Quality Function Deployment

Defination:
Quality function deployment is a team-based management tool in which customer expectations are used to drive the
product development process. Conflicting characteristics or requirements are identified early in the QFD process
and can be resolved before production.

Brief History of Quality Function Deployment:

First In Japan:
Þ Dr. Mizuno, professor emeritus of the Tokyo Institute of Technology, is credited with initiating the quality
func?tion deployment (QFD) system.
Þ The first application of QFD was at Mitsubishi, Heavy Industries, Ltd., in the Kobe Shipyard, Japan, in
1972.
Þ After four years of case study development, refinement, and training. QFD was successfully implemented in the
production of mini-vans by Toyota.Using 1977 as a base, a 20% reduction in startup costs was reported in the
launch of the new van in October 1979, a 38% reduction by November 1982, and a cumulative 61% reduction
by April 1984
Entry In America:
Þ Quality function deployment was first introduced in the United States in 1984 by Dr. Clausing of Xerox. QFD
can be applied to practically any manufacturing or service indus?try. It has become a standard practice by most
leading organizations, who also require it of their suppliers.
Þ Various industries in the U.S., including automotive, manufacturing, electronics, and consumer goods, started
incorporating QFD into their design and development processes. Companies like Ford, General Motors, and
Motorola began applying QFD methodologies to enhance product quality and align features with
customer expectations.

QFD Process:
The QFD matrix (house of quality) is the basis for all future matrices needed for the QFD method. Although each
house of quality chart now contains a large amount of information, it is still necessary to refine the technical
descriptors further until an actionable level of detail is achieved. Often, more than one matrix will be needed,
depending on the complexity of the project

Figure 1.1 The QFD Process

Organization of Information:

Figure 1.2 Types of Customer Information and How to Collect It

Reproduced with permission from James L. Brossert, Quality Function Deployment—A Practitioner’s Approach
(Milwaukee, WI: ASQC Quality Press, 1991).

Affinity Diagram:
The affinity diagram is a tool that gathers a large amount of data and subsequently organizes the data into groupings
based on their natural interrelationships.

Figure 1.3 Affinity Diagram

House of Quality:
The primary planning tool used in QFD is the house of quality. The house of quality translates the voice of the
customer into design requirements that meet specific target values and matches those against how an organization
will meet those requirements. Many managers and engineers consider the house of quality to be the primary chart in
quality planning.

Figure 1.1 House of Quality

Reproduced with permission from James L. Brossert, Quality Function Deployment—A Practitioner’s Approach
(Milwaukee, WI: ASQC Quality Press, 1991)

The parts of the house of quality are described as follows:

Þ The exterior walls of the house are the customer requirements. On the left side is a listing of the voice of the
customer, or what the customer expects in the product. On the right side are the prioritized customer
requirements, or planning matrix. Listed are items such as customer benchmarking, customer impor?tance
rating, target value, scale-up factor, and sales point.
Þ The ceiling, or second floor, of the house contains the technical descriptors. Consistency of the product is
provided through engineering characteristics, design constraints, and parameters.
Þ The interior walls of the house are the relationships between customer requirements and technical descrip?tors.
Customer expectations (customer requirements) are translated into engineering characteristics (technical
descriptors).
Þ The roof of the house is the interrelationship between technical descriptors. Trade-offs between similar and/or
conflicting technical descriptors are identified.
Þ The foundation of the house is the prioritized technical descriptors. Items such as the technical bench?marking,
degree of technical difficulty, and target value are listed.

Figure 1.5 QFD Chart

Building a House of Quality:

Step 1—List Customer Requirements (WHATs):

Quality function deployment starts with a list of goals/objectives. This list is often referred as the WHATs that a
customer needs or expects in a particular product. This list of primary customer requirements is usually vague and
very general in nature. Further definition is accomplished by defining a new, more detailed list of second?ary
customer requirements needed to support the primary customer requirements. In other words, a primary cus?tomer
requirement may encompass numerous secondary customer requirements

Figure 1.6 Refinement of Customer Requirements

Step 2—List Technical Descriptors (HOWs)

The goal of the house of quality is to design or change the design of a product in a way that meets or exceeds the
customer expectations. Now that the customer needs and expectations have been expressed in terms of customer
requirements, the QFD team must come up with engineering characteristics or tech?nical descriptors (HOWs) that
will affect one or more of the customer requirements. These technical descriptors make up the ceiling, or second
floor, of the house of quality. Each engineering characteristic must directly affect a customer perception and be
expressed in measurable terms.

Figure 1.7 Refinement of Technical Descriptors

Þ Implementation of the customer requirements is difficult until they are translated into counterpart
characteristics
Þ counterpart characteristics are an expression of the voice of the customer in technical lan?guage.Each of the
customer requirements is broken down into the next level of detail by listing one or more primary technical
descriptors for each of the tertiary customer requirements

Step 3—Develop a Relationship Matrix Between WHATs and HOWs

The next step in building a house of quality is to compare the customer requirements and technical descrip?tors and
determine their respective relationships. Tracing the relationships between the customer require?ments and the
technical descriptors can become very confusing, because each customer requirement may affect more than one
technical descriptor, and vice versa.

STRUCTURING AN L-SHAPED DIAGRAM

One way to reduce the confusion associated with determining the relationships between customer require?ments and
technical descriptors is to use an L-shaped matrix. The L shape, which is a two-dimensional relationship that shows
the intersection of related pairs of items, is constructed by turning the list of technical descriptors perpendicular to
the list of customer requirements. The L-shaped matrix makes interpreting the complex relations very easy and does
not require a significant amount of experience.

Figure 1.8 Structuring an L-Shaped Diagram

Step 4—Develop an Interrelationship Matrix Between HOWs

The roof of the house of quality, called the correlation matrix, is used to identify any interrelationships between
each of the technical descriptors. The correlation matrix is a triangular table attached to the techni?cal descriptors.
Symbols are used to describe the strength of the interrelationships

RELATIONSHIP MATRIX
The inside of the house of quality, called the relationship matrix, is now filled in by the QFD team. The rela?tionship
matrix is used to represent graphically the degree of influence between each technical descriptor and each customer
requirement

Þ A solid circle represents a strong positive relationship.

Þ A circle represents a positive relationship.
Þ An X represents a negative relationship.
Þ An asterisk represents a strong negative relationship.
Figure 1.9 Adding Interrelationship Matrix to the House of Quality

Step 5—Competitive Assessments

The competitive assessments are a pair of weighted tables (or graphs) that depict item for item how compet?itive
products compare with current organization products. The competitive assessment tables are separated into two
categories, customer assessment and technical assessment.

Figure 1.10 Adding Customer Competitive Assessment to the House of Quality

Step 6—Develop Prioritized Customer Requirements
The prioritized customer requirements make up a block of columns corresponding to each customer require?ment in
the house of quality on the right side of the customer competitive assessment. These prioritized customer
requirements contain columns for importance to customer, target value, scale-up factor, sales point, and an absolute
weight.

Figure 1.11 Adding Prioritized Customer Requirements to the House of Quality

Þ TARGET VALUE
The target-value column is on the same scale as the customer competitive assessment (1 for worst, 5 for best
can be used). This column is where the QFD team decides whether they want to keep their product unchanged,
improve the product, or make the product better than the competition
Þ SCALE-UP FACTOR
The scale-up factor is the ratio of the target value to the product rating given in the customer competitive
assessment. The higher the number, the more effort is needed.
Þ SALES POINT
The sales point tells the QFD team how well a customer requirement will sell. The objective here is to pro?mote
the best customer requirement and any remaining customer requirements that will help in the sale of the
product.

Step 7—Develop Prioritized Technical Descriptors

The prioritized technical descriptors make up a block of rows corresponding to each technical descriptor in the
house of quality below the technical competitive assessment. These prioritized technical descriptors contain degree
of technical difficulty, target value, and absolute and relative weights. The QFD team identifies technical descriptors
that are most needed to fulfill customer requirements and need improvement.

DEGREE OF DIFFICULTY
Many users of the house of quality add the degree of technical difficulty for implementing each technical descriptor,
which is expressed in the first row of the prioritized technical descriptors. The degree of technical difficulty, when
used, helps to evaluate the ability to implement certain quality improvements.
Figure 1.12 Adding Prioritized Technical Descriptors to the House of Quality

Benefits of QFD

Figure 1.13 Benefits of QFD

Reproduced with permission from James L. Brossert, Quality Function Deployment—A Practitioner’s
Approach (Milwaukee, WI: ASQC Quality Press, 1991).
References:
Books:
"Quality Function Deployment: How to Make QFD Work for You" by Luo, J. and Kwan, H. - This book
provides a comprehensive overview of QFD and its implementation in various industries.
"The New QFD: How to Make Quality Function Deployment Work for You" by Abbie Griffin and Steven V.
Hauser - This book offers an updated perspective on QFD, focusing on practical applications and tools.
"Product Design and Development" by Karl T. Ulrich and Steven D. Eppinger - This textbook includes
sections on QFD as part of its broader discussion on product design methodologies.
"Total Quality Management" by John S. Oakland - This book touches on various aspects of quality
management, including QFD as a quality improvement tool.

Academic Papers:
"Quality function deployment: A comprehensive review" by Akao, Y. - This paper provides a foundational
understanding of QFD and discusses its evolution and applications.
"A review of the literature on Quality Function Deployment" by Chan, L.K. and Wu, M.L. - This article
reviews various studies related to QFD, covering its methodologies and effectiveness.
"Integrating Quality Function Deployment and Flexible Manufacturing Systems" by J. M. Brat and A. A. R.
L. I. M. - This paper explores how QFD can be integrated with manufacturing systems for better performance.

Online Resources:
American Society for Quality (ASQ): The ASQ website has resources and articles covering QFD and its
applications in quality management practices.
Quality Progress Magazine: Articles and case studies on the application of QFD can often be found in this
publication focused on quality practices.
The International Journal of Production Research: Look for articles related to QFD and product design; many
studies highlight practical applications within industry contexts.

Conclusion:
Quality function deployment—specifically, the house of quality—is an effective management tool in which
customer expectations are used to drive the design process or to drive improvement in the service industries. Some
of the advantages and benefits of implementing QFD are:

Þ An orderly way of obtaining information and presenting it.

Þ Shorter product development cycle
Þ Considerably reduced start-up costs.
Þ Fewer engineering changes.
Þ Reduced chance of oversights during the design process.
Þ An environment of teamwork.
Þ Consensus decisions.
Þ Everything is preserved in writing.