What is QFD?
"Time was when a man 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 assure the customer would be satisfied," lamented Dr. Yoji Akao, one of the founders of QFD, in his private lectures.
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) was developed to bring this personal interface to modern manufacturing and business. In today's industrial society, where the growing distance between producers and users is a concern, QFD links the needs of the customer (end user) with design, development, engineering, manufacturing, and service functions.
QFD is:
- Understanding Customer Requirements
- Quality Systems Thinking + Psychology + Knowledge/Epistemology
- Maximizing Positive Quality That Adds Value
- Comprehensive Quality System for Customer Satisfaction
- Strategy to Stay Ahead of The Game
As a quality system that implements elements of Systems Thinking with elements of Psychology and Epistemology (knowledge), QFD provides a system of comprehensive development process for:
- Understanding 'true' customer needs from the customer's perspective
- What 'value' means to the customer, from the customer's perspective
- Understanding how customers or end users become interested, choose, and are satisfied
- Analyzing how do we know the needs of the customer
Deciding what features to include - Determining what level of performance to deliver
- Intelligently linking the needs of the customer with design, development, engineering, manufacturing, and service functions
- Intelligently linking Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) with the front end Voice of Customer analysis and the entire design system
Where To Learn:
Professional Level Training
Professional and Academic Learning
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