In today's highly competitive market environment, products that fully respond to customer expectations must be designed for survival and growth of the company. Therefore, defining and analyzing customer expectations is an important issue. In recent years, one of the most commonly used and effective methods for resolving the issue is Quality Function Deployment (QFD). As a customer-oriented approach that reflects consumer expectations, QFD provides the planning/improvement of the process by taking advantage of this information. In this study, the QFD method was used to identify and analyze the expectations of students enrolled in a language school. First, data related to student expectations were received. House of quality was established and evaluated, and as a result of the study, managers were informed that the teaching techniques practised by the teachers and equipment of the school should be developed by adopting a new trend. In the account. Based on these results, administrators are advised to improve the student's satisfaction. This study provides key researchers and decision makers working on the QFD approach and its programs in the education sector.
1. Assignment
Descripting House of Quality
Subject: Total Quality Management (TQM)
Lectured by
Prof. Sutarto, M.Sc., Ph.D.
Prepared by
KHIENG CHANNA
ID No.: 18702261010
TECHNOLOGY AND VOCATIONAL EDUCATION STUDY
PROGRAM
GRADUATE SCHOOL
YOGYAKARTA STATE UNIVERSITY
ACADEMIC YEAR
2018/2019
2. 1
Review Journal
International Journal of Economics, Commerce and Management,
Vol. III, Issue 3, March 2015
Topic: Evaluation of the Students’ Expectations for an Educational Institution Using
Quality Function Deployment Method
Author: Eylem Koç
Abstract
In today's highly competitive market environment, products that fully respond to
customer expectations must be designed for survival and growth of the company. Therefore,
defining and analyzing customer expectations is an important issue. In recent years, one of the
most commonly used and effective methods for resolving the issue is Quality Function
Deployment (QFD). As a customer-oriented approach that reflects consumer expectations,
QFD provides the planning/improvement of the process by taking advantage of this
information. In this study, the QFD method was used to identify and analyze the expectations
of students enrolled in a language school. First, data related to student expectations were
received. House of quality was established and evaluated, and as a result of the study, managers
were informed that the teaching techniques practised by the teachers and equipment of the
school should be developed by adopting a new trend. In the account. Based on these results,
administrators are advised to improve the student's satisfaction. This study provides key
researchers and decision makers working on the QFD approach and its programs in the
education sector.
1. Introduction
This paper wanted to evaluate what students had expected and survived the products and
services through the companies. In that time, the variety of goods and services offered to
students in all sectors had risen due to globalization and technological development. This
situation led to an increase in customer expectations and a continued shift in these expectations.
It could be said that the quality of the physical properties of the product is no longer beneficial.
Students emphasized the appearance of quality when purchasing products as well as their
expectations. It could be emphasized that changing student expectations had become a key
force in leading global markets in all sectors. Thus, the company had analyzed student
fluctuations in the market environment and adapt to these changes to make students prefer.
3. 2
In the literature, Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method is used effectively in order
to solve such problems (Chan and Wu, 2002; Aytaç and Deniz, 2005). QFD is a quality
improvement method used to reflect customer expectations that they know and show. And / or
they did not even know so cannot be expressed. QFD also has a key role in connecting these
expectations with the specifications of the products (Mazur, 1997). In this paper, the problem
of defining expectations of students in school language and the institutional quality
improvement of these expectations was resolved using the QFD approach.
2. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Its Applications
QFD was developed in the 1970s by YojiAkao and Shigeru Mizuno, and had been
successfully implemented in many areas up to now (Jaiswal, 2012). Some of the successful
QFD applications in the literature were classified according to their application areas and given
in Table.1 (for further review, see: Chan and Wu, 2002; Aytaç and Deniz, 2005; Shahin, 2008).
As can be seen in Table.1, QFD was used in the solution of problems in so many different areas
such as product design, banking, healthcare, textile etc.
Table 1. QFD studies in the Literature
Application areas References
Logistics Uğur, 2007; Tu et.al., 2010; HuangandYoshida, 2013
Automotive Çabuk et.al., 2008
Banking/Insurance González, Mueller and Mack, 2008; Doğu and Özgürel, 2008;
Shimomura, Hara ve Arai, 2008
Tourism Öter and Tütüncü, 2001; Tatar, 2007; Das and Mukherjee, 2008;
IkizandMasoudi, 2008
Architecture Gargione, 1999
Web design KuoandChen, 2011
Education Mazur, 1996; Aytaç, 2002; Chou, 2004; Savaş and Ay, 2005; Şaştım
et.al., 2006; Boonyanuwat et.al., 2008; Singh, Groverand Kumar,
2008; Garibay, Gutiérrez and Figueroa, 2010; Sahayand Mehta, 2010;
Hafeez and Mazouz, 2011; Ictenbas and Eryilmaz, 2011; Sirias, 2012;
Qureshi et.al., 2012
Food Arı, 2006; Suliyev, 2007; Park, Ham and Lee, 2012
Textile NgandWang, 2007; Militaru et.al., 2014
Health Camgöz-Akdağ et.al., 2013
4. 3
Product design Bergquist and Abeysekera, 1996; Zaim and Şevkli, 2002; Gonza´lez,
Quesada and Bahill, 2003; Üçler, Vayvayand Çobanoğlu, 2006;
Mahaptra and Mohanty, 2013; Zhang, YangandLiu, 2014
The process of QFD method basically consisted of four steps (Leber, Polajnar and
Buchmeister, 2000; Vurmaz, 2009): (i) Planning, (ii) Determination of the customer
expectations, (iii) Creation of house of quality and (iv) Obtaining and interpreting the results.
These steps are described below.
i. Planning: The first step of the QFD process was planning. This step started with
the provision of organizational support. In order to do this, planning of financial
resources that were necessary for the operation of QFD and scheduling must be
done with the help of company management. QFD team consisted of the members
of associated sections such as marketing, design, quality, finance and production
(Suliyev, 2007).
ii. Determination of the customer expectations: Determination of the customer
expectations was the most critical step of QFD. This step is referred to as listening
to the voice of the customer. A variety of techniques such as Gemba analysis,
focused group work, brainstorm meetings, survey technique, face-to-face
interviews, market researches could be used in determining the expectations
(Ronney, Olfe and Mazur, 2000; Olcay, 2007; Çabuk et.al., 2008; Koç, 2009).
Importance values could be obtained directly from customers as well as by using
techniques such as the analytic hierarchy process and conjoint analysis (Tuet.al.,
2010; Prasad et.al., 2010; Karimi, Mozafari and Asli, 2012).
iii. The creation of a house of quality: House of quality was the basic tool used in the
analysis phase of the QFD method. House of Quality was a matrix in which
customers' expectations are associated with technical requirements and this
structure provided a determination of how these expectations could be covered
(Gauthier, Sodhi and Dewhurst, 2000). The common representation of the house
of quality was given in Figure.1 (Leary, Burvill and Weir, 2005; Jaiswal, 2012).
5. 4
Figure.1. The common representation of house of quality
As seen in Figure.1, house of quality was a matrix which consists of several different
sections. This five-step process was given below:
Step 1: The creation of customer expectations: The column on the left of the home was
part of the expectations of customers. In this section, there was a list of customer
expectations presented by the QFD team using a variety of techniques (Savaş and
Ay, 2005). There were two fundamental reasons for the reduction in the number of
expectations.
− First, some of the expectations generally have similar or identical meanings.
− The second is the removal of difficulties that may be encountered during the
determination of the importance level of expectations and technical requirements
associated with them.
Step 2: The creation of the technical requirements section: On the second floor of the
house of quality, characteristics named as the technical requirements section took
place. Technical requirements show how customer expectations could be met in a
technical sense (Adhaye, 2013). This section of the house of quality was created
by the QFD team by converting expectations of the customers to the technical
requirements. Therefore, all technical requirements described in this section must
be associated with at least one expectation.
1. Customer requirements
2. Planning matrix
3. Technical requirements
4. Relationship matrix
5. Correlation matrix
6. Technical evaluation
6. 5
Step 3: The creation of the relationship matrix: Relationship matrix was located in the
body of the house of quality. This matrix showed the relationship between customer
expectations which were located on the left side of the house of quality and the
technical requirements which were located on the second floor of the house of
quality. In this step, the association of technical requirements and customer
expectations and to what extent these requirements are effective in meeting these
expectations are shown (Suliyev, 2007). To illustrate these relationships, symbols,
points or letters are used (Arı, 2006).
These scoring systems were given in Table.2.
Table 2. Scoring systems
Relationships American scoring system Symbol Letter
Strong 9 G
Middle 3 M
Weak 1 Δ V
Each cell did not have to be in the relationship matrix. In addition, an expectation may
relate to one or more technical requirements, as well as one or more specific requirements
related to one or more expectations. Must check blank rows and columns after setting up the
contact matrix. If empty columns, technical requirements must be reviewed and taken from the
matrix, if no association was found after the review (Yýldýz and Baran, 2011).
Step 4: Creating a correlation matrix: The correlation matrix illustrating the internal
relationships among the technical requirements is located on the roof section of the
house of quality. Each cell in this matrix showed a positive or negative correlation
between two technical requirements. The cell indicating technical requirements
with positive correlation is indicated by "+" sign and a negative correlation with "-
" sign (González, Mueller, andMack, 2008).
Step 5: Creating the competition and planning matrix: Competition matrix demonstrated
the difference between the products of the enterprise and the rival product(s)
considering customer expectations. Thereby missing and superior aspects of the
enterprise in the market are determined. These matrices were placed in the columns
to the right of house of quality. In the evaluation scores, 1-5 (1: worst, 5: best) were
7. 6
given for determining the degree of meeting customer expectations of the
company's own products and rival products (Zaim and Şevkli, 2002).
Planning matrix is placed next to the competitive matrix on the right side of the house of
quality. This matrix consists of columns called (i) value of importance for the customer, (ii)
target value, (iii) improvement rate, (iv) sales point (v) absolute weight. The value of
importance that customer attaches to expectations is in the column of the importance value for
a customer. A variety of techniques such as analytic hierarchy process and conjoint analysis
can be used in the determination of this value as well as 1-10 points (1: trivial, 10: very
important) or Likert-type scale (Tu et.al., 2010; Prasad et.al., 2010).
3. The Analysis of the Students’ Expectations of an Educational Institution Using
QFD Method
In this paper, the method of providing high-quality education in a language school was
studied through the QFD approach. The organization did not want its name to be spoken
because of its privacy policy. This school will be referred to as the "X language school" for the
last part of the study. X language school offered all levels of language education with a
dedicated staff and technical tool with a proven track record of providing training in schools.
Every student knew that the main point of this goal was the students, and this goal could be
achieved by listening to their voices. Listening to students' voices and learning their
expectations was a tough task. In the study, the QFD approach, a commonly used method of
listening to consumer voices, was chosen to reach school management goals.
4. Determination of the students’ expectations
In this paper, student expectations were identified by the QFD team's brainstorming
session and 15 students enrolled in the English language course. First, information about the
purpose of the study was provided to students at the meeting. Students were then asked to
express their opinion about their expectations from the Language School. The meeting lasted
about two hours. At the end of the process, expected expectations were determined and students
were asked to review and clarify these expectations. After confirming all the issues, 10
outcomes were received. After specifying expectations, a survey was conducted to find out the
key values associated with these issues and levels at which these schools were exposed. For
this purpose, a questionnaire containing two parts was established. In the first part of the
questionnaire, there are 10 questionnaires, five of which are Likert (1: 5 Critical), which
provide an assessment of student expectations. In the second part of the questionnaire, the state
8. 7
of the school's expected response level (1: 5: fully satisfied) was measured using five Likert
sizes. This questionnaire was applied to 250 English students. Due to incomplete completion,
21 queries were deleted and data were collected from 229 students. After testing the reliability
of the data, the alpha value of Cronbach was found to be 0.91. Since the value was greater than
0.70, it can be said that the data received was reliable (Özdamar, 1999; Yıldız, Ayhan and
Erdoğmuş, 2009). After the survey, arithmetic mean value was calculated by considering
importance values that were given to every expectation and mean values were obtained for
each expectation. Students’ expectations and importance values are given in Table.3.
5. Establishment of house of quality
Final house of quality obtained in this study is given in Table.3. The steps in the creation
of the final house of quality are as follows:
Step.1: Establishment of customer expectations section: Students’ expectations that were
obtained from brainstorm meetings have been placed in the first column where the
customer's expectations are located.
Step.2: Establishment of technical requirements section: Student expectations were
transformed into technical requirements by the QFD team. These technical
requirements and related student expectations were given on the second floor of
the house of quality.
Step.3: Establishment of the relationship matrix of students’ expectations and technical
requirements: The relationship between expectations and technical requirements
were examined by the QFD team and the relationship matrix is formed. The
symbols which are given in Table.2 was used in grading relationships. Moreover,
importance values for technical requirements were determined and normalized
importance values were calculated by considering these values. The relationship
matrix is given in the body part of house of quality and importance values for
requirements were given in the last two rows.
Step.4: Creating the correlation matrix between the technical requirements: The QFD
team examined the relations of technical requirements and correlation matrix was
placed on the roof of the house of quality in Table.3 (see next page).
Step.5: Creating the competition and planning matrix: In this step, a comparison is made
between X language school and two competitor language schools. Competition
matrix has been determined after a meeting with three teachers who worked for
other language schools and two students who also studied there. For this purpose,
9. 8
participants were asked to compare X language school with its competitors by
considering student expectations in mind. The obtained data were given on "X lang.
school (Today)", "Competitor A" and "Competitor B" columns on the house of
quality in Table.3.
Table 3: House of Quality
10. 9
Therefore, the selling price was set to be 1.5 for this forecast. The key points were
calculated by the value of the importance and the growth rate and the selling price. Percentage
columns were calculated by dividing each of the major points to the significant total points.
6. Conclusion
In this paper, they had aimed to present students’ expectations for foreign language
schools and improve the quality of services of the institution. QFD approach was used to
achieve these goals.
− First, student expectations were identified and the main values are received with
the help of the prepared questionnaire. House of quality was provided in Table 3.
When examining the house of quality, it was observed that the most important
student expectations were the "qualifications of the teaching staff" (score of
importance = 7,47, percentage point = 14). The second major prospect was the
"good relationship of management with students". "Technical support" was the
third of the students' expectations. Therefore, these high expectations should be
prioritized when developing student expectations, and it was important to focus
on these expectations. In addition, expectations with a few key points were
"excessive social space" and "doing homework". Other students' expectations can
be translated in a similar way, according to the key and / or significance.
− It had been observed that "sufficient material" was the second most important
technical requirement in the home of quality (normal = 14). Therefore, the
improvement of the "teaching technique" and "material adequacy" would play an
important role in the quality of the establishment. When the matrix was connected
to the rooftop of a house of quality, it was observed that there was a positive
correlation between the technical requirements of (1) "teaching techniques" and
"sufficient material" (2) "social characteristics" And "access to practice", (iii)
"material adequacy" and "access to practice"; and (iv) "safety" and "location".
When "adequate supply" was established, "teaching techniques" and "get
practices" would also be positively affected by this development. Likewise,
providing an improvement on "access to practice" will improve "social features".
It could be argued that improvements to the "location" would provide a positive
contribution to "security." Because the correlation between technical
11. 10
requirements was positive in a matrix that did not have the key to trade between
demand.
When the matrix competes in the home of quality was examined, it happened that X
language school was higher than its competitors in terms of student expectations. For example,
the satisfaction level of the X language school for "qualifications of teaching staff" was 4.60.
The level of satisfaction of both competitors for this prospect was the same as 3.20. Therefore,
the X language school was higher than those of competitors A and B of these expectations.
Other cells in matrix competitors could be interpreted in a similar way that reflected the
expectations of each student. The improved columns in the plot matrix were in the last 4
columns of house of quality was calculated by dividing the values in the target column by the
values in today's column. This value represents the percentage of the current performance of
institutions that would be improved. When the corresponding price was observed, it could be
seen that "student communication" and "school safety" had to be improved. The sales value
was determined by accepting these expectations in a meeting of the QFD team and as a result
of discussions on how to affect the selling point of development. For example, the development
of expectations of the "qualification of teaching staff" influences the desire of the X language
school and the sales value is calculated as 1.5 for this forecast.
Based on house of quality results, they had been written to the managers of X language
school that their approach was accurate and that the quality of education was adequate.
However, in order to improve the quality, managers were told that the teaching techniques
practised by the teachers and equipment of the school should be made up of new trends into
the account. As a result, the study will contribute to both researchers working on this subject,
and to managers and decision-makers who aimed to improve the quality of education. The
scope of this study was the implementation of the QFD process in a specific educational
institution. Therefore, students' expectations and technical requirements were aligned with this
sector.