DETERMINATION OF AN OPTIMAL SETTING AND PRODUCTION RUN USING TAGUCHI'S LOSS FUNCTION

This paper considers the problem of selecting an optimal setting of the process mean and an optimal production run for a continuous production process. The process is subject to gradual shifts in the process mean due to occurrences of some random shocks. The product output becomes nonconforming only when the process experiences a certain number of accumulated shocks. The changes in the process mean are assumed to follow a nonhomogeneous Poisson process. A quadratic loss function, which is a general form of Taguchi's loss function, is utilized for developing the economic model in determining an initial resetting process mean and an optimal production run. Some new results are derived and some interesting findings are reported.