An Application of Fuzzy Logic with Desirability Functions to Multi-response Optimization in the Taguchi Method

Abstract

Although it is widely used to find an optimum setting of manufacturing process parameters in a variety of engineering fields, the Taguchi method has a difficulty in dealing with multi-response situations in which several response variables should be considered at the same time. For example, electrode wear, surface roughness, and material removal rate are important process response variables in an electrical discharge machining (EDM) process. A simultaneous optimization should be accomplished. Many researches from various disciplines have been conducted for such multi-response optimizations. One of them is a fuzzy logic approach presented by Lin et al. [1]. They showed that two response characteristics are converted into a single performance index based upon fuzzy logic. However, it is pointed out that information regarding relative importance of response variables is not considered in that method. In order to overcome this problem, a desirability function can be adopted, which frequently appears in the statistical literature. In this paper, we propose a novel approach for the multi-response optimization by incorporating fuzzy logic into desirability function. The present method is illustrated by an EDM data of Lin and Lin [2].