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TOPIC-BENCHMARKING REASON AND

PROCESS,QFD, TAGUCHI QUALITY LOSS FUNCTION
A CA-2 REPORT
Submitted by

NAME- ANIRBAN ROY

ROLL NO- 35500721006
REGISTRATION NO-
213550100710016

Under the guidance of

MISS ANISHA PAL

Assistant Professor
In partial fulfilment for the award of the degree
Of

BACHELOR OF TECHNOLOGY
IN
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING

Ghani Khan Choudhury Institute of Engineering & Technology

गनी खान चौधरी इंजीनियरिंग और प्रौद्योगिकी संस्थान
A Centrally Funded Technical Institute(CFTI)
under Ministry of Education Govt of India
(शिक्षा मंत्रालय, भारत सरकार के तहत सीएफटीआई)

MARCH 2025
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

I have taken efforts in this project report. However, it would not have
been possible without the kind support and help of many individuals and many
publishers of various sources. I would like to extend my sincere thanks to all of
them.

I am highly indebted to Miss Anisha Pal mam for their guidance and
constant supervision as well as for providing necessary information regarding
the project report & also for their support in completing the project report. I
would like to express my gratitude towards my parents & member of GKCIET
for their kind co-operation and encouragement which help me in completion of
this project report. I would like to express my special gratitude and thanks to
our respected sir for giving me such attention and time.

My thanks and appreciations also go to my colleague in developing the project

and people who have willingly helped me out with their abilities.
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ABSTRACT

The road to a quality organization is paved with the commitment of

management. If management is not totally behind this effort, the road will be
filled with potholes, and the effort will drag to a halt. A keen sense of
involvement is a prerequisite for this journey, because like any journey of
import, the company will sometimes find itself in un-charted territory. Company
policies must be carefully formulated according to principles of a quality
program. MBNQA is recognized as a quality leader. In the criteria for MBNQA
award, the word ‘benchmarking’ appears 200 times. This shows the
importance of benchmarking for continuous process improvement and TQM.
Benchmarking will help in identifying the current level of performance of the
processes in the organization and bringing them up to the level of the best
processes.
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CONTENT

INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………..….. 5

DEFINATION OF BENCHMARKING……………………………… 6

a. SPECIFIC STEP OF BENCHMARKING …………………………………….6

b. BENCHMARKING PROCESS………………………………………………... 7
c. TYPES OF BENCHMARKING…………………………………………….…..8
d. REASON FOR BENCHMARKING…………………………………………… 9

WHAT IS QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT…………….....…..9

a) REQUIREMENT OF QFD……………………… …………………………9-10

b) HOUSE OF QUALITY……… …………………………………………. 10-11
c) BENEFITS OF QFD…………… …………………………………………. 11

TAGUCHI’S QUALITY LOSS FUNCTION ……………………….. 12

a) LOSS FUNCTION ………………………………………………………….. 12

b) TYPES OF LOSS FUNCTION ………………………………………….. 13
c) TAGUCHI’S PHILOSOPHY …………………………… .. ………………. 13

LITERATURE REVIEW…………………………………………….. 14-15

CONCLUSION………………………………………………………... 16

REFERENCES………………………………………………………… 17
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INTRODUCTION

Quality function deployment(QFD)is a planning tool that focuses on designing

quality into a product or service by incorporating customer needs. It is a systems
approach involving cross-functional teams(whose members are not necessarily
from product design)that looks at the complete cycle of product development.
This quality cycle starts with creating a design that meets customer needs and
continues on through conducting detailed product analyses of parts and
components to achieve the desired product, identifying the processes necessary
to make the product, developing product requirements, prototype testing, final
product or service testing, and finishing with after-sales troubleshooting. Be it a
manufacturing or service organization, the company must be aware of the best
practices in its industry and its relative position in the industry. Such
information will set the priorities for areas that need improvement.
Organizations benefit from innovation. Innovative approaches cut costs, reduce
leadtime, improve productivity, save capital and human resources, and
ultimately lead to increased revenue. They constitute the breakthroughs that
push product or process to new levels of excellence
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DEFINATION OF BENCHMARKING

Benchmarking computer systems involves executing a set of common programs

developed by independent agencies to ascertain the relative performance of
computers of various makes. They essentially compute the time taken to carry
out certain standard computations such as sorting. Benchmarking computers is a
process of comparing the performance of computer systems. Similar concept is
now applied to measure not only the performance of products such as cars, but
also the business processes in various organizations.

SPECIFIC STEP OF BENCHMARKING

Benchmarking computer systems involves executing a set of common programs

developed by independent agencies to ascertain the relative performance of
computers of various makes. They essentially compute the time taken to carry
out certain standard computations such as sorting. Benchmarking computers is a
process of comparing the performance of computer systems. Similar concept is
now applied to measure not only the performance of products such as cars, but
also the business processes in various organizations.

Motorola, Inc., winner of the Malcolm Baldrige Award for 1988, uses a five-
step benchmarking model:

(1) Decide what to benchmark;

(2) select companies to benchmark;

(3) obtain data and collect information;

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(4) analyze data and form action plans; and (5) recalibrate and start the process
again

BENCHMARKING PROCESS

process based benchmarking wherein it is initiated as a part of process

improvement strategy of the organization. Such a benchmarking arises out of
the following:

(i) Defined mission

(ii) Defined objectives
(iii) Defined priorities

The top management without reference to the current practice will define
organization’s mission, objectives and priorities. The mission, objectives and
priorities would have been arrived at by looking at the level of performance
achieved by the competitors and other similar organizations. In this case, the
objective of the organization is very clear and to achieve these objectives, the
organization carries out benchmarking. Thus, the former category namely
problem based benchmarking is a reactive approach. The latter is proactive
benchmarking

FIG 1.0- PROCESS OF BENCHMARKING

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TYPES OF BENCHMARKING

There are three types of benchmarking as given below:

(i) Internal
(ii) Competitive
(iii) Functional
I. Internal Benchmarking:
There may be a number of teams or divisions within an organization.
Although each division may be manufacturing different products, some
common performance measures may hold good for all of them. For
instance, the measures such as cycle time, error rate, quality cost and
customer feedback are common to every manufacturing or service
division. Therefore, the organization need not always look outside to find
out the best practices. They could study the best performing division in-
house.
II. Competitive Benchmarking:
The second type of benchmarking is to improve the performance to the
leve l of the competitors. The competitor’s performance data is collected
from published data.
III. Functional Benchmarking
The third type of benchmarking is functional benchmarking. In the third
type of benchmarking, we will compare the methods of organizations
with similar processes.

Fig 1.1: TYPES OF BENCHMARKING

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REASONS FOR BENCHMARKING

Benchmarking is carried out to bring out clearly and objectively the real status
with regard to the performance of the organization as well as the processes.
After ascertaining the real position, the processes can be improved to the level
of the best, so that the organization performs better than ever before.
Benchmarking is a way to improve the processes and reach the top. With time,
competitors will also improve their performance. Hence, benchmarking has to
be carried out periodically so as to maintain the leadership position.

WHAT IS QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT

“Time was when a person could order a pair of shoes directly from the
cobbler. By measuring the foot himself and personally handling all aspects
of manufacturing, the cobbler could be sure that the customer was
satisfied” is one of the quotes of Prof.Yoji Akao, one of the founders of QFD.

In modern industry, many suppliers might not know who the end users are.
QFD links the needs of the customer with design, engineering, production and
service functions in the supplier organization

REQUIREMENT OF QFD

The starting point in QFD is finding the customer requirements of a product or

service from a number of formal and informal channels. There are a number of
sources of information for finding out customer requirements as given below:
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Market survey from customers

Information from sales team
Information from service team
Customer complaints
Customer feedback
Testing of products in labs
Comparative analysis of competitor’s products through benchmarking
Advertisement in newspapers and journals of competitors
Customer direct feedback
Product related exhibitions
Uninformed visit to a customer site
Beta testing reports

HOUSE OF QUALITY

The primary tool for QFD is the house of quality . It is

also known as product planning matrix or matrix
diagram. House of quality is an excellent quality-
planning tool. It consists of six major building blocks. A
cross-functional team, called a QFD team translates a
set of customer requirements into an appropriate
number of prioritized engineering targets to be met by a
product design and utilizes it. FIG 2.0: HOWs AND WHATs
CHART IN HOUSE OF QUALITY
The six major blocks of house of quality are:

1. Customer requirements (WHATs)—a structured list of customer

requirements

2. Technical requirements (HOWs)—a structured set of relevant and

measurable product or service characteristics
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3. Inter-relationship matrix—illustrates the QFD teams perceptions of inter-

relationships between customer requirements and technical requirements. The
degree of relationship is marked using symbols.

4. Technical correlation (roof) matrix — used to identify where technical

requirements support or impede each other in the product or service design.

5. Planning matrix—illustrates relative importance of customer requirements,

customer perception of company and competitor performance in meeting
customer requirements. It also contains prioritized customer requirements.

6. Prioritized technical requirements

BENEFITS OF QFD

∑ Reduces product development time upto 50%

∑ Design cycle time shortened by 30 to 50%

∑ Start up and engineering costs reduce by 20 to 60%

∑ Reduces time to market

∑ Focuses the organization on customer needs

∑ Useful for gathering customer requirements

∑ Design quality improves

∑ Improved performance of the products

∑ Improves communication within the organization about customer needs

∑ Helps in identification of conflicting requirements and resolving them

∑ Improves customer satisfaction and thereby increasing sales

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TAGUCHI’S QUALITY LOSS FUNCTION

The concept of minimizing losses was also born in Japan due to their specific
need. It is an island with limited natural resources. They have to add value to
imported materials and export products with maximum added value. Low loss
in a process is as good as adding efficiency to a process. In the modern age, no
society can afford to have quality losses. Thus, every industry must understand
quality loss function evolved by the Japanese Quality Guru, Taguchi and
minimize losses

Taguchi methodology provides new approach to quality. Taguchi advocated

optimization of product and process, prior to actual production. His strategy
pushes back the quality and reliability issues to the design stage. His method has
been found to result in efficient techniques to design product and testing them
prior to entering the production phase. Thus, Taguchi impressed upon
improving designs, which costs less in comparison with all other costs of
making a product, but has a bigger impact on the price of the product.

LOSS FUNCTION

Taguchi views that the customer becomes increasingly dissatisfied as

performance of the product or process moves away from the target ҭ. He
suggests a quadratic curve to represent customer dissatisfaction with a process
or product’s performance.

The ideal quality defined by Taguchi “is that quality which customers would
experience when product performs on target every time the product is used
under all intended operating conditions throughout its intended life
without causing harmful side effects to the society”
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TYPES OF LOSS FUNCTION

Loss functions enable calculations of social loss, when products deviate from
the target value. Taguchi developed many loss functions with different
equations—to suit different applications. There are three types of loss functions
as given below:

1.Nominal-the–best

2.Lower-the-better

3.Higher-the-better

TAGUCHI’S PHILOSOPHY

Deming’s major contribution was to convince the organizations to improve

quality of the products through statistical control of the processes. Taguchi built
further on this. He provided a complete system for improving and maintaining
product and process quality at the lowest cost, in the shortest possible time.
Taguchi provides methodology for:

1. Evaluating quality

2. Improving quality and reducing cost

3. Monitor and maintain quality

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LITERATURE REVIEW

[1]Benchmarking in QFD for quality improvement

X.X. Shen, K.C. Tan, M. Xie

Through listening to the voice of the customer, quality function deployment

(QFD) is a systematic methodology for quality improvement and product
development. The quality of a product or service is ultimately judged in terms
of customer satisfaction. Customer satisfaction benchmarking can help decision
makers identify areas for improvement, make strategic decisions, and set targets
on desired satisfaction performance. The main purpose of this paper is to study
procedures and methods for successful benchmarking in QFD for quality
improvement. It discussed the customer satisfaction benchmarking process in
QFD and proposed the use of hierarchical benchmarks for strategic competitor
selection and decision making. A case study was presented to illustrate the use
of this method. This paper may provide a road map to achieve world‐class
performance through benchmarking in QFD, especially for small to medium‐
sized enterprises or companies in developing countries

[2]The Taguchi method

Amitava Mitra

Achieving robustness in product and process designs is of importance to various

stakeholders such as manufacturers, suppliers, and consumers. As variability
exists in all operations, it is desirable to create products and processes that are
not very sensitive to factors that are not controllable. The Taguchi method is an
approach to robust design. Inherent in the Taguchi method is the definition of a
loss function. This loss function formulation is influenced by the type of quality
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characteristic under consideration, that is, smaller-is-better, larger-is-better, or

target-is-best. Furthermore, based on the selected type of quality characteristic,
a performance measure is defined. Such performance measures, usually called
signal-to-noise (S/N) ratios, are used to determine optimal settings of the
controllable factors. Typically, a two-step procedure is adopted in the Taguchi
method. In the first step, the S/N ratio is maximized, whereas in the second step,
using an adjustment factor that does not affect the S/N ratio, the mean response
is adjusted to meet the target value, where appropriate. Experimental designs
make use of orthogonal arrays to determine factor settings for obtaining data for
subsequent analysis.
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CONCLUSION

Benchmarking, if carried out systematically, provides outside views and ideas

and thus triggers off creativity of the group to strengthen its competitive
capability. Benchmarking consists of analysis, comparison and synthesis. All
these elements are present in all the types of benchmarking except performance
benchmarking. Omission of any of these elements may cause sub-utilization of
the potentiality of the concept. For example, use of database for the best
practices does not generate enough commitments of the personnel concerned as
a full-scale study of benchmarking does. As organizations strive to compete in
the highly competitive global economy, it makes them focus their attention on
the customer. QFD links customer requirements of ‘whats’ with the appropriate
engineering design characteristics or ‘hows’ so the voice of the customer is
translated into product designs and specifications. Building the House of
Quality is an important step in moving from customer requirements to
production requirements. Proponents of QFD argue that it has several benefits.
The study of organizations implementing QFD demonstrates that it offers
product development teams the opportunity to achieve significant improvements
over traditional product development practices. QFD creates an information
intensive atmosphere where communication increases and ideas are freely
exchanged. This has a positive impact on developing product concepts and
devising designs that meet customer quality and performance objectives.
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REFERENCES

https://wires.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/wics.169
dokumen.pub_total-quality-management-125909781259001413.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/
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THAN
K YOU