Quality Function Deployment – House of Quality – Process and Benefits

Done By 20062739-20062743 “The M Group”

"Time was when a man could order a pair of shoes directly from the cobbler. By measuring the foot himself and personally handling all aspects of manufacturing, the cobbler could assure the customer would be satisfied," - Dr. Yoji Akao, one of the founders of QFD, in his private lectures.

QFD?? Quality Function Deployment (QFD) was developed to bring this personal interface to modern manufacturing and business. In today's industrial society - growing distance between producers and users - a concern. => QFD links the needs of the customer (end user) with design, development, engineering, manufacturing, and service functions. The purpose of Professors Mizuno and Akao was to develop a quality assurance method that would design customer satisfaction into a product before it was manufacturered. Prior quality control methods were primarily aimed at fixing a problem during or after manufacturing.

Tenets of QFD Understanding Customer Requirements Quality Systems Thinking + Psychology + Epistemology Maximizing Positive Quality That Adds Value Comprehensive Quality System for Customer Satisfaction Strategy to Stay Ahead of The Game

QFD Vs Other Quality Initiatives Traditional quality systems aim at minimizing negative quality such as eliminating defects or reducing operational errors. Zero defects – So?? No guarantee. QFD is quite different - it seeks out both "spoken" and "unspoken" customer requirements and maximizes "positive" quality (such as ease of use, fun, luxury) that creates value,rather than minimising –ve quality.

Characteristics of QFD as quality system QFD implements elements of Systems Thinking (viewing the development process as a system) and Psychology (understanding customer needs, what 'value' is, and how customers or end users become interested, choose, and are satisfied, etc.). QFD is a quality method of good Knowledge or Epistemology (how do we know the needs of the customer? how do we decide what features to include? and to what level of performance?) QFD is a quality system for strategic competitiveness; QFD - only comprehensive quality system aimed specifically at satisfying the customer throughout the development and business process -- end to end.

Expected Vs EXCITING quality "Expected" quality or requirements are essentially basic functions or features that customers normally expect of a product or service. "Exciting" quality or requirements are sort of "out of ordinary" functions or features of a product or service that cause "wow" reactions in customers.   The target of customer satisfaction can be moving and invisible—which requires more complex analysis. This is precisely where QFD is strongest. QFD makes invisible requirements and strategic advantages visible.

Four phases Product Planning (House of Quality):  translate customer requirement into product technical requirements to meet them. Product Design:  translate technical requirements to key part characteristics or systems Process Planning:  identify key process operations necessary to achieve key part characteristics. Production Planning (Process Control):  establish process control plans, maintenance plans, training plans to control operations.

In a nutshell…QFD- 1.      Seeks out spoken and unspoken customer needs from fuzzy Voice of the Customer verbatim; 2.      Uncovers "positive" quality that wows the customer; 3.      Translates these into designs characteristics and deliverable actions; 4.      Builds and delivers a quality product or service by focusing the various business functions toward achieving a common goal—customer satisfaction.

House of Quality

House of Quality is a graphic tool for defining the relationship between customer desires and the firm/product capabilities. It looks like a House with correlation matrix as its roof, what customer wants versus product features as the main part, competitor evaluation as the porch etc. It is based on "the belief that products should be designed to reflect customers' desires and tastes"

The basic structure is a table with "Whats" as the labels on the left and "Hows" across the top.  The roof is a diagonal matrix of "Hows vs. Hows" and the body of the house is a matrix of "Whats vs. Hows".  Both of these matrices are filled with indicators of whether the interaction of the specific item is a strong positive, a strong negative, or somewhere in between. Additional annexes on the right side and bottom hold the "Whys" (market research, etc.) and the "How Muches".

Rankings based on the Whys and the correlations can be used to calculate priorities for the Hows. House of Quality analysis can also be cascaded, with "Hows" from one level becoming the "Whats" of a lower level; as this progresses the decisions get closer to the engineering/manufacturing details. Inshort, it is a table that connects dots between the Voice of the Customer and the Voice of the Engineer. Tutorials/softwares for construction of house of quality available

The House of Quality is commonly associated with QFD , though it is not so in modern day technology driven and cost driven QFDs Large, complex tools such as the House of Quality (HOQ) are now often replaced with smaller, faster ones that provide a level of analysis that is faster and easier.  Modern QFD also upgraded math in the QFD matrices to meet the mathematical rigor demanded by Six Sigma precision.   Modern QFD includes psychological and lifestyle needs, not just functional needs. Today, consumers are making the purchase decision more and more on emotional needs and image issues

QFD Process 4 phases of product development. Product planning Part development Process planning Product development

Four phases of product development

House Of quality House of quality matrix focuses on product defenition. Therefore better design. House of quality marks comletion of phase 1 of QFD. For the remaining phases a similar matrix is construted.

Phase 1 Product Planning It consists of 7 steps Step 1: List customer requirements.(WHAT?) Step 2: List technical descriptions.(HOW?) Step 3: Develop a relationship matrix with WHAT and HOW Step 4: Develop an interrelationship matrix between HOW Step 5: Competitive assessments Step 6 &7: Develop prioritized customer requirements and technical descriptors

Phase 2 Part Development Step 8: Deploy QFD process to a subcomponent level in terms of requirements and characteristics. Step 9a: Deploy component deploy chart. 9b: Relate all critical sub-component characteristics.

Phase 3 Process planning Step 10: Develop relationship between a. critical characteristics b. process used to create critical characteristics Step 11: Develop control plan relating critical contol to critical process

Phase 4 product planning Step 12: Tabulate operating instructions from process requirements. STEP 13: Develop a prototype and test it. Step 14: Launch final product in to market.

Case study ABC is engaged in a product deign for making a child’s toy. The toy would be for children aged 3- 9.The toy can be used in the bathtub and also on the floor. Objective: construct House of quality for children’s toy. Solution: A simplified House of quality is constructed. 1. Customer requirements 2. technical features 3. correlations between the above. 4.interrelationship between HOWs 5. Evaluation between competitors. 6. Hypothetical evaluation of technical requirements.

Advantages of QFD Promotes better understanding of customer needs Improves customer satisfaction. Promote team work. Better understanding of design interactions. Breaks barriers between functions and departments. Minimizes number of later engineering changes. Introduces the new design in to the market faster. Better documentation of design and development process. Reduces overall cost of design and manufacture.

Who use QFD? Currently most U.S. and Japan companies. Automobile industries like Ford and general motors. In the Electronics field “Digital Equipment corporation” and “Texas instruments”. Other companies like “Procter & Gamble”,polaroid, The Kendall company, HP, etc.

Thank you!