Title: Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Department: - MARKETTING MANAGEMENT

Section: - A
GROUP MEMBERS ID NUMBER
1. Amida Jemal………………………………. RMKD/1449/2013
2. Bemnet Kifletsion…………………………. RMKD/0070/2014
3. Elias Fasil………………………………….. RMKD/0079/2014
4. Kalkidan Ayele……………………………... RMKD/1543/2013
5. Mahletay Yared……………………………. RMKD/0095/2014
6. Rekik Sebsibe…………………………….... RMKD/0102/2014
7. Selam Lealem………………………………. RMKD/2247/2013
8. Simon Fetwi……………………………...... RMKD/0107/2014
9. Yeabtsega Zewdu……………………..……. RMKD/0161/2014
10. Yordanos Kidane…………………………… RMKD/2109/2013
11. Zemikel Mesfen……………………………. RMKD/0112/2014

Submission date: January 9, 2024

Submitted to: - Mr Kamil Jemal
 Table of Contents
What is Quality Function Deployment (QFD)? ...................................................................................... 3
How Does Quality Function Deployment Work? ................................................................................... 3
What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Quality Function Deployment? .................................. 4
When Should You Use Quality Function Deployment? ......................................................................... 4
The phases of QFD ................................................................................................................................. 5
1. Product planning ......................................................................................................................... 5
2. Product design ............................................................................................................................. 6
3. Process design ............................................................................................................................. 7
4. Process control (quality) ............................................................................................................. 7

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 What is Quality Function Deployment (QFD)?
QFD is basically a planning process with a quality approach to new product design,
development, and implementation driven by customer needs and values. QFD has been
successfully used by many world-class organizations in automobiles, ship building,
electronics, aerospace, utilities, leisure and entertainment, financial, software, and other
industries.
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a structured approach to defining customer needs
or requirements and translating them into specific plans to produce products to meet those
needs. The “voice of the customer” is the term to describe these stated and unstated customer
needs or requirements. The voice of the customer is captured in a variety of ways: direct
discussion or interviews, surveys, focus groups, customer specifications, observation,
warranty data, field reports, etc. This understanding of the customer needs is then
summarized in a product planning matrix or “house of quality”. These matrices are used to
translate higher level “what’s” or needs into lower level “how’s” - product requirements or
technical characteristics to satisfy these needs.

How Does Quality Function Deployment Work?

The Quality Function Deployment process begins with collecting input from customers (or
potential customers), typically through surveys. The sample size for these surveys should be
fairly significant because quantifiable data will carry more weight and avoid letting any
outlier comments drive product strategy in the wrong direction.
After completing the surveys and aggregating the data (along with competitive analysis when
applicable), it’s boiled down into the Voice of the Customer. These customer requirements,
requests, demands, and preferences are framed as specific items and ideally ranked in
importance. These are then listed on the left-hand side of the House of Quality matrix and
represent what customers want the product to do.
From here, the technical requirements can be created, with each of them tying back to the
Voice of the Customer items identified in the signature Quality Function Deployment matrix,
the House of Quality. These Voice of the Customer items will continue to trickle down into
other stages of product development and deployment, including component definition,
process planning, and quality control.
When the product is “done,” the Voice of Customer requirements initially identified in the
process should be clearly met (or intentionally left out). The product can be released with the
confidence that it meets the needs of

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 What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Quality
Function Deployment?
Quality Function Deployment benefits companies primarily by ensuring they bring products
to market that customers actually want, thanks to listening to customer preferences at the
beginning of the design process. Then, mandating these needs and desires is met throughout
every aspect of the design and development process. In short, if something isn’t being built
because a customer wants it (or it provides underlying support for a customer need), it
doesn’t get built at all, which can prevent technology from driving strategy when it’s not
directly beneficial to the customer experience.
Constantly and consistently circling back to the customer might seem like overkill. Still, it
quickly identifies—and often cuts short—any activity that doesn’t work toward the ultimate
goal of providing products customers want to buy and use. And by limiting product
development activities to just the things customers are asking for, the overall process is
faster, more efficient, and less expensive.
Since collecting customer inputs and applying them throughout the product development
process is such a cross-functional activity, it can also increase teamwork and ensure the
entire organization is aligned around customer satisfaction instead of competing with other
internal priorities.
QFD doesn’t come without its share of downsides. First of all, it can be a seismic change for
some organizations, particularly those with an established process primarily focused on
profitability and cost reduction. While QFD should ultimately result in both of those
objectives and satisfied customers, switching the primary motivation to customer satisfaction
can be jarring and meet some resistance, particularly if the company thinks it’s already doing
a great job with this.
The tunnel vision focus of QFD on the customer can also have some negative repercussions
if customer needs drive up product costs or delay technological innovations that could benefit
the company down the line. QFD’s customer focus also places a huge emphasis on survey
results, which, if poorly designed or executed, could push a company in the wrong direction
and also don’t account for changes in customer needs and desires that may emerge after the
product design process has commenced.

When Should You Use Quality Function Deployment?

As soon as a well-understood customer and their challenges and desires have been
quantifiably captured, QFD can be incorporated into the product development process. It is
most effective when used throughout the entire product lifecycle, as its main purpose is to
ensure a constant focus on the voice of the customer. You can’t “check it off” as completed
since it is an ever-present ingredient every step of the way.

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QFD is most appropriate when companies are focused on relatively iterative innovation
versus something completely new since there is a large base of customer feedback and input
to drive the process. When a product is creating a completely new category, it’s more
difficult to fully articulate the voice of the customer since they don’t necessarily have a frame
of reference, but even in these cases carrying forward what is known about customer needs
and preferences can provide value.

The phases of QFD

When QFD is used throughout product and process development it gives a clear specification
of the customer needs and translates these all the way through to the necessary process and
quality controls (see box on the upper right). The four stages of QFD are:
1. Product planning
This is the stage that translates the customer needs (the ‘want’s’) into the design
requirements (the ‘how’s’). At this stage the ‘customer’ can be broadly defined, it does not
have to be the end user but can be the production area, the service department or any other
area that will be affected by (or influence) the design.
Product planning using QFD gives a better understanding of the underlying customer
priorities, improves communication and gives clear design goals for the design area. The
output of the QFD process can be explicitly stated (and rated) design requirements with
associated target values to be achieved. This stage can also be used to document and
clarify issues such as:

 Warranty data of similar products.

 Competitor analysis of similar products.
 Target values for measurable needs.
 The technical difficulty of meeting the need and achieving the target value.
 The cost of meeting the needs and achieving the target value.
 Comparison of alternative routes to meeting the customer need.

 QFD is a team sport, do not use it alone.

 Stage 1 is a marketing-led process.
 Good data from the customer is important at this stage and this is often hard to
get.

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 2. Product design
This is when the design requirements are translated into the critical part characteristics
that the design department can work with, i.e., from ‘what it should do’ to ‘what it will
look like’. This is the stage where creativity comes into play. Product concepts are created,

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reviewed to check that they meet the design requirements and the resulting critical part
characteristics are documented for use in Stage 3.
 Stage 2 is a design-led process.
3. Process design
This is when the critical part characteristics are translated into the critical process
parameters for the production department to work with, i.e. from ‘what it will look like’ to
‘how we will make it’. The critical manufacturing processes and equipment are identified,
the process flow charted and the resulting critical process parameters documented for use
in Stage 4.
 Stage 3 is a production-led process.
4. Process control (quality)
This is when the critical part and process parameters are translated into the process
controls and parameters for the quality department to work with, i.e. from ‘how we will
make it’ to ‘how we will know that we have made it OK’. The critical part and process
parameters are identified, the control methods for these parameters established and the
inspection and test methods established.

STEPS EMPLOYED FOR PERFORMING QFD

Step 1: Identify the Customers-

The product often is used by a different set of customers. Each set will have its own
requirements. Thus, it becomes important to identify all of them. For example, Gym
equipment, has two customers the purchaser who owns the gym and the consumers who
are actually employing the equipment for a workout. The purchaser may want the
equipment of a specific size, etc. whereas the consumer will think about the ease of
operation.
The best way to ensure that all the customers are identified, is to consider the entire life-
cycle of the product i.e. the people who are going to employ the product into their
workflow throughout its lifecycle. Identifying and categorizing them is an important step
to methodically relate them to their respective requirements.
Step 2: Determine the customers' requirement
 Observing
Making an observation and inference log of the customers using the existing product. The
missing components/features can be included in upcoming designs.
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  Survey
This tool is used to gather specific data based on the customers opinions. The subject of
the surveys should be well defined, otherwise, the resulting data would be misleading.
This tool can be implemented in using current technology i.e. telephones, emails and video
conferencing. This tool is suited to an in-use product or on a product that is to be
redesigned. Thus, the input would be helpful.
 Focus Groups
The focus group method uses a carefully chosen group of potential customers. The size of
this group ranges between 7-10. The design team members conduct a structured discussion
on a new or an existing product. This method taps into the customers imagination to set up
a data-set of requirements. The main objective of this method is also to have an idea of
what does not exists (that the consumer wants) in a product. This discussion is usually
electronically recorded for future references.
The observing and survey methods rely on close-ended questions and the focus group
method relies on open-ended questions. This step ends with the design team members
analyzing data, with a motive of removing the unnecessary and redundant data.
Step 3: Determine the relative importance of the requirements
The data from the previous step, i.e. the requirement of the customer, is utilized here. In
this step, a weighing factor is assigned to the customer requirements based on the survey.
This gives the designers an idea of what is relatively more important to the customers. In
many cases, a product has more than one customer in such a case the weighing factor aids
this comparison.
The more preferable method of extracting the weighing factor is giving the potential
customer 100 points to distribute amongst the requirement (fixed-sum method). This will
ensure that the more important requirements are assigned higher points. Whereas, in the
case of the common 10-point system, the average weighing factor given by the customer is
8,9 or 10. We all, in our lives, have filled out surveys, don’t we do this? The reason for
this is the customer feels all their requirements are equally important and this method has
no room for focus on the relative importance.
Step 4: Identify and evaluate the competition
This step is also called Competition benchmarking. This step takes into consideration, the
opinion of the customer on how the competition approaches the customers requirements.
This step has two objectives
 Knowing the market and competitive product.
 Searching the Opportunities for improving on the existing product.
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In this method, the products from competitors are rated on a scale of 1 to 5 for each of the
customers requirements. This method employs subjective comparison and not an objective
one.
Step 5: Generate Engineering Specifications
The translation of the voice of the customer to the voice of an engineer is performed in this
step. Objective is to convert the requirements into all possible measurable engineering
parameters and select the most relevant parameter.
A point to remember here is that if no such parameter for the requirement is found by the
designers, then the conclusion can be drawn that the team has not fully understood the
requirement. Also, if the engineering parameter is not measurable (in real-world units), the
requirement of the customer must be readdressed.
Let’s Take the example of a car door, Customers requirement” easy to open”
 Engineering parameters possible are
o Force
o Distance of travel of the door handle
o The amount of tactile feedback if a motorized door is implemented
The most relevant parameter is the force applied by the user.
Step 6: Relate the Customer Requirement to the Engineering Specifications
This step relates each engineering specification to each requirement. This is efficiently
performed in the House of Quality diagram. This step is performed to ensure that each of
the requirements has at least one strong relationship with an engineering specification. If
not, the previous step is iterated.
Each engineering specification should have multiple relations with different customer
requirements. This ensures that one specification can measure multiple requirements.
However, each relation may not be a strong relationship.
Step 7: Engineering Importance Targets with their Importance
This step has three objectives
 Determining the importance of the engineering specifications based on the
relationships between requirements and specifications (step 6) and the relative
importance of requirements (step 3)
 Measuring how well the competitors perform based on the ratings from step 4.

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  Setting of the targets before the beginning of the design. These targets are set
considering the trade-off each designer makes and how that affects the
customer's demands.
Step 8: Identify Relationships between engineering Specifications
This step analyses the dependency of the engineering specifications with each other.
Ideally, the chosen specifications are independent of each other, but in practice this rarely
happens. These dependencies are of two types, Direct Dependency i.e. when one
parameter increases, the other also will increase and Indirect Dependency i.e. when one
parameter increases, the other will decrease. Both types can be equally damaging or
equally supporting, depending on the customers' requirements.

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