Product Development Using QFD
What is QFD?
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a commitment to developing products and services from the customer's perspective. Derived from Japanese management and engineering techniques, QFD strives to break products and services into their smallest components and study each for importance, opportunities and competitive advantages.
The heart of QFD is understanding customers' needs. For this reason, insightful market research is crucial. QFD adopts the policy that customers (end users) are not experts about our product, instead they are experts about how they use our product and how it benefits them.
How is QFD Conducted?
The first step in the QFD process is understanding the way in which our products are used. Typically, this understanding is derived from focus groups or some other exploratory method that involves talking with customers. The primary focus of this step is to define, as specifically as possible, the needs of the customers. The key to successful QFD is highly detailed definitions of customer needs. For example, finding out that a product must be "reliable," "safe," and "perform well" is not sufficient for QFD purposes. Instead, each of these concepts must be broken into their components.
- What makes a product reliable?
- What does reliable mean?
- What parts are the most / least reliable?
The final aspect of the QFD process is an understanding of the competitive environment. This too must come from the customers' perspective. For example, the market share leader may not have the highest quality image among customers. This competitive appraisal is accomplished by quantitative techniques.
Translation of the Data
Once customer needs have been defined and prioritized, they are translated into internal language. For example, the customer's need for a "lawn mower to start on the first pull" is broken into all of the product parts that can affect whether the mower starts (ignition components, engine parts, etc.). The translation for all needs becomes the "quality table" - a kind of blueprint for product development / improvement.
This table also contains the interrelations between the component parts, i.e., changing the specifications of a part which controls one customer need may adversely affect a different part. The QFD table provides the guidelines to help make the decision whether the "net sum result" of the positive change minus the adverse effect(s) will improve or diminish overall customer satisfaction.
The Benefits of Using QFD
The QFD process efficiently focuses efforts on areas of highest customer priority, greatest competitive advantage and / or greatest current product vulnerability. It provides direction for remaining market driven, and assures that the product or service developed will meet, or exceed, customer expectations.
Pre-Introduction
- Define and quantify market segment(s)
- Demographic characteristics
- Geographic
- Vertical markets
- Distribution
- End uses
- Determine customer requirements
- Determine position vs. competitors
- Identify competitive quality opportunities
- Translate customer requirements into product characteristics
- Set product performance and quality objectives
- Set cost targets
- Set distribution/availability and service targets
- Conceptual design
- Build and test prototypes
- Evaluate manufacturing capabilities
- Identify potential bottlenecks
- Review objectives/targets
- Prepare production and marketing plans
- Final product design
- Prepare QA plan
Post-Introduction
- Collect feedback from customers
- Compare accomplishments to objectives/targets
- Make modifications as required:
- Product features/quality
- Pricing
- Service
- Distribution