Abstract
Purpose: Recently, many quality issues are aroused in military forces, such as failures in K-series weapons, combat boots defects and 40mm ammunition explosion accident. To address these problems, this paper suggests to use so called, Defense Quality Score, which is based on Taguchi loss function and developed in this research. Methods: Current defense specification states only the minimum requirement to produce the military supplies. Therefore, it is not easy to indue the continuous quality improvement of the supplies. This research suggests to use the defense quality score which measures the current status of defense supplies'quality characteristics. Results: We applied the defense quality score concept into the hot pepper sauce and long time stockpiled ammunition. We first categorize the quality characteristics into three categories, then assign the certain amount of score based on the importance of the characteristics. Lastly, we applied the modified Taguchi loss function to calculate the achieved score of the characteristics. The perfect score is 100 and the closer to the score, the better product it indicates. Conclusions: In this research, we developed the modified Taguchi loss function to apply into the korean defense supplies. The loss function is utilized to calculate the achieved level of satisfaction of the supplies based on the defense specifications. The application of defense quality score may help to stimulate the continuous quality improvement and encourage the good will quality competition among the military providers.