A NEW QFD MODEL CONSIDERING THE TIME DIMENSION AND APPLICATION STRATEGY FOR INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHT

Abstract

ABSTRACT QFD (Quality Functional Deployment) is a leading methodology for examining the rela-tionship between internal Technical Quality (TQ) and Market Quality (MQ) when a company is developing a new product, starting at the development design phase. However, a number of challenges have been noted in actual cases where a company is developing a new prod-uct, including the fact that QFD (1) provides no methodology for capturing market needs as they change with the times, and (2) does not make explicit its relationship with the applica-tion strategy for Intellectual Property (IP) rights for the company’s proprietary technology. In this study, we make four proposals for addressing these challenges: (1) quantifying the process by adding a “Time dimension” to MQ of QFD; (2) making explicit the relationship between TQ of QFD and IP application strategy; (3) providing one model for QFD point allocation rules, which in the past have been ambiguous; and (4) enhancing objectivity in scoring through use of the Delphi Method. And we validated results using actual corporate data. The result is concrete numerical data which brings with it better visibility into priorities, in particular for small and medium-sized companies developing new products with limited management resources and product development time, and of the IP strategy for maintain-ing competitive advantage over large companies, making the direction of the technology of management strategy more concrete and clear. Keywords QFD, Technical Quality, Market Quality, Technology of management.