Quality Function Deployment

Step 1: Identify Customer Requirements

In order for any company to stay in business they must sell their products or services and be able to rely on repeated business. The voice of the customer is the primary input of the Quality Function Deployment process. It is the most critical and most difficult step of the process to capture the essence of the customer’s needs and expectations. The customer’s own words are very important in preventing misinterpretation by the designers and engineers. Companies could catch customer’s words by doing telephone interviews, process groups, or clinics.

Identifying customer requirements fall under 5 categories: Programs and activities, facilities, atmosphere, staff, and other. I am going to use examples for a fitness center to explain each of these categories.

1. Programs and Activities: the fitness center has the programs I want or are there family activities available

2. Facilities: clean lockers rooms and well-maintained equipment

3. Atmosphere: is it a safe place to be? Will equipment be available when desired?

4. Staff: are they friendly, courteous, knowledge, and professional? Do they respond quickly to problems?

5. Other: am I getting the value for my money?

                          Step 2: Identify Technical Requirements

The roof of the House of Quality is identifying the technical requirements, which are measureable design characteristics that describe the customer requirements and are expressed in the language of the designer or engineer. They are the “how’s” by which the company will respond to the “what’s” will determine customer satisfaction, this is often called the Critical to Quality Characteristics. The technical requirements must be measureable, because the output is controlled and compared to objective targets. The roof of the House of Quality also shows the interrelationships between any pair of technical requirements. There are three symbols that stand for these relationships. A solid circle is a very strong relationship, an open circle is a strong relationship, and a triangle is a weak relationship. These relationships answer the question like “how does a change in technical characteristics affect others?” For example, in order for a fitness center to increase program offerings it will require more staff, a larger facility, and higher costs.