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There are several reasons why it can be daunting to apply Six Sigma to product creation. Foremost among them, the functional performance of new technologies is unknown prior to starting a project. Although, Design For Six Sigma (DFSS) was developed to overcome this difficulty, a lack of applicable in-class case studies makes it challenging to train the product creation community. The current paper describes an in-class project which illustrates how Six Sigma is applied to a simulated product creation environment. A toy construction set (TCS) project is used to instruct students how to meet customer expectations without violating cost, packaging volume and design-complexity constraints.

Vehicle to vehicle crash compatibility is becoming an increasingly more important consideration during vehicle safety development due to the increasing numbers of SUVs and pickups in the vehicle fleet. According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS), their side impact crash test represents what happens when a passenger vehicle is struck by a pickup truck or SUV. The IIHS side impact test measures 37 different response criteria using an instrumented 5th percentile female SID-IIs ATD (anthropomorphic test device) in driver and left rear passenger seats. These measures are grouped into head and neck, torso, and pelvis and left leg regions. This paper will describe the development of transfer function equation models to assess the performance of design countermeasures by comparing the response measures of the torso region of the body.