Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a method to translate customer needs into technical requirements for new product development. It was developed in Japan in the 1970s and involves capturing customer needs, prioritizing them, benchmarking competitors, and setting target values. The process results in a comprehensive product specification. Key tools include affinity diagrams, relations diagrams, matrices, and the House of Quality which maps customer and technical requirements. QFD aims to design products that meet customer needs and satisfy them better than competitors.

1. Quality Function Deployment

2. What is QFD?
• A method of transferring customer needs and
requirements into technical specifications for
new product and service development.

3. Brief History
• Dr. Yoji Akao and Shigeru Mizuno
• First implemented at Mitsubishi Heavy
Industries, Kobe Shipyard in 1972
• Toyota strongly influenced adoption of QFD in
North America
– Between 1977-1984 achieved a 61% reduction in product development cost, a
33% reduction in product development cycle, and virtual elimination of rust
related warranty problems.

4. Overview of Development Process
• Four Stages of The Development Process:
– Design
– Analysis
– Development
– Full Launch

5. Overview of Development Process (Cont’d)
• Post-launch
review
Full Launch
• Market
promotions
• Sales personnel
briefed
• Distribution
processes
activated
• Old services or
products
withdrawn
• Production of
new offering
and ramp-up
• Need to rethink the
new offering or
production
processes
Development
• Detailed
specifications
• Process design
• Marketing
program design
• Personnel training
• Testing and pilot
runs
• Service or
product not
profitable
Analysis
• Detailed review
of market
potential and
production
costs
Figure 2.2Figure 2.2
Design
• Development
strategy
• Idea generation
and screening
• Service package
or product
architecture
formulation
• Production
feasibility

6. Quality Function Deployment
Capturing/Applying Customer Data

7. Capturing/Applying Customer Data
How do we define a customer?
“Who must be satisfied with the product in
order for the product to be considered
successful?"

8. Defining Customers
• Users who are concerned with functionality.
• Management who is concerned with financial and
strategic issues.
• Distribution and Purchasing Agents who are
concerned with purchase transaction and
availability issues.
• Internal workers who are concerned with how the
product will affect the quality of their work life.

9. Capturing Customer Requirements
• One on one customer interviews
• Focus groups
• In-context customer visits

10. Applying Customer Data
Prioritizing Requirements

11. Prioritizing Requirements
• Importance to the
Customer
• Our Current Product
• Competitor One
• Competitor Two
• Our Future Product
• Improvement Factor
• Overall Importance
• Percent Importance

12. Benchmarking
• Why Benchmark?
– Establishes a definition to the level of real
performance required to produce the desired level
of perceived performance
– Develop a product or service which will excite the
customer and get him/her to purchase your
product

13. Benchmarking
• Who Should we benchmark?
– The same products or services for which they
captured performance perceptions
– A good policy is to benchmark products across the
whole spectrum of performance
– Benchmarking all of the competitive products is
not required; just check representative products

14. Benchmarking
• How do we capture the results?
– Translate the raw benchmark data directly and
associate that data with the appropriate measure
– Translate the raw benchmark data into the same
scale as was used to capture the perceived
performance ratings

15. Target Values
The final goal of many QFD projects is
to set the target values for the design
measures.
Benchmarking values must meet or
exceed target values

16. Defining Actions
• The final result of the QFD process
– To develop a comprehensive product specification
– Answers the question:
“What actions do we need to take to achieve the
targets that we have set in order to satisfy our
customers?"

17. Seven Management and Planning
Tools
• Affinity Diagrams
• Relations Diagrams
• Hierarchy Trees (Tree Diagram)
• Matrices And Tables.
• Process Decision Program Diagrams (PDPC)
• Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
• Blueprinting

18. Affinity Diagrams
• Method utilized by teams to organize/gain
insight into a set of qualitative information,
(i.e. voiced customer requirements).
• Developed to discover meaningful groups of
ideas within a raw list.

19. Affinity Diagrams (Cont)
• Ishikawa recommends using the affinity
diagram when facts or thoughts are uncertain
and need to be organized, when pre-existing
ideas or paradigms need to be overcome,
when ideas need to be clarified, and when
unity within a team needs to be created.

20. Relations Diagrams
• Drawn to show all the different relationships
between factors, areas, or processes.
• Facilitates the selection of factors that drive
many of the other symptoms or factors.

21. Hierarchy Trees (Tree Diagram)
• Illustrates the structure of interrelationships
between groups of statements
• Built from the top down in an analytical manner.
• Applied to an existing set of structured information,
such as that produced by building an Affinity
Diagram and then used to account for flaws in the
data.

22. Matrices And Tables
• A series of related matrices and tables used as the
tool for translating the voice of the customer
• First to design specifications
• Second to more detailed part characteristics
• Third to show the necessary process and technology
characteristics
• Finally to show the specific operational conditions
for the production phase

23. Process Decision Program Diagrams
(PDPC)
• PDPC are used to study potential failures of
new processes and services

24. Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)
• AHP uses pair wise comparisons on
hierarchically organized elements to produce
an accurate set of priorities.

25. Blueprinting
• Blueprinting is a tool used to illustrate and
analyze all the processes involved in providing
a service.

26. Different Modes of Application
• Four Phase Approach
– Translate customer wants into Product
characteristics
– Translate Product characteristics into Part
Characteristics
– Part characteristics into Product Characteristics
– Finally, Product into Production Controls

27. Different Modes of Application
Four Phase Approach

28. Different Modes of Application
• Matrix of Matrices Approach

29. Different Modes of Application
Matrix of Matrices Approach
• Used to address wide variety of development
issues
• Uses specific matrices for each specific
development issue

30. Different Modes of Application
• Concept Selection Approach

31. Different Modes of Application
Concept Selection Approach
• Was developed for implementing concurrent
engineering practices
• Evaluating the wants and needs from all different
types of customers
• Integrates the principles of concept selection to help
development teams to objectively and evaluate
alternatives

32. Different Modes of Application
Which Approach Should You Choose?
• Depends on your
individual Product
Needs
• Each System can be
modified to suit specific
situations

33. House Of Quality
• A popular assembly of several deployment
hierarchies and tables, including the
– Demanded Quality Hierarchy
– Quality Characteristics Hierarchy
– Relationships Matrix
– Quality Planning Table
– Design Planning Table

34. House Of Quality (Cont)
• This technique is a type of conceptual map
providing means to the inter-functional
planning and coordination in product
improvement and development.
• This method brings the customer needs in the
focus to design/ redesign the product and
service

35. To Build The House Of Quality
• Identify Customer Wants
• Identify How The Good/Service Will Satisfy
The Customer’s Wants
• Planning Matrix
• Interrelationship matrix
• Technical correlation (Roof) matrix
• Technical priorities, benchmarks and targets

36. Step 1
• Identify Customer Wants
– A structured list of requirements derived from
customer statements

37. Step 2
• Identify How The Good/Service Will Satisfy
The Customer’s Wants
– A structured set of relevant and measurable
product characteristics.

38. Step 3
• Planning Matrix
– Illustrates customer perceptions observed in
market surveys
– Includes relative importance of customer
requirements, company and competitor
performance in meeting these requirements

39. Step 4
• Interrelationship matrix
– Illustrates the QFD team's perceptions of interrelationships
between technical and customer requirements
– An appropriate scale is applied, illustrated using symbols
or figures.
– Filling this portion of the matrix involves discussions and
consensus building within the team and can be time
consuming
– Concentrating on key relationships and minimizing the
numbers of requirements are useful techniques to reduce
the demands on resources

40. Step 5
• used to identify where technical requirements
support or impede each other in the product
design
• Can highlight innovation opportunities

41. Step 6
• Technical priorities, benchmarks and targets
– Used to record the priorities assigned to technical
requirements by the matrix
– Measures of technical performance achieved by
competitive products
– The degree of difficulty involved in developing each
requirement
• The final output of the matrix is a set of target values
for each technical requirement to be met by the new
design, which are linked back to the demands of the
customer

43. Example

44. Benefits Of Adopting QFD
• Reduced time to market
• Reduction in design changes
• Decreased design and manufacturing costs
• Improved quality
• Increased customer satisfaction