Meeting
customer expectations in product development
Many organizations, when
launching new products into the market, fail to capture the attention of the
targeted customer. This is a result of a breakdown in translating the
consumers' expectations into the final product. Quality Function Deployment
(QFD) is a structured process that captures the expectations of the customer
based on market research and benchmarking with competitors. It then translates
them into technical design specifications. It highlights the critical process
operations for each technical description and finally draws out the production
requirements and lifetime support of the product needed to materialize the
consumer's wants and needs. The customers' requirements may be explicit and at other
times the needs may be incredible benefits that he/she may not know about but
will be willing to experience, as witnessed in innovative products. As such QFD
breaks down organization’s silos (read departments) and aligns the application
of resources by bringing about prioritization and cross-functional ownership.
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Fig
1: Broken communication lines leading to misinterpretation of customers’
expectations
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QFD uses a matrix format and a
rating scale to address and assess the indicators which are vital for the
planning processes. QFD manifests itself in a structure that is known as the
house of quality which is a conceptual framework that provides a means for
cross-functional planning and communication. The house of quality gets its name
from the triangular roof-like appearance of the correlation matrix which sits
on top of the tool. To transform the customer's requirements into a final
product or service, QFD works out in four phases. They are, the voice of the
customer, the voice of the engineer, the parts design specifications and the
manufacturing specifications. Each of the four phases is represented by a house
of quality.
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Fig
2: The four phases of quality function deployment
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The first house of quality is the voice of the
customer. The inputs (AKA What’s) for this house are the customer requirements
while the functional requirements (AKA How’s) are the engineering requirements
needed to satisfy the customer's needs. This matrix defines the product and is
usually led by the sales and marketing department as they have first-hand
experience with the users. The second house of quality is the voice of the
engineer. To enable consistency and to ensure that the communication chain is
not broken during the transition, the How’s of the preceding house become the
what of the next house, as such, the engineering requirements become the input
while the various parts characteristics required to fulfil the engineering
needs becomes the functional requirements. This enables the product to be
visualized and developed. This phase is led by the product engineering design
team.
The third house, the parts design specification,
has the characteristics of the parts as its inputs while the parts processes
operations required to achieve the individual parts design become the functional
requirements. This develops the necessary processes, process flow and
parameters required to achieve each designed part. This phase is led by the
manufacturing engineering team. In the final house i.e. the manufacturing
specifications house, the parts processes operations become the inputs while
the production process requirements necessary for the assembly of the
components into the final product becomes the functional requirements. This
gives the process guidelines and controls to guarantee the fulfilment of the
customer's requirements. In this phase, performance indicators to monitor the
production processes are put in place, as such this phase is led by the quality
assurance team. With the transition of information from one team to the other, there
needs to be a consistent member(s) who manages the transformation of
information and manage the pathway from initial customer request to the
delivery of the final product
The house of quality is a planning matrix that
shows the relationship between the what’s and the how’s that an organization
can use to achieve the input requirements of the various phases of QFD. In its
general format, the house of quality is made up of seven rooms. They are, the
input requirements, the input requirements priority rating, the functional
requirements, the relationship matrix, the correlation matrix, the competition
assessment, and the functional requirements importance rating.
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Fig 3:
The House of Quality
The initial step in forming the house of quality
includes determining, clarifying and specifying the input needs. The inputs lay
the foundation for a clearly defined venture that will ensure the planning is
well thought out prior to any development. It is important to translate the
inputs to tangible values that can be turned into functional specifications.
Some of the inputs may be national standards that need to be adhered to.
Depending on the phase of QFD the inputs may be customer requirements,
engineering requirements, parts design specification or the process operations.
The input requirements may impact each other
adversely. To overcome such conflict, the requirements are assigned priorities.
The priorities must reflect the preference of the input requirements. The input
priority column is found to the right of the input requirements.
The functional requirements investigate how the
input demands will be achieved. The functional requirements should be tangible,
measurable and should satisfy the input requirements. The functional
requirements are manipulated directly or indirectly to influence the input
needs. There should be at least one functional requirement for each demanded
input. Depending on the phase of QFD, the functional requirements may be, the
engineering requirements, the characteristics of the parts, the parts process
operations or the production requirements.
This matrix establishes the connection between the
input requirements and the functional requirements. The relationship between
the input requirements and the functional requirements is portrayed by symbols
which indicate a strong, medium or weak relationship. The symbols are assigned
indexes say 9-strong, 3-medium, and 1-weak. When no relationship is evident
between a pair, a zero value is assigned. The relationship matrix follows the
Pareto principle where 20% of the functional requirements satisfy about 80% of
the input requirements. As such, there shouldn't be a significant number of strong
relationships between pairs.
The correlation matrix is used in developing the
relationship between the functional requirements concerning the input
requirements. It identifies opportunities where the functional requirements
conflict with each other and where they can build synergy. As such, it uses
symbols to identify interrelationships. The negative sign (-) is used to show a
negative relationship while the double negative sign is used to indicate a
strong negative relationship. A positive sign (+) is used to portray a positive
relationship while a double positive image is used to denote a strong positive
relationship. These symbols are entered at the cross-section of conflicting or
synergistic functional requirements to highlight them. In some cases, negative
or strong negative relationships of functional requirements mean that the
design might have to be compromised unless the negative functional requirement
can be designed out. Negative impacts may also represent constraints where an
improvement of one functionality may be detrimental to another functionality.
Empty rows in the correlation matrix indicate unaddressed input requirements
thus the functional requirements need to be revisited and adjusted accordingly
and if necessary, add a functional requirement that needs to be identified.
Empty columns, on the other hand, indicate redundancy and unnecessary
functional requirements which may not be traced back to any input requirements.
The correlation matrix flags any contentious issue so that it may be resolved
before moving to the next phase of QFD.
Competition assessment involves the identification
of available systems or products capable of responding to the input
requirements. Input requirement perceptions are then benchmarked relative to
how well the competition satisfies the set requirements. The purpose of this
effort is to highlight the absolute strengths and weaknesses of a product or
service in the marketplace and areas where the new product deserves improvement.
This brings about invaluable insights into avenues where competitive gains can
be made effectively
this is the output of the house of quality. It is a
set of values for each functional requirement that needs to be met by the new
design. The functional importance rating takes into account all the other six
rooms in the house of quality; thus, it specifies the feasible design space and
impacts the subsequent design decisions. At times, organizations are not able
to develop the optimum design due to constraints such as costs, technology, and
other related items.
As from the above methodology, QFD helps build
quality from upstream by understanding the raw voice of the customer. It then
translates these demands through its four phases into discrete technical
parameters and finally builds and delivers a quality product or service by
focusing the organization towards meeting or exceeding customer expectations.
Like other systems, GIGO also applies to QFD, Gold In, Gold Out.
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