Quality Function Deployment

QUALITY  FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT

Prerequisite discussion:

Ultimately the goal of QFD is to translate often subjective quality criteria into objective ones.

That can be quantified and measured and which can then be used to design and manufacture the product.

It is a complimentary method for determining how and where priorities are to be assigned in product development.

Quality Function Deployment was developed by Yoji Akao in Japan in 1966.

QFD TEAM :

There are two types of teams namely 

1. Team for designing a new product

2.  Team for improving an existing product

BENEFITS OF QFD :

1.  Improves Customer satisfaction

Ø  Creates focus on customer requirements

Ø  Uses competitive information effectively

Ø  Prioritizes resources

Ø  Identifies items that can be acted upon

2.       Reduces Implementation Time

Ø  Decreases midstream design changes

Ø  Limits post introduction problems

Ø  Avoids future development redundancies

3.       Promotes Team Work

Ø   Based on consensus

Ø   Creates communication

Ø   Identifies actions

4.  Provides Documentation

Ø   Documents rationale for design

Ø   Adds structure to the information

Ø   Adapts to changes (a living document)

HOUSE OF QUALITY:

THE STEPS IN BUILDING A HOUSE OF QUALITY ARE :

1.                 List Customer Requirements (WHAT’s)

2.                 List Technical Descriptors (HOW’s)

3.                 Develop a Relationship Matrix Between WHAT’s and HOW’s

4.                 Develop an Inter-relationship Matrix between HOW’s

5.                 Competitive Assessments

a.                 Customer Competitive Assessments

b.                 Technical Competitive Assessments

6.                 Develop Prioritized Customer Requirements

7.                 Develop Prioritized Technical Descriptors

Phase 1, Product Planning: Building the House of Quality. Led by the marketing department,Phase 1, or product planning, is also called The House of Quality.

.

Phase 1 documents customer requirements, warranty data, competitive opportunities, product measurements, competing product measures, and the technical ability of the organization to meet each customer requirement.

Getting good data from the customer in Phase 1 is critical to the success of the entire QFD process. Phase 2, Product Design: This phase 2 is led by the engineering department. Product design requires creativity and innovative team ideas. Product concepts are created during this phase and part specifications are documented. Parts that are determined to be most important to meeting customer needs are then deployed into process planning, or Phase 3.

Phase 3, Process Planning: Process planning comes next and is led by manufacturing engineering. During process planning, manufacturing processes are flowcharted and process parameters (or target values) are documented.

Phase 4, Process Control: And finally, in production planning, performance indicators are created to monitor the production process, maintenance schedules, and skills training for operators. Also, in this phase decisions are made as to which process poses the most risk and controls are put in place to prevent failures.

Significance: QFD "is a method for developing a design quality aimed at satisfying the consumer and then translating the consumer's demand into design targets and major quality assurance points to be used throughout the production phase. ...

QFD is a way to assure the design quality while the product is still in the design stage.

Quality Function Deployment is a planning tool used to fulfill customer expectations.

Quality Function Deployment focuses on customer expectations or requirements, often referred to as voice of the customer.

HOUSE OF QUALITY:

The primary planning tool used in QFD is the house of quality. The house of quality converts

the voice of the customer into product design characteristics. QFD uses a series of matrix diagrams, also called ‘quality tables’, resembles connected houses.

Basic structure of house of quality:

1.     Customer requirements

2.     Prioritized customer requirements

3.     Technical descriptors

4.     Relationship matrix

5.     prioritized technical descriptors

6.     Competitive assessments

7.  Develop a relationship matrix between WHATS AND HOWS

Constructing the house of quality:

Step1: List customer requirements

Step2: List technical descriptors

Step3: Develop a relationship matrix between HOWS

Step4: competitive assessments

Step5: Develop prioritized customer requirements

Step6: Develop prioritized technical descriptors

QUALITY FUNCTION DEVELOPMENT PROCESS

Phase 1: product planning

Step1: list customer requirements Step2: List technical descriptors

Step3: Develop a relationship between WHATS AND HOWS Step4: Develop a interrelationship matrix between HOWS Step5: Do competitive assessments

Step6: Develop prioritized customer requirements Step7: Develop prioritized technical descriptors. Phase 2: part development

Step8: Deploy QFD process down to sub-components level both in terms of requirements and characteristics.

Step9: Deploy the component deployment chart. Relate the critical sub-component control characteristics.

Phase 3: process planning

Step10: Develop the relationship between the critical characteristics and process used to create the characteristics

Step11: Develop the control plan relating critical control to critical processes.

Phase 4: production planning

Step 12: Tabulate operating instructions from process requirements

Step13:  develop prototype and do testing

Step14:  Launch the final product to the market.

APPLICATION:

QFD is applied in a wide variety of services, consumer products, military needs,[2] and emerging technology products. The technique is also included in the new ISO 9000:2000standard which focuses on customer satisfaction.[3]

While many books and articles on "how to do QFD" are available, there is a relative paucity of example matrices available. QFD matrices become highly proprietary due to the high density of product or service information found therein.

GLOSSARY:

QFD: The voice of the customer translated into the voice of the engineer.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a way of making the 'voice of the customer' heard throughout an organization. It is a systematic process for capturing customer requirements and translating these into requirements that must be met throughout the 'supply chain'. The result is a new set of target values for designers, production people, and even suppliers to aim at in order to produce the output desired by customers.

QFD is particularly valuable when design trade-offs are necessary to achieve the best overall solution, e.g. because some requirements conflict with others. QFD also enables a great deal of information to be summarized in the form of one or more charts. These charts capture customer and product data gleaned from many sources, as well as the design parameters chosen for the new product. In this way they provide a solid foundation for further improvement in subsequent design cycles.

QFD is sometimes referred to by other 'nicknames' - the voice of the customer (from its use as a way of communicating customer needs), or the House of Quality (from the characteristic house shape of a QFD chart). History The creation of QFD is generally attributed to Mitsubishi's Kobe shipyard in Japan. The original approach, conceived in the late 1960's, was adopted and developed by other Japanese companies, notably Toyota and its suppliers. In 1986 a study by the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) revealed that 54% of 148 member companies surveyed were using QFD. The

sectors with the highest penetration of QFD were transportation (86%), construction (82%), electronics (63%), and precision machinery (66%). Many of the service companies surveyed (32%) were also using QFD. Specific design applications in Japan range from home appliances and clothing to retail outlets and apartment layouts.

Benefits of QFD

The main 'process' benefits of using QFD are: improved communication and sharing of information within a cross-functional team charged with developing a new product. This team will typically include people from a variety of functional groups, such as marketing, sales, service, distribution, product engineering, process engineering, procurement, and production the identification of 'holes' in the current knowledge of the design team the capture and display of a wide variety of important design information in one place in a compact form support for understanding, consensus, and decision making, especially when complex relationships and trade-offs are involved the creation of an informational base which is valuable for repeated cycles of product improvement

The main 'bottom line' benefits of using QFD are: greater likelihood of product success in the marketplace, due to the precise targeting of key customer requirements reduced overall design cycle time, mainly due to a reduction in time-consuming design changes. This is a powerful benefit: customer requirements are less likely to have changed since the beginning of the design project; and more frequent design cycles mean that products can be improved more rapidly than the competition reduced overall cost due to reducing design changes, which are not only time consuming but very costly, especially those which occur at a late stage. reduced product cost by eliminating redundant features and over-design. When to use QFD QFD is a powerful tool that leads to significant improvements in product/process performances. However, it is not a short-term answer to product development problems.

The method on which QFD is implemented may have a large impact on benefits derived and companies should take up QFD only after getting the consent and commitment of the team members. QFD provides a systematic approach to build a team perspective on what needs to be done, the best ways to do it, the best order to accomplish the tasks proposed and the staffing and resources required to enhance customer satisfaction. It is also a good format for capturing and recording/documenting decision making. Applied through the Kaizen philosophy under Total Quality Control, QFD is the most highly developed form of integrated product and process development in existence. Strengths and weaknesses of QFD

Strengths include:

1. Enhanced customer satisfaction Listening to the voice of the customer Robust design

2.Shorter time to market Reduced rework during development Creates team consensus and commitment 3. Reduced costs

Success with QFD Companies using QFD for product development have on the average, experienced:

Companies that have successfully applied QFD include Toyota, Honda, ICI, Black & Decker, Integrated Design Control Systems and Rover.

QFD – House of Quality