... of hubs and quantify the fraction of hub components. We examine how the presence and fraction of hubs relate to a system’s quality. We provide empirical evidence that the presence of hubs in a system’s architecture is associated with a low number of defects. Furthermore, we show that complex engineered...

...Gordon J. Savage; Young Kap Son In this paper, we present a methodology that helps select the distribution parameters in degrading multiresponse systems to improve dependability at the lowest lifetime cost. The dependability measures include both quality (soft failures) and reliability (hard...

...Janet K. Allen; Carolyn Seepersad; HaeJin Choi; Farrokh Mistree The intent in robust design is to improve the quality of products and processes by reducing their sensitivity to variations, thereby reducing the effects of variability without removing its sources. Robust design is especially useful...

...Anna C. Thornton, Assistant Professor, Product development firms continually struggle to simultaneously keep product cost low while increasing product quality. This paper focuses on variation and its impact on the quality-failure costs —scrap, rework, extra labor, customer dissatisfaction...