New Product Development and Design for Mass Customization using House of Quality Template

Abstract

This study aims to explain a House of Quality (HoQ)-based approach that integrate technical needs and customer requirements as a useful procedure in mass customization and to demonstrate a HoQ template prototype, for the purpose of managing product design and development activities efficiently. HoQ is a procedure to determine the characteristics of new product development that combines technical requirements and customer desires. In the current mass customization era, this is a useful practice in providing tremendous variety and individual customization, at competitive prices. Among the problems faced in product development is the lack of information and communication technology (ICT) application to manage the technical needs and customer requirements so that the acceptability of the products can be maximised and customer requirements could be fulfilled. The implementation of ICT in product design and development activities are required to ensure smooth running of these activities. This study employs systems development life cycle methodology in developing HoQ template application. The application was tested to evaluate the reliability and usability of the system. The House of Quality Template prototype was proposed to ensure new product design and development activities are managed properly. The prototype was tested using two software quality dimensions, namely usability and application environment. The responses from a group of users show that the application performs the deliberate function properly. This study seeks to find solution and help industry to increase the efficiency of new product design and development activities especially in mass customization paradigm.