QFD

QFD

1. “Understanding the design problem” means to translate customers’ requirements into a technical description of what needs to be designed

2. Everyone has a different view of what is needed by the customer and it takes work to find out what this really is.

3. Creeping specifications change during the design process.

   • There are three factors that cause creeping specification
     • First, as the design process progresses, more is learned about the product and so more features can be added.
     • Second, It is a difficult decision whether to ignore these, incorporate them, or start all over
     • Third, The point is that when specification changes become necessary, they should be done in a controlled and informed manner.

4. IDENTIFY THE CUSTOMERS

   • the most important customers are the consumers, the people who will buy the product. Sometimes the purchaser of the product is not the same as its user
   • the organizations that design, manufacture, and distribute the product—external customers—and those inside of them—internal customers
   • One method to make sure you have identified all the customers is to consider the entire life of the product

5. DETERMINE THE CUSTOMERS’ REQUIREMENTS

   • Collecting information from customers. There are essentially three methods commonly used: observations, surveys, and focus groups.
     • Surveys are generally used to gather specific information or ask people’s opinions about a well-defined subject
       • usually use closed questions
     • The focus-group, the goal in the meeting is to find out what is wanted in a product that does not yet exist, and so it relies on the customers’ imaginations.
       • Ask “Why?” until the customers respond with information in terms of time, cost, or quality.
       • use open-ended questions
   • Steps
     • Specify the Information Needed
     • Determine the Type of Data-Collection Method to Be Used
     • Determine the Content of Individual Questions
     • Design the Questions
     • Order the Questions
     • Take data
     • Reduce the Data

6. DETERMINE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF THE REQUIREMENTS

   • Evaluating the importance of each of the customers’ requirements. This is accomplished by generating a weighting factor
     • The weighting will give an idea of how much effort, time, and money to invest in achieving each requirement.
   • The fixed sum method, is to tell each customer that they have 100 points to distribute among the requirements. Using the fixed sum of 100 forces the customer to rate some of the requirements low if they want others to be high