Course Quality Engineering Credits 3

Topic Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

LEARNING OUTCOMES
After the session, the student should be able to:

 State the meaning of the term “Voice of Customer”

 Define the term “QFD”
 List the components of the “House of Quality”
 Appy the QFD process
 List the benefits of QFD

LECTURE NOTES

4.6 QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT (QFD)

4.6.1 Introduction:
• Customers expect their needs to be satisfied even if they are not perfectly
defined. The customers expect the following.
– Required functions to be present.
– Optional functions at an added cost.
– New features.
• QFD is a planning tool to ensure that the voice of the customers is deployed
throughout the product planning and design stages.
• All of the customer expectations for functional requirements are converted to
specific engineering and quality characteristics. For this purpose, it becomes
necessary to document and analyse the design logic. This is nothing but to start
with the required product attributes and then deciding on the needful
characteristics such as raw materials, components, processes and so on. QFD is
one of the techniques used to document the overall design logic.
Note 1: [“Deployment” means communicating the voice of the customer both up and
down so that it is understood clearly, create awareness and see that it is
implemented without an element of ambiguity.]
Note 2: [Customer expectations or requirements is called as voice of the customer.]
• Usually it is seen that when the voice of the customer passes from one stage to
another, (marketing to design, design to production and so on) it gets lost and the
voice of the organisation starts entering into the product design. Thus, the final
 product that evolves will not satisfy the expectation of the customer. QFD
assures that the voice of the customer is taken to all levels/stages without loss of
information. Thus, QFD brings down the time that has to be spent on redesigns
and modifications. Hence the product can enter the market sooner.
• QFD consists of a series of inter locking matrixes. These matrixes translate
customer expectations into product and process characteristics. Thus, QFD
ensures that the customer requirements are translated both to the design of the
product and design of the process.

4.6.2 QFD - Definitions:

• QFD is a systematic product development methodology that is adopted to ensure

that the products/services are designed with the “Voice of the customer” in
mind. Products that ensure customer satisfaction become a reality when a cross-
functional team uses QFD. Moreover, adopting QFD reduces cycle time,
redesign, engineering changes, rework, scrap and warranty returns.
• QFD is a system to develop new products with an aim to assure the customer
with ultimate satisfaction with the initial quality of the product or service.
• QFD is a technique of understanding the customer requirements and then
translating them into,
– a set of design and process requirements and
– internal product specification.
that makes possible to come out with a product/service in a shorter time with
good initial quality that satisfies the customer.

4.6.3 House of Quality:

• It is the first step in QFD process.

• House of quality is a primary quality planning tool used to translate the voice of
the customer into design requirements or counter part characteristics inorder to
ensure that all engineering decisions have a basis to meet customer needs.
• The structure of QFD look like the structure of a house. Hence it is called as
“House of Quality”.
• The parts of the house of quality are shown.
 Relationship
between technical
descriptors
Technical descriptors

requirements
Relationship
Voice of the

Prioritised
customer
customer

between
customer requirements
and
technical descriptors
Prioritised
technical descriptors
Fig: House of Quality (Basic Structure)

Exterior walls of the Customer requirements Right side List of the voice of the
house wall customer
Left side Prioritised customer
wall requirement (planning
matrix)
Second floor of the Technical descriptors (voice of the organization)
house • Engineering Characteristics.
• Design constraints & parameters.
Interior walls of the Relationship between the customer requirements and technical
house descriptors.
Roof of the house Interrelationship between technical descriptors
Foundation of the Prioritised technical descriptors.
house

• The house of quality has a set of matrixes that are used to relate the voice of the
customer to counterpart characteristics when they are expressed as technical
specifications and process control requirements.
• Building the house of quality consists of six steps.
 Step 1: Identify customer requirements.
Step 2: Identify the technical features (descriptors).
Step 3: Relate the customer requirements to counterpart characteristics
(technical features).
Step 4: Conduct an evaluation of competing products.
Step 5: Evaluate counterpart characteristics and develop targets.
Step 6: Determine which counterpart characteristics to deploy in the remainder
of production process.
• The house of quality helps marketing to understand the customer needs.
Moreover it gives top management the needful strategic direction.
• As it is only the first step in the QFD process, it is a must that the voice of the
customer is carried throughout the production process. There are three more
houses of quality that are used to deploy the voice of the customer to counter
part characteristics of process planning.
• The customer requirement planning matrix is as shown.

Correlations
n – Strong positive
latio
x – Positive
orre atri ×
C M  × – Negative
 – Strong negative

Technical T1 T2 T3 T4 T5 T6 Importance Competitive Selling

requirements 1 2 3 4 5 evaluation points
V1 1 2 3 4 5
Voice of V2 A/B
Customer V3
V4

Competitive
evaluation
Relationships
A
B Strong(9)
Target values Medium(3)
Deployment Small(1)
Technical
evaluation

4.6.4 QFD Process:

• There are 4 phases to QFD process as detailed.

PHASE Details
I Product Planning
• Centered around the house of quality.
• Defines the customers wants in relation to the product.

II Parts Deployment
• Product engineering functions.
• Design characteristics are transferred to part characteristics.

III Process Planning

• Move from design to manufacturing operations.
• Process for improvement is developed.
• Involves floor level personnel.

IV Production Planning
• Employees on the floor contribute knowledge.
• Employee activities, interact to achieve customer expectations.
 Design Parts
requirements requirements

requirements

requirements
Customer

Design
I. PRODUCT PLANNING II. PARTS DEPLOYMENT

Production Process
requirements (manufacturing)
requirements
(manufacturing)

requirements
requirements
Process

Parts

CUSTOMER
SATISFACTION

IV. PRODUCTION PLANNING III. PROCESS PLANNING

Fig: Four Phases of QFD (QFD Process)

4.6.5 QFD - Benefits:
• QFD serves as a tool for competitive analysis of product quality.
• QFD process is customer driven. That is, the entire exercise of QFD is based on
the voice of the customer (customer requirements). That is, as the customer
requirements are converted into product and process characteristics, customer,
satisfaction is assured.
• QFD reduces the time for new product development. That is, the product is
made available to the customer at the earliest possible time due to drastic
reduction is rework and redesign.
• Improves teamwork between all constituences in the production process. This
happens due to proper communication of the voice of the customer to all
 levels/functions in the organization the eliminates misinterpretations and
misunderstandings.
• As all the data is documented, it can be effectively used for future design and
process improvements.
• Moreover, the QFD matrix is very flexible. That is, new information can easily
be incorporated in the QFD matrix.
• QFD helps in improving productivity and quality.
• Thus QFD in TQM help to create a closed loop of ever improving cost, quality,
timeliness, productivity, profitability and market share (as shown in figure 4.5).

Voice of Customer Customer

the customer features

First product
When the to market
Policy customer Timeliness
deployment wants?

Best product Increased

to market market share
What the
QFD customer Quality
wants? Best product Increased
price to profitability
to market

At a price
SPC affordable Cost
by the
customer

Fig: QFD in TQM

 ASSIGNMENT WORK

1. Explain the meaning of the term “Voice of Customer”.

2. Define the term “QFD”.
3. State the components of the “House of Quality”.
4. Appy the QFD process to a situation and draw the House of Quality.
5. state the benefits of QFD.