Posted on

Quality Management Tools and Techniques

Quality Management Tools and Techniques: Quality Function Deployment

  • Objectives:

This assignment is primarily aligned with S1 and AR1 of the learning outcomes of the course:

S1 Demonstrate the ability to utilize quality tools learnt in place of work, with examples of practical implementation in public, service and industrial applications).

AR1 Understand the scope of implementation and limitation of each tool and technique.

  • Select a service or product from following:
  • Service: Food Home Delivery
  • Product: Breakfast Cereal
  • Develop a House of Quality (HoQ) for it
  • Provide a similar level of detail as in in Figure below (about 6-10 customer attributes and 6-10 engineering/technical characteristics)
  • Provide some supporting text or annotations to explain the HoQ. For example, you will need to explain what the system is and who the customers are.

Further explanation on what to include in the project.

  1. Explain what is QFD, (Quality Function Deployment)?Quality function deployment (QFD) is a specialized method for making customer needs/wants important components of the design and production of the product or service. QFD is designed to help planners focus on characteristics of a new or existing product or service from the viewpoints of market segments, company, or technology-development needs. The technique yields charts and matrices. QFD helps transform customer needs (the voice of the customer into engineering characteristics (and appropriate test methods) for a product or service, prioritizing each product or service characteristic while simultaneously setting development targets for product or servic

    2.  Explain the WHATs in a QFD matrix.

    The following are the WHATS in a QFD matrix:

    Gathering Customer Needs Input: The premise of QFD is that before any product or service is designed, the producer should have a  good understanding of his potential customers’ needs in order to improve the likelihood that the product or service will be a market  success. That the producer should be aware of customer needs seems logical, but it sounds far easier than it is. Before the textbook rework is started, the QFD team must work diligently to deter- mine what potential customers would like to see in terms of attributes and features of the product and perhaps what they don’t like about our current product.

    Refining the Customer Needs Input: The data must be sorted into a prioritized set of the most important customer needs. At this point we will call on some QFD Tools, the first of which is the Affinity Diagram. Refining a large collection of data into something that represents the essence of the VOC is done through the analysis techniques of the affinity diagram, and QFD team discussion.

    Using the Affinity Diagram: Affinity diagrams are used most appropriately when the following conditions exist:  When the issue in question is so complex and/or the known facts so disorganized that people can’t quite “get their arms around” the situation. When it is necessary to shake up the thought processes, get past ingrained paradigms, and get rid of mental bag- gage relating to past solutions that failed. When it is important to build a consensus for a pro- posed solution.

    Using the Tree Diagram: The next tool to be used is the Tree Diagram. Tree diagrams can be used for countless purposes. It will be  used here simply to refine the affinity diagram results to make the list the customer needs, or WHATs that will be placed in the HOQ.
    Although a tree diagram could go all the way down into the nuts and bolts of a new design, remember that the objective here is not to
    design the new product, but to list the items to be addressed by the design team once the entire HOQ is completed.

    Customer Importance: Also coming out of the analysis is the team’s best estimate of the relative importance of each listed customer need. Customer importance is usually based on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the highest priority.

    3.    Explain the HOWs in a QFD matrix

    The Technical Requirements room of the HOQ states how the company  intends to respond to each of the Customer Needs. It is sometimes referred to as the voice of the company. We must state at the outset that the technical requirements are not the design specifications of the product or service. Rather, they are characteristics and features of a product that is perceived as meeting the customer needs. They are measurable in terms of satisfactory achievement. Some may be measured by weight, strength, speed, and so on. Others by a simple yes or no, for example a desired feature, appearance, test, or material is or is not incorporated. The other side of the coin is that the technical requirements must not be limiting, but must be flexible enough to allow the company to consider  every creative possibility in its attempts to satisfy the need. The technical requirements are generated by the QFD team through
    discussion and consultation with the Customer Needs and Planning matrices used as guidance. The team may use affinity or tree diagrams to develop, sort, and rank the requirements, similar to the Customer Needs development process. The difference here is that the input is from within the company rather than from external customers.

    4.    Explain the 1, or 3, or 9 interrelationship values in a QFD matrix

    Now that we have the QFD team’s technical requirements (HOWs) in the HOQ, the next step is to examine how they relate to the WHATs of the Customer Needs. The results will be shown in the Interrelationships matrix, which links the HOWs and the WHATs. At each intersection cell of the inter- relationship matrix the team must assess the degree of relationship between the WHAT and the corresponding HOW. This is usually done using scales of significance of 1 to 5 or 1 to 9, with the higher number indicating a stronger relationship. Sometimes these numbers are entered, but often symbols are used