Quality Function Deployment Chapter 11 Quality Function Deployment By: Keri Carpenter Arnold Brown Jim Keys Ning Yang

Defined Quality Function Deployment is a planning tool used to fulfill customer expectations. It is a disciplined planning matrices that is used as the basis for decisions affecting any phase of the product development cycle. It is considered by many experts to be a perfect blueprint for quality by design.

The QFD teams There are two types of teams- new product or improving an existing product. Teams are composed of members from marketing, design, quality, finance, and production.

QFD team continued 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.

Four Benefits of QFD Customer driven Reduce implementation time Promotes teamwork Provides documentation

Customer driven Creates focus on customer requirements Uses competitive information Prioritizes resources Identifies items that can be acted upon Structures resident experience/information

Reduce implementation time Decrease mid-stream design change Limits post introduction problems Avoids future development redundancies Identifies future application opportunities Surface missing assumptions

Promotes teamwork Based on concerns Creates communication Identifies actions at interface Creates global view out of details

Provides Documentation Documents rationale for design Easy to assimilate Adds structure to the information Adapts to change (a living document) Provides framework for sensitivity analysis

Voice of the Customer What does the customer really want? What are the customer’s expectations? Are the customer’s expectations used to drive the design process? What can the design team do to achieve customer satisfaction?

WAYS TO GATHER INFORMATION Voice of the customer WAYS TO GATHER INFORMATION Focus groups Complaint reports Organizational standards Gov. regulations Law suites Hot lines Surveys Customers tests Preferred customers Trade visits Customer visits Consultants Sales force Training Trade shows Vendors Suppliers Employees

Solicited Unsolicited Quantitative Qualitative Structured Random Complaint reports Organizational standards Government regulations Lawsuits Trade Visits Customer visits Consultants Focus Groups Hot Lines Surveys Customer tests Trade trials Preferred customers OM Testing Product purchase survey Customer audits Sales force Training Programs Conventions Trade journals Trade shows Vendors Suppliers Academic Employees

Organization of Information These methods are ideal for organizing large amounts information Affinity Diagrams Interrelationship Diagrams Tree Diagrams Cause and Effect Diagrams

Building a House of Quality 1 - Customer Requirements ( WHAT’s ) 2 - Technical Descriptors ( HOW’s ) 3 - Develop relationship between WHAT’s & HOW’s 4 - Develop an interrelationship between HOW’s 5 - Competitive assessments Customer competitive assessment Technical competitive assessment

House Continued 6 - Prioritize the customer requirements Importance to customer Target value Service scale up factor Sales point Absolute weight 7 - Prioritize the technical descriptors Degree of difficulty Relative weight

Questions What is the harnesses function ? Is weight a factor? How long would you really want to hang around in it for ? Do you care what it looks like ? What features do you want in your harness ?

Questions How important is webbing strength ? How many buckles would you want on your Harness ? How can we improve comfort ? How can we make the harness user friendly ?

House of Quality

QFD Process The QFD process must be continually refined to an actionable level of detail. QFD is driven by the customer. QFD refines the design process. QFD saves the organization money.