Practices of robust design methodology in practice

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether a design of experiments application in a company that works with robust design management (RDM) reflects the principles and practices of RDM. Design/methodology/approach – The findings of this paper are based on an empirical study of a medium‐sized Swedish enterprise that develops and manufactures consumer products for domestic use and actively uses RDM. The study is comprised of an analysis of internal company documents, semi‐structured interviews and e‐mail correspondence. Findings – The study reveals a gap between principles and tool use; a feasible tool is applied but in a suboptimal mode with a low contribution in terms of increased robustness. This gap could be bridged by practices that describe, on an activity‐based level, what needs to be done in order to fulfil the principles. Originality/value – The results of this case explain the difficulties that companies face when trying to introduce RDM. It also provides insights into RDM implementation work at the company in question.