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Design for Six Sigma is the Process for delivering consistent product or process at the lowest cost, in any industry. This proactive process works to consider how the customer uses the product or process, from the start of the design, to deliver product that the customer wants to purchase. DFSS is not a set of tools, but rather a way of thinking to create Robust designs, ones that are insensitive to variation resulting from customer usage, not simply part to part variation. Robust Engineering, as developed by Genichi Taguchi, is the engine that drives successful DFSS. For automotive applications especially, Robust Engineering transforms DFSS into a competitive weapon by minimizing functional variation in the customers' hands at high efficiency (i.e., minimum cost and mass). This paper describes the phases of DFSS, namely Identify, Define, Develop, Optimize, and Verify (IDDOV), utilizing Robust Engineering.

Environmental concerns and government regulations are factors that have led to an increased focus on fuel economy in the automotive industry. This paper identifies a method used to improve the efficiency of a front-wheel-drive (FWD) automatic transmission. In order to create improvements in large complex systems, it is key to have a large scope, to include as much of the system as possible. The approach taken in this work was to use Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) methodology. This was done to optimize as many of the front-wheel-drive transmission components as possible to increase robustness and efficiency. A focus of robustness, or consistency in torque transformation, is as important as the value of efficiency itself, because of the huge range of usage conditions. Therefore, it was necessary to find a solution of the best transmission component settings that would not depend on specific usage conditions such as temperatures, system pressures, or gear ratio.