Robust design as a driver of engine cylinder heads evolution : a framework for identifying product improvement paths

The fundamental goal of Robust Design is to improve the quality of a product by minimizing the effects of variation. A key contributor to robustness over the long term is R&D. Therefore, a framework is desired to help managers to identify promising improvement paths that a system may undergo, thus helping out in deciding R&D resource allocation. The goal of this thesis is to contribute to a framework for robustness inventions. This contribution is sought by analyzing the evolution in robustness of a single component in a particular engineering system - the engine cylinder head. By analyzing a series of patents related to reliability and robustness of engine cylinder heads, the author identified generalizable inventive strategies for robust design.

Department dc:contributor.department

System Design and Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Gómez de la Mora, Luz de Lourdes

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Dan Frey.

• System Design and Management Program.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/32473

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/32473