Genichi Taguchi: biography of this Japanese statistician

A summary of the life of Genichi Taguchi, creator of the Taguchi method, widely used in companies.

There are different personalities who throughout the 20th century contributed to create a series of methodologies to optimize the management of companies. One of the most influential was Genichi Taguchi.

We will dedicate these lines to learn more about the life of this important Japanese engineer by means of a biography of Genichi TaguchiWe will delve into the method he created in order to help many corporations to raise their efficiency to much higher levels.

Brief biography of Genichi Taguchi

Genichi Taguchi was born on the first day of the year 1924, in the Japanese city of Tokamachibelonging to the prefecture of Niigata. It was a small population center whose main activity was the textile industry. Growing up in this place was surely an incentive for him to decide, once he had completed his basic education, to go to university to train as a textile engineer.

He was to study at Kiryu Technical College, Gunma University. Genichi Taguchi's original plan was to acquire this training in order to be able to collaborate in his family's business, which consisted of manufacturing kimonos, a traditional Japanese garment.

But an event occurred that somehow cut short these plans and diverted his career in another direction. It was the outbreak of World War II, and the involvement of his country, Japan, in the conflict. Therefore, in 1942, Genichi Taguchi began to collaborate with the Imperial Japanese Navy, and more specifically with the Astronomical Department of the Institute of Navigation..

Once the war was over, it was another public body that required his services, in this case the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare. This fact was key to the development of his career, as it was here that he established contact with Motosaburo Masuyama, an eminence in the field of statistics, from whom he would receive a great influence.

Thanks to this collaboration, Genichi Taguchi began to take an interest in statistical experimentation.. During this time, he also provided his services to other public entities, such as the Institute of Statistical Mathematics, and to private companies, such as Morinaga Pharmaceuticals, where he was able to conduct research on the use of penicillin.

Career development

In the 1950s, Genichi Taguchi began a new phase, this time working for companies such as the Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation. Within this organization, developed its services in the Electrical Communications Laboratory.. Throughout this period, the use of statistics in the service of quality control was becoming commonplace, which further boosted the work of this author.

One of the great influencers in this area was the American engineer, William Edwards Deming. Also contributing to the use of statistics were institutions such as the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers. One of the great tasks that Genichi Taguchi carried out during the years he spent at the Electrical Communications Laboratory, which were more than twelve, was to compete with Bell Labs, another leading company.

It was precisely during this decade that he developed some of the systems and methodologies for which he is known today, and which would later lead to the Taguchi method, which we will see later on. Japanese industry, always at the forefront of improvement systems, was quick to embrace its new ideas. One of the most important companies that made use of this method was none other than the Toyota automobile company..

Genichi Taguchi combined this work with teaching at the Indian Statistical Institute. It was at this school that he came into contact with other personalities in his field. Some of the authors with whom he was in contact were Walter Andrew Shewhart, Sir Ronald Aylmer Fisher, or Calyampudi Radhakrishna Rao.

From the latter author, he learned the system of orthogonal matrices that he created and that would form the core of the system that he would later develop and that would be his most important work. and which would be his most recognized work. It is none other than the Taguchi method.

Consolidation of his legacy in the business world.

In 1962, Genichi Taguchi achieved the highest educational distinction by submitting his doctoral thesis to Kyushu University. He then terminated his employment with Nippon Telegraph and Telephone. He collaborated with the celebrated mathematician John Tukey at the prestigious Princeton University. Through this contact, he also established a relationship with Bell Labs, a competitor of his previous employer.

Shortly thereafter, he was able to join Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo to teach engineering, a position he would hold for the next few years.. During that time, he met the author Yuin Wu, with whom he worked for a while, before he moved to the United States. From there, he suggested to Genichi Taguchi that he make a trip to his institution to give a lecture.

Following that visit, Taguchi resumed contact with Bell Labs, this time accompanied by Madhav Phadke, another personality in his field. This second phase of their collaboration was much more fruitful. The company became deeply interested in the methodology used by Genichi Taguchi to improve its processes.

This collaboration, and thanks to the fantastic reputation he had built up over a successful career, was followed by many others in different multinationals, leaders in their respective sectors, which further boosted his popularity. Some of the companies with which he established agreements to implement his method were ITT, Boeing, Xerox, or Ford, among others..

In the 1980s, Genichi Taguchi joined the Japanese Standards Institute as a consultant. It was not the only position of such importance that he held, as he was also appointed executive director of the American Supplier Institute. The versatility of his methodologies were key in helping a multitude of companies establish design improvements and have set precedents for creating other programs, such as sales process engineering. and have set precedents for creating programs in other areas, such as sales process engineering.

After his retirement, he continued to receive awards and recognition for a long career of success and hard work. Genichi Taguchi passed away in 2012, due to cardiorespiratory failure. He was 88 years old.

The Taguchi method

We have already mentioned above that, if Genichi Taguchi was known for anything, it was precisely for the Taguchi method, which bears his name. We will now learn more about this method. It is a statistical system, also called a robust design method, whose objective is to generate an increase in the quality of the products created by a given industry. products created by a given industry.

Initially, this methodology was applied to the area of manufacturing, although its protocols have been adapted for use in fields as diverse as marketing, advertising, biotechnology and engineering. The method developed by Genichi Taguchi has three fundamental contributions that are the basis of its success.

Firstly, we find the specific loss functions, a system for evaluating the concept of losses in a much more efficient way, also taking into account the level of the loss.The first is the specific loss functions, a system for evaluating the concept of losses much more efficiently, also taking into account the level of product quality required for a long service life that will increase the brand's prestige.

Another principle of Genichi Taguchi's method is that of off-line quality control. For this author, the best time to reduce or eliminate variation in product quality was precisely at the stage when products were being designed and manufactured. Therefore, he devised the three-step system, consisting of system design, parameter or measurement design and tolerance design, to achieve this goal.

The third key that Genichi Taguchi instituted was the innovations he introduced in terms of design of experiments. It was at this point that he he used the orthogonal matrices that he had previously learned and that allowed him to prepare the statistical method necessary to be able to prepare designs that would yield greater efficiency in his final results. in his final results.

These are, broadly speaking, the pillars of Genichi Taguchi's method or methods, with which he was able to help improve departments of some of the most important companies in the world at the time, thanks to which he developed a reputation for which he is known today.

His contribution to the world of statistics has been remarkable, and many subsequent authors have picked up some of his work in order to develop new methodologies that continue to help improve the efficiency of other companies.