull cumulative probability plot, from NIST Engineering

Statistics Handbook, section 8.1.6.2. Weibull

Quality ZAMAN
 Reliability vs Durability

• Durability → a physical property or characteristic

Characteristics like:
Hardness
Toughness
Resistance to wear
Resistance to Fire, etc.

Quality ZAMAN
 Reliability vs Durability

• Example: Tires of a Car

• Reliability → how likely tire will fail during expected life of

tire?
– Maybe there is a manufacturing defect in rubber and tire will burst after
1000 km or there is a contamination because of which tire gets unbalanced
• Durability → how long tire is supposed to perform to specifications?
– Tires are rated for a certain number of miles or kilometres after which the
treads will not provide the required traction
– A tire could have a life (durability) specification of 80,000 km or 10 years.
Even if you have not driven your car a lot and after 10 years, you drive for
20,000 km, the rubber will start to crack and harden and eventually blow
before 80,000 km.

Quality ZAMAN
 What are the dimensions of Quality?

• Aesthetics → What does the product look like?

• Features → What does the product do?

• Perceived Quality → What is the reputation of the company

and its products?

• Conformance to Standards → Is the product made exactly

as the designer intended?

Quality ZAMAN
 What are the dimensions of Quality?

• Conformance to Standards
• Examples of Quality Management Standards

• ISO international standards are by far the most widely accepted set of
quality standards in the world
– ISO 14000 family for environmental management systems
– ISO 13485 for medical devices
– ISO 19011 for auditing management systems
– ISO/TS 16949 for automotive-related products

https://youtu.be/N6ZLzzAZ_nQ

Quality ZAMAN
 ISO Management
System Standards
(Quality – some
examples)

https://www.iso.org/management-
system-standards-list.html

Quality ZAMAN
 Who is responsible for Quality?

• Everyone from CEO to Intern

– Different people will have responsibility or influence over
different things that affect quality, such as specifying
requirements, meeting those requirements or determining the
quality of something.
– It is important to have people who can provide the knowledge,
tools and guidance to help everyone else play their part in
achieving quality → Quality Professionals
• Some are concerned with the delivery of products and services, while
some are part of the leadership of their organisations. Some are
employed in-house, while others work outside the organisations they
deal with.

Quality ZAMAN
 What are the aspects of Quality?

• Quality of Design
– All automobiles have the same basic objective of providing
transportation. Yet they are different in terms of size, shape,
performance, etc.
• Quality of Conformance
– How well the product conforms to the specification required by
the design
– Depends on choice of manufacturing process, training and
supervision of workforce, types of process control, inspection
activities, etc.

Quality ZAMAN
 Quality and Variability
• Quality is inversely proportional to variability
– Measuring variability is more important that measuring mean for
a product or service in a quality improvement initiative.
– Variability here refers to unwanted variability (noise, external
variations)
– Customers want less variability

It is generally easier to re-center the

tightly clustered measurements on a
target than it is to reduce the spread of
the dots that are centered.

Quality ZAMAN
 Meaning of Quality:
A Final Perspective !!!

• Consumer’s and producer’s perspectives depend on each other

• Consumer perspective → PRICE → Even if the price is high for a

product but if the customer is getting the level of satisfaction and
quality, he/she will pay the price

• Producer’s perspective → COST → Producer will always try to

reduce the cost of making the product or giving the services

• Consumer’s view must dominate → Producer must consider this

at all times

Quality ZAMAN
 Meaning of Quality: A Final Perspective !!!

• Example: An automobile company in USA received

transmission parts from a domestic plant and from a Japanese
supplier.
– Analysis of transmission costs for parts produced in US and Japan
showed a huge difference

Quality ZAMAN
 Meaning of Quality: A Final Perspective !!!

• Example: An automobile company in USA received transmission

parts from a domestic plant and from a Japanese supplier.
– To identify reasons for difference, the company selected Random
Samples from plants, disassembled them and measured Critical to
Quality Characteristics.

Quality ZAMAN
 Meaning of Quality: A Final Perspective !!!
• Understanding variability in the Example

Frequency, probability,
relative frequency

Measurement metric: strength, durability, no. of hours

before failure, etc.

– The units manufactured in the US took up around 75% of the width of

the specification while those manufactured in Japan took up only 25%
– Considerable less variability in Japanese products
– Customer doesn’t see the mean, they look at the variability around
the target that is not removed

Quality ZAMAN
 So how did the Japanese do it?
(less cost and more durability/reliability)

• Reduced the variability → lower costs

• Japanese gears ran more smoothly with less noise and

hence had higher perceived quality in the minds of
the customers

• Fewer repairs and warranty claims → less rework →

reduction in wasted time, effort and money

Quality ZAMAN
 So how did the Japanese do it?
(less cost and more durability/reliability)

• Focused on Quality Improvement

– Reduction in variability in processes and products

• Reduction of waste

• Related to the service industry → improving service

leads to less effort and time in correction

Quality ZAMAN
 Quality Characteristics

• Quality Characteristics – Elements that describe what consumer

perceives as quality
• Often referred to as Critical-to-Quality Characteristics
– Physical: length, weight, voltage, viscosity
– Sensory: taste, appearance, colour
– Time oriented: reliability, durability, serviceability
• Quality Engineering – set of operational, managerial and
engineering activities that the quality characteristics of a product
are at a nominal or required levels and the variability around the
desired levels is minimum.

Quality ZAMAN
 How do organizations achieve Quality?

• Effective governance → defines the organisation's aims and

translates them into action
• Robust systems of assurance → make sure things stay on
track
• Culture of improvement → to keep getting better

Quality professionals use numerous

DOE
methods, metrics, tools and techniques

Quality ZAMAN
 Quality Assurance (QA) vs Quality Control (QC)
Quality Assurance
Definition It is a set of activities for ensuring It is a set of activities for ensuring
quality in the processes by which quality in products. Activities
the products are developed.
Focus on Aims to prevent defects with a
focus on the process used to make
the product. It is a proactive
quality process
Goal To improve development and
test processes so that defects do
not arise when the product is
being developed.
How Establish a good quality
management system and the
assessment of its adequacy.
Periodic conformance audits of
the operations of the system.
Quality
Quality Control
focus on identifying defects in the
products produced.
Aims to identify (and correct)
defects in the finished product.
QC, therefore, is a reactive
process.
To identify defects after a
product is developed and before
it's released.
Finding & eliminating sources
of quality problems through
tools & equipment so that
customer's requirements are
continually met.
ZAMAN
 Quality Assurance (QA) vs Quality Control (QC)

Quality Assurance Quality Control

What Prevention of quality problems The activities or techniques used
through planned and systematic to achieve and maintain the
activities including product quality, process and
documentation. service.
Responsibility Everyone on the team involved in QC is usually the responsibility of
developing the product is a specific team that tests the
responsible for QA. product for defects.
Statistical When they are applied to When they are applied to finished
Techniques processes (process inputs & products (process outputs), they
operational parameters), they are are called as Statistical Quality
called Statistical Process Control (SQC) & comes under
Control (SPC) & it becomes the QC.
part of QA.
As a tool Managerial tool Corrective tool
Orientation Process-oriented Product-oriented

Quality ZAMAN
 Typical Quality Control (QC) steps

Quality ZAMAN
 Typical Quality Assurance (QA) steps

Quality ZAMAN
 The Decision Process - Diagram of Data Quality
Objective (DQO)

U.S. Department of Energy – DQO homepage

Quality ZAMAN
 Introduction to Design of
Experiments – The Heart of QA
and QC

DOE ZAMAN
 What is an Experiment?

An experiment can be thought of as a test or series of tests in

which we make controlled changes to the input variables of a
process or a system, in order to determine how they change the
output of interest.

https://weakinteractions.files.wordpress.com/2009/08/s1e1.jpg?w=450

DOE ZAMAN
 Why do we design experiments?

MAXIMIZE:
• Probability of having a successful experiment.
• Information gain: the results and conclusions derived depend
on the way information was collected.
MINIMIZE
• Unwanted effects from other sources of variation.
• Cost of experiment if results are limited.

DOE ZAMAN
 What would be an alternative?

Observational study:
• The researcher has little to no control over sources of variation and
simply observes what is happening.
• The researcher can only determine information about how our inputs
are related to the outputs… we cannot determine causation.
Examples:
• Surveys
• Weather Patterns
• Stock market price
• etc. http://fluxicon.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/observeandreport.jpg

DOE ZAMAN
 Designed experiment

• Which process inputs have a significant impact on the process

output?
• What the target level of inputs should be to achieve a desired
result (output)?
• The researcher identifies and controls sources of variation that
significantly impact the measured response.
• The researcher can gather evidence for causation.

DOE ZAMAN
 Designed experiment (contd…)

• Reduces the design cost by

– speeding up the design process
– reducing late engineering design changes
– reducing product material and labour complexity.
• Are powerful tools to
– achieve manufacturing cost savings by minimizing process
variation
– reduce rework, scrap, and the need for inspection.

DOE ZAMAN
 But what are sources of variation?

Sources of variation are anything that could cause an

observation to be different from another observation.
Two main types:
• Those that can be controlled and are of interest are called
treatments factors.
• Those that can influence the experimental response but in
which we are not directly interested are called nuisance
(noise) factors.

DOE ZAMAN
 Components of Experimental Design

1. Factors Blocking
Randomization
▪ Inputs to the process
▪ Controllable/uncontrollable

2. Levels
3. Response
▪ Outputs of the experiment
▪ Measurable
Experimenters often avoid optimizing the process for one response at the expense of
the other → important outcomes are measured and analysed and then a set is chosen

DOE ZAMAN
 Experiments Design Guidelines

• The DOE addresses the questions asked by stipulating:

– The factors to be tested
– The levels of those factors
– The structure and layout of experimental runs, or conditions

A well-designed experiment is as simple as possible - obtaining

the required information in a cost effective and reproducible
manner.

DOE ZAMAN
 Process Schematic

DOE ZAMAN
 INPU TS OUTPUTS
(Factors) (Responses)
X variables Y variables

People

Materials

PROCESS: responses related

Equipment to performing a
service

responses related
Polici es to producing a
A Blending of produce
Inputs which
Generates responses related
Procedures
Corresponding to completing a task
Outputs

Methods

Environment Illustration of a Process

DOE ZAMAN
 INPU TS OUTPUTS
(Factors) (Responses)
X variables Y variables

Type of
cement

compressive
Percent water
strength

PROCESS:
Type of
modulus of elasticity
Additives

Percent
Discovering modulus of rupture
Additives
Optimal
Concrete
Mixing Time Mixture Poisson's ratio

Curing
Conditions

% Plasticizer Optimum Concrete Mixture

L. M. Lye DOE Course 51

DOE ZAMAN
 INPU TS OUTPUTS
(Factors) (Responses)
X variables Y variables

Type of Raw
Material

Mold
Temperature

Holding PROCESS: thickness of molded

Pressure part

% shrinkage from
Holding Time
mold size
Manufacturing
Injection number of defective
Gate Size
Molded Parts parts

Screw Speed

Moisture Manufacturing Injection Molded

Content Parts

L. M. Lye DOE Course 52

DOE ZAMAN
 INPUTS OUTPUTS
(Factors) (Responses)
X variables Y variables

Impermeable layer
(mm)

Initial storage PROCESS:

(mm)

Coefficient of R-square:
Infiltration Predicted vs
Observed Fits
Rainfall-Runoff
Model
Coefficient of
Recession
Calibration

Soil Moisture
Capacity
(mm)

Model Calibration
Initial Soil Moisture
(mm)

L. M. Lye DOE Course 53

DOE ZAMAN
 Rule of Thumb

List all major and minor sources of variation before

collecting the data, classifying them as either a treatment or
a nuisance/noise factor.
• We want our design to minimize the impact of minor sources
of variation, and to be able to separate effects of nuisance
factors from treatment factors
• We want the majority of the variability of the data to be
explained by the treatment factors.

DOE ZAMAN
 When designing an experiment…

Pay particular heed to 4 potential traps that can create

experimental difficulties.
1. Unexplained variation either with an experiment run or between
experiment runs and associated with level settings changing
2. Noise factors like multiple machines, multiple shifts, raw
materials, humidity, etc.
3. Correlation - two factors that vary together may be highly
correlated without one causing the other - they may both be caused
by a third factor.

DOE ZAMAN
 When designing an experiment… (contd…)

3. Correlation – Example: Porcelain enameling operation that makes

bathtubs.
– The manager notices that there are intermittent problems with "orange peel" -
an unacceptable roughness in the enamel surface.
– The manager also notices that the orange peel is worse on days with a low
production rate.

DOE ZAMAN
 When designing an experiment…

3. Correlation – Example: Porcelain enameling operation that makes

bathtubs.
– If the data are analyzed without knowledge of the operation, a false
conclusion could be reached that low production rates cause orange
peel.
– BUT both low production rates and orange peel are caused by
excessive absenteeism - when regular spray booth operators are
replaced by employees with less skill.
– importance of factoring in operational
knowledge when designing an experiment.

DOE ZAMAN
 When designing an experiment… (contd…)

• The researcher can gather evidence for causation.

Correlation = Causation

DOE ZAMAN
 When designing an experiment…

4. Combined effects or interactions between factors – Example:

Experiment to grow plants with two inputs: water and fertilizer.

▪ Water increased → growth increased BUT after a point excess water leads to
root-rot
▪ Fertilizer increased → growth increased BUT after a point roots burn
▪ Interactive effect → Too much water can negate the benefits of fertilizer by
washing it away
▪ Factors may generate non-linear effects that are not additive, but these can
only be studied with more complex experiments that involve more than 2
level settings
▪ Two levels is defined as linear (two points define a line), three levels are
defined as quadratic (three points define a curve), four levels are defined as
cubic, and so on.

DOE ZAMAN
 Experimental Design Process

DOE ZAMAN