Quality Function

Deployment

Quality function deployment is a team-based management tool in which

customer expectations are used to drive the product development
process. Conflicting characteristics or requirements are identified early
in the QFD process and can be resolved before production
Quality Function Deployment
• Process planning

• Production planning

• Service industries
Quality Function Deployment
• By implementing QFD, an organization is guaranteed to implement
the voice of he customer in the final product or service
Quality Function Deployment
• Quality function deployment enables the design phase to concentrate
on the customer requirements, thereby spending less time on redesign
and modifications. The saved time has been estimated at one-third to
one-half of the time taken for redesign and modification using
traditional means. This saving means reduced development cost and
also additional income because the product enters the market sooner.
Quality Function Deployment
• There are two types of teams—designing a new product or improving
an existing product. Teams are composed of members from marketing,
design, quality, finance, and production. The existing product team
usually has fewer members, because the QFD process will only need
to be modified. Time and inter-team communication are two very
important things that each team must utilize to their fullest potential.
Using time effectively is the essential resource in getting the project
done on schedule. Using inter-team communication to its fullest extent
will alleviate unforeseen problems and make the project run smoothly
Quality Function Deployment-Meeting
• Team meetings are very important in the QFD process. The team
leader needs to ensure that the meetings are run in the most efficient
manner and that the members are kept informed. The meeting format
should have some way of measuring how well the QFD process is
working at each meeting and should be flexible, depending on certain
situations. The duration of the meeting will rely on where the team’s
members are coming from
 Improve Customer Satisfaction Creates focus on customer requirements Uses competitive
information effectively Prioritizes resources,Identifies items that
can be acted upon,Structure sresident,experience/information

Reduce Implementation Time

Decreases midstream design changes,Limits post
introduction problems,Avoids future development
redundancies,Identifies future application opportunities
Surfaces missing assumptions

Promotes teamwork
Based on consensus, Creates communication at interfaces
Identifies actions at interfaces,Creates global view out of
details

Provides Documentation A database for future design or process improvements is created. Data
that are historically scattered within
operations, frequently lost and often referenced out of context, are now
saved in an orderly manner to serve
future needs. This database also serves as a training tool for new
engineers. Quality function deployment is
also very flexible when new information is introduced or things have to
be changed on the QFD matrix.
Improve Customer Satisfaction

Creates focus on customer requirements

Uses competitive information effectively
Prioritizes resources
Identifies items that can be acted upon
Structures resident experience/information
 Reduces Implementation Time

• Fewer engineering changes are needed when using QFD, and, when
used properly, all conflicting design requirements can be identified and
addressed prior to production. This results in a reduction in retooling,
operator training, and changes in traditional quality control measures.
By using QFD, critical items are identified and can be monitored from
product inception to production. Toyota reports that the quality of their
product has improved by one-third since the implementation of QFD.
 Promotes Teamwork

• Quality function deployment forces a horizontal deployment of

communication channels. Inputs are required from all facets of an
organization, from marketing to production to sales, thus ensuring
that the voice of the customer is being heard and that each
department knows what the other is doing. This activity avoids
misinterpretation, opinions, and miscues. In other words, the left
hand always knows what the right hand is doing. Efficiency and
productivity always increase with enhanced teamwork.
 Provides Documentation

• A database for future design or process improvements is created.

Data that are historically scattered within operations, frequently
lost and often referenced out of context, are now saved in an
orderly manner to serve future needs. This database also serves as
a training tool for new engineers. Quality function deployment is
also very flexible when new information is introduced or things
have to be changed on the QFD matrix.
•
 Voice of Customer

• Based on the customers requirements and needs ,the QFD

Concentrates on research to determine customer expectations

• The driving force behind QFD is that the customer dictates the
attributes of a product. Customer satisfaction, like quality, is defined
as meeting or exceeding customer expectations. Words used by the
customers to describe their expectations are often referred to as the
voice customer
 Customer requirements

Customer requirements must be taken literally and not incorrectly

translated into what organization officials desire.
Voice of Customer -Types of Customer Information and How to Collect It
Solicited Unsolicited

Quantitative Qualitative

Structured Random

Focus groups
Trade visits
Customer visits
Complaint reports Consultants
Organizations standards
Government regulations
Sales force
Lawsuits
Training programs
Conventions
Hot lines Surveys
Trade journals
Customer tests
Trade shows
Trade trials
Vendors
Preferred customers
Suppliers
OM testing
Academic
Product purchase survey
Employees
Customer audits
House of Quality -Affinity diagram

1. Phrase the objective.

2. Record all responses.
3. Group the responses.
4. Organize groups in an affinity diagram.
House of Quality
 List Customer Requirements (WHATs)

• Quality function deployment starts with a list of goals/objectives. This list is often
referred as the WHATs that a customer needs or expects in a particular product. This list
of primary customer requirements is usually vague and very general in nature. Further
definition is accomplished by defining a new, more detailed list of secondary customer
requirements needed to support the primary customer requirements. In other words, a
primary customer requirement may encompass numerous secondary customer
requirements. Although the items on the list of secondary customer requirements
represent greater detail than those on the list of primary customer requirements, they are
often not directly actionable by the engineering staff and require yet further definition.
Finally, the list of customer requirements is divided into a hierarchy of primary,
secondary, and tertiary customer requirements, For example, a primary customer
requirement might be dependability and the corresponding secondary customer
requirements could include reliability, longevity, and maintainability.
 Example

• A company that manufactures bicycle components such as cranks,

hubs, rims, and so forth wants to expand their product line by also
producing handlebar stems for mountain bikes. Begin the development
process of designing a handlebar stem for a mountain bike by first
listing the customer requirements or WHAT the customer needs or
expects in a handlebar stem.
List Technical Descriptors (HOWs

• The goal of the house of quality is to design or change the design of a product in a way that meets or exceeds the
customer expectations. Now that the customer needs and expectations have been expressed in terms of
customer requirements, the QFD team must come up with engineering characteristics or technical descriptors
(HOWs) that will affect one or more of the customer requirements. These technical descriptors make up the
ceiling, or second floor, of the house of quality. Each engineering characteristic must directly affect a customer
perception and be expressed in measurable terms.
• Implementation of the customer requirements is difficult until they are translated into counterpart
characteristics. Counterpart characteristics are an expression of the voice of the customer in technical language.
Each of the customer requirements is broken down into the next level of detail by listing one or more primary
technical descriptors for each of the tertiary customer requirements. This process is similar to refining
marketing specifications into system-level engineering specifications. Further definition of the primary technical
descriptors is accomplished by defining a list of secondary technical descriptors that represent greater detail
than those on the list of primary technical descriptors. This is similar to the process of translating system-level
engineering specifications into part-level specifications. These secondary technical descriptors can include part
specifications and manufacturing parameters that an engineer can act upon. Often the secondary technical
descriptors are still not directly actionable, requiring yet further definition. This process of refinement is
continued until every item on the list is actionable. Finally, the list of technical descriptors is divided into a
hierarchy of primary, secondary, and tertiary technical descriptors,
List Technical Descriptors (HOW)s
• This level of detail is necessary because there is no way of ensuring successful realization of a technical
descriptor that the engineering staff does not know how to accomplish. The process of refinement is further
complicated by the fact that through each level of refinement, some technical descriptors affect more than one
customer requirement and can even adversely affect one another. For example, a customer requirement for an
automobile might be a smooth ride. This is a rather vague statement; however, it is important in the selling of
an automobile. Counterpart characteristics for a smooth ride could be dampening, anti-roll, and stability
Develop a Relationship Matrix Between WHATs and HOWs

• The next step in building a house of quality is to compare the customer

requirements and technical descriptors and determine their respective
relationships. Tracing the relationships between the customer require
ments and the technical descriptors can become very confusing,
because each customer requirement may affect more than one
technical descriptor, and vice versa.
Develop an Interrelationship Matrix Between HOWs

• The roof of the house of quality, called the correlation matrix, is used to
identify any interrelationships between each of the technical descriptors.
The correlation matrix is a triangular table attached to the technical
descriptors,. Symbols are used to describe the strength of the
interrelationships; for example,
• A solid circle represents a strong positive relationship.
A circle represents a positive relationship.
• An X represents a negative relationship.
• An asterisk represents a strong negative relationship.
Develop an Interrelationship Matrix
Between HOWs
• The symbols describe the direction of the correlation. In other words, a strong positive
interrelationship would be a nearly perfectly positive correlation. A strong negative
interrelationship would be a nearly perfectly negative correlation. This diagram allows the user to
identify which technical descriptors support one another and which are in conflict. Conflicting
technical descriptors are extremely important because they are frequently the result of conflicting
customer requirements and, consequently, represent points at which trade- offs must be made.
Tradeoffs that are not identified and resolved will often lead to unfulfilled requirements,
engineering changes, increased costs, and poorer quality. Some of the tradeoffs may require high-
level managerial decisions, because they cross functional area boundaries. Even though difficult,
early resolution of tradeoffs is essential to shorten product development time.
• An example of tradeoffs is in the design of a car, where the customer requirements of high fuel
economy and safety yield technical descriptors that conflict. The added weight of stronger
bumpers, air bags, antilock brakes, and the soon-to-come federal side-impact standards will
ultimately reduce the fuel efficiency of the car. In the case of conflicting technical descriptors,
 Competitive Assessments

• The competitive assessments are a pair of weighted tables (or graphs)

that depict item for item how competitive products compare with
current organization products. The competitive assessment tables are
separated into two categories, customer assessment and technical
assessment
Develop Prioritized Customer Requirements

• The prioritized customer requirements make up a block of columns corresponding to each customer
requirement in the house of quality on the right side of the customer competitive assessment as
shown in Figure 10-12. These prioritized customer requirements contain columns for importance to
customer, target value, scale-up factor, sales point, and an absolute weight.
• IMPORTANCE TO CUSTOMER
• The QFD team—or, preferably, the focus group—ranks each customer requirement by assigning it a
rating. Numbers 1 through 10 are listed in the importance to customer column to indicate a rating of
1 for least important and 10 for very important. In other words, the more important the customer
requirement, the higher the rating.
• Importance ratings represent the relative importance of each customer requirement in terms of
each other. Assigning ratings to customer requirements is sometimes difficult, because each
member of the QFD team might believe different requirements should be ranked higher. The
importance rating is useful for prioritizing efforts and making trade-off decisions.
•
 Develop Prioritized Technical Descriptors

• The prioritized technical descriptors make up a block of rows

corresponding to each technical descriptor in the house of quality below
the technical competitive assessment, as shown in Figure 10-13. These
prioritized technical descriptors contain degree of technical difficulty,
target value, and absolute and relative weights. The QFD team identifies
technical descriptors that are most needed to fulfill customer
requirements and need improvement. These measures provide specific
objectives that guide the subsequent design and provide a means of
objectively assessing progress and minimizing subjective opinions.
 QFD Process

• The QFD matrix (house of quality) is the basis for all future matrices
needed for the QFD method. Although each house of quality chart now
contains a large amount of information, it is still necessary to refine the
technical descriptors further until an actionable level of detail is achieved.
Often, more than one matrix will be needed, depending on the complexity
of the project. The process is accomplished by creating a new chart in
which the HOWs (technical descriptors) of the previous chart became the
WHATs (customer requirements) of the new chart. This process continues
until each objective is refined to an actionable level. The HOW MUCH
(prioritized technical descriptors) values are
•
 QFD Process

Phase II Phase III Phase IV

Phase I Production
Product Part Process
Developme Planning Planning
Plannin
g nt
Refinement of the QFD Chart