An Integrated QFD and Kano's Model to Determine the Optimal Target Specification

Abstract

The excellence of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) methodology for translating customer needs into target specifications had been broadly known. However, a number of researches had revealed some methodological flaws. Those stated that QFD did not have a formal methodology to optimally allocate the resource available for product development. QFD also employed subjective technique in assessing the relationship between customer need and engineering characteristics. In addition, QFD implicitly assumed that the fulfillments of customer needs linearly related to customer satisfaction. However, Kano's model notified that the fulfillment of a customer need might have a nonlinear effect to the customer satisfaction. With regard to those issues, this paper presented an optimization model to allocate product development resource. The relationship between engineering characteristics and customer need was assessed using regression technique. Kano's model was integrated in the model to represent the relationship between customer needs and customer satisfaction. The proposed model was then applied to determine the target specifications of wooden single bed frame. The result showed that by using the target specifications obtained, a great customer satisfaction was created.