Green product development in quality function deployment by using fuzzy logic analysis

Abstract

As customers are aware of the environmental protection, manufacturers are asked to design and produce their products more environmentally conscious in both design and manufacturing. It has been proved that the green design should incorporate the voices from customers and producers at the same time. Customer needs might be the driving force, while producers are asked to do so from cost, technical ability, and other aspects. It is important to know what kind of green products is acceptable by the marketplace, and it is also essential to understand if manufacturing this type of green products is possible from cost, material, marketability, and other aspects. Therefore, a consensus should be reached between customers and manufacturers since it might be unreasonable to make undesired products with unacceptable costs from customer viewpoints. The philosophy of green design should begin with the above consensus between customers and manufacturers. In this paper, a green quality function deployment (GQFD) is developed based upon the above concepts using the six categories based on the product's life cycle, such as raw material, manufacturing, assembly and disassembly, transportation, consumer usage, and disposal. With more objective techniques used in this GQFD matrix, it is believed that the best alternatives can be come up with the consensus between customers and manufacturers. In addition, when customers demand more and more environmentally conscious design and manufacturing and are willing to pay a much more higher price, and manufacturers have advanced techniques or methods to design and produce environmentally friendly products, producers can be dynamically upgrading this GQFD matrix to determine the customer-oriented green product. Finally, an example is used to demonstrate this green quality function deployment in choosing the best alternative for green product designs.