The functional evaluation of injection molding processes has often been dealt with in quality engineering, but there have been few attempts to evaluate the injection molding machine itself. This study aims at optimization of the plasticizing unit, a sub-system of an injection molding machine. We studied a method in which an ideal relation between plasticizing unit workload and amount of energy consumed is defined as the generic function and supply voltage is used as a noise factor. As a result, we were able to obtain high reproducibility of the gain, showing that this evaluation method is correct. We also evaluated target functions and attempted to reach target values, and were able to find useful means for evaluating the functionality of an injection molding machine.

Electrical discharge machining is a machining method in which electrical energy is converted to thermal energy, by which metal is melted and explosively removed. Because of the use of explosive energy there are many unstable factors,which often result in variations in dimensions and roughness of machined surfaces. This study measured the energy consumed in the machining process, on the theory that wastefully consumed energy had been converted to wasteful work, with the expectation that an improvement in energy utilization efficiency would lead to the solution of general quality problems of electrical discharge machining. The amount of current consumed and the amount of material removed were evaluated as generic functions. As expected, improvements in both energy efficiency and product quality were obtained, showing that an evaluation based on generic functions and focused on energy conversion is effective in electrical discharge machining, just as electric power evaluation has proven effective for other cutting processes. As the reproducibility of the gain of the S/N ratio was low in the evaluation of current consumption over time, however, there are still problems to be solved in the treatment of current values.

Functiona evaluation for transactions was applied to choose a plate thickness gauge to be introduced into an automotive production process. The plate thickness gauge is a type of measuring machine used to periodically measure the plate thickness of pressed parts during the manufacture of vehicle bodies. When the plate thickness is found to be out of tolerance, the press conditions are controlled to prevent cracks and other defects caused by plate thickness variations before they occur. A simple ultrasonic gauge was being used to measure plate thickness, but an optical gauge based on a new measurement principle had been developed and was available for application to the body pressing process. The merits of the two types of gauges were compared from the viewpoint of the buyer. First, a measurement S/N ratio was obtained from the relationship between items measured and measurement results, and the cost of measurement errors was obtained from a loss function. A gauge was then chosen from a total cost comparison including loss cost, purchase cost, measurement cost, and rework cost. This clear breakdown of the total cost of each gauge led to the establishment of rational criteria for product selection.

We are an electronic parts manufacturer, so our clients are end product manufacturers. For this reason, in the evaluation of products that utilize radio wave,such as wireless LAN and Bluetooth products, so far we have just been making pass-fail decisions according to the specifications set up with our clients. In the field, however, end users evaluate product quality by actual communication speed, usability, etc., regardless of whether the product conforms to the specifications set up by them and us. To establish a functional evaluation, we determined target functions by considering how the product would be evaluated from the end users' viewpoint, studied the allocation of internal and external noise factors to orthogonal arrays, and have been using this method for several years to evaluate products in their development stage. From comparisons with competitors'products, we can check if our products are competitive in the initial stage of development. The result of this study was that we were able to find defects which we had not been able to find by conventional evaluation methods in the development stage, which enabled us to prevent troubles in the field before they occurred. We have established this method and propose it as one means of evaluation.

The market continues to make increasing quality and cost demands of industrial products. To meet cost reduction demands for die-cast products, net-shape technology is now commonly used. As it is difficult to eliminate the cutting process entirely at the current state of the art, the focus is on how to minimize the amount of cutting; it is desirable that there should be minimal shape deformation after die-casting. In this study, to maintain die-cast conditions optimized to minimize deformation, a die-cast condition monitoring system using Mahalanobis distance is examined. First, the relation between the amount of deformation and temperature variation in the die-cast product was examined,and it was shown by analysis that the amount of deformation is smaller when there is less temperature variation. Then a unit space was set and the signal data were analyzed to demonstrate that the Mahalanobis distance monitoring system had effective features.

Today, many machines are used in office or household such as automatic vending machines, automatic teller machines or home electronic products. These machines are becoming more and more complicated, and there is a necessity to design these machines so that they are easy to understand and use. The author reported on the examination case by the parameter design of which the operation time was the measurement characteristic plainly on the bank ATM screen before. It is the one that whether acknowledged easiness to understand was able to be examined efficiently in this report by the parameter design of which human integrated evaluation power is the measurement characteristic was tried. It was able to be confirmed that it is disagreeing of evaluation weight of the factor that was not different the optimum conditions but was valued that the evaluation was greatly different depending on the testee also with the same sample by this evaluation experiment. The evaluation of the order data that is a relative standard is also efficiently effective to the use of the orthogonal array where the design parameter of a multifactor is appreciable at. the same time for this case.