Frequently Asked Questions about QFD
Traditional quality systems aim at minimizing negative quality such as eliminating defects or reducing operational errors.
Assuming that everything goes well, the best you can attain with these systems is zero defects. That sounds pretty good, doesn't it? But, what if your competitors are also zero defects? Also, a product can be defect-free and still may not sell.
This is where design makes a difference. Conventional design processes, however, focus more on engineering capabilities and less on customer needs. When they do try to incorporate customer perspectives, these tend to be engineer or provider-perceived.
QFD is quite different in that it seeks out both "spoken" and "unspoken" customer requirements and maximizes "positive" quality (such as ease of use, fun, luxury) that creates value. Traditional quality systems aim at minimizing negative quality (such as defects, poor service).
- QFD is a quality system that implements elements of Systems Thinking (viewing the development process as a system) and Psychology (understanding customer needs, what 'value' is, and how customers or end users become interested, choose, and are satisfied, etc.).
- QFD is a quality method of good Knowledge or Epistemology (how do we know the needs of the customer? how do we decide what features to include? and to what level of performance?)
- QFD is a quality system for strategic competitiveness; it maximizes positive quality that adds value; it seeks out spoken and unspoken customer requirements, translate them into technical requirements, prioritize them and directs us to optimize those features that will bring the greatest competitive advantage.
- Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is the only comprehensive quality system aimed specifically at satisfying the customer throughout the development and business process -- end to end.
7 Management and Planning Tools.
Dr. Shigeru Mizuno and Dr. Yoji Akao of Japan.
Research papers on then-emerging QFD concepts began appearing in Japan in the 1960s. It was not until 1983 when the ASQ's Quality Progress magazine published on an article on QFD, followed by the Kaizen Institute (then Cambridge Research) inviting Dr. Akao to Chicago to give a lecture on QFD that it was presented to an American audience.
QFD has been applied in virtually every industry and business, from aerospace, manufacturing, software, communication, IT, chemical and pharmaceutical, transportation, defense, government, R&D, food to service industry.
Organizations that have in the past presented at the Symposium on QFD include 3M, AT&T, Accenture, Boeing, Continental Rehabilitation Hospital, DaimlerChrysler, EDS, Ford, GM, Hayes Brake, Hewlett-Packard, Hughes Aircraft, IBM, Jet Propulsion Laboratry, Kawasaki Heavy Industry, Kodak, Lockheed-Martin, Pratt & Whitney, Motorola, NASA, Nokia, Raytheon, Texas Instrument, Toshiba, United Technologies, U.S. Dept. of Defense, United Technologies, Visteon, Xerox and many other Fortune 500 companies.
Conventional design processes focus more on engineering capabilities and less on customer needs. When they do try to incorporate customer perspectives, these tend to be engineer-perceived or producer-perceived. Quality Function Deployment (QFD), however, focuses like a laser all product development activities on customer needs.
"Expected" quality or requirements are essentially basic functions or features that customers normally expect of a product or service. Expected requirements are usually invisible unless they become visible when they are unfulfilled.
"Exciting" quality or requirements are sort of "out of ordinary" functions or features of a product or service that cause "wow" reactions in customers. Exciting requirements are also usually invisible unless they become visible when they are fulfilled and result in customer satisfaction; they do not leave customers dissatisfied when left unfulfilled.
The original research on expected vs. exciting quality was conducted and reported in a paper called "Must Be Quality" by Dr. Kano and his students in Japan. Although the paper is often misinterpreted as a simple relationship model of expected quality vs. excited quality, what is really important, however, is that the target of customer satisfaction can be moving and invisible—which requires more complex analysis.
This is precisely where QFD is strongest. QFD makes invisible requirements and strategic advantages visible. See New Kano Model Workshop.
The House of Quality is an assembly of several deployment hierarchies and tables, including the Demanded Quality Hierarchy, Quality Characteristics Hierarchy, the relationships matrix, the Quality Planning Table, and Design Planning Table. It is a table that connects dots between the Voice of the Customer and the Voice of the Engineer.<img src="../images/image_of_hoq_by_qfdinstitute.gif" alt="image of House of Quality matrix