Abstract

Abstract

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) has become a buzzword around schools of business and in many firms. Begun at various (debated) points in the past and mounted in various forms by different firms, it has one common element that is presented in this article—that is, the input of someone down the line (usually the end‐user) whose wants and needs guide the building of a house of quality.The house gets its name from a shape of the diagram usually used in QFD. The diagram begins as a matrix with the customers' desires down the left hand side. To this are added the columns across the top, the engineering actions that contribute to the customer desires. Each row can be addressed, it is hoped, by one of the columns. Obviously, the mere presence of the matrix demonstrates what QFD is all about—bringing together marketing, engineering, design and manufacturing people into a team dedicated to producing products that meet those customer desires.Eliciting customers' desires is often difficult, and involves formal market research, as well as in‐house expert opinions and even just listening carefully when products are put on display in public areas. Customer requirements are called customer attributes (CAs)—“phrases customers use to describe products and product characteristics.” Examples for a car door are “easy to close from outside,”“doesn't leak in the rain” and “easy to open.” CAs are grouped into bundles that represent an area of concern. For example, “easy to open” and “doesn't kick back” relate to opening and closing. Then, in complex products, the bundles are bundled again, so that “easy to open and close” is combined with isolation (“doesn't leak,”“no road noise,” etc.) into good operation.Requirements are kept in customers' words, if possible. They are then ranked by importance, also via market research or team members' experience. Comparing current products with this list produces immediate opportunities for promotion, and leads to identifying situations that call more strongly for immediate action.The engineering contribution comes across the top of the matrix, in the form of engineering characteristics (ECs). For example, regarding the car door, three ECs are energy to close door, door's seal resistance and road noise reduction. Marks are made in the matrix cells where an EC coincides with a CA. For example, door sealing resistance affects the CA of “easy to close” as well as the CA of “doesn't leak in the rain.”Typically, at this point, the team has to wrestle with the cost of various engineering changes, the time they take and the probability of their improving the product's CA value. Because the CAs are ranked and vary immensely from segment to segment, and because the total house of quality on even reasonably complex products is very large, one can imagine the trade‐off process faced by the teams.Once a house of quality is settled on, it is then possible to move to any other houses necessary to get the final product to the end‐user. In the case of automobiles, the authors suggest a parts house, a manufacturing process house, an assembly house and a production plan house. In each of those cases there are technologies that match up with the customer attributes and that require trade‐offs among them.The authors point out that there is no cookbook procedure for this analysis; but however the concept is used, there is value in focusing on the customer and forcing the integration so badly needed between functions. “What is also not so simple is developing an organization capable of absorbing elegant ideas. The principal benefit of the house of quality is quality in‐house.”