Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
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Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and House of Quality (HOQ) are structured approaches for
defining customer requirements and translating design specifications and product control
characteristics into a planning matrix. In other words, using QFD allows the charting of customer
wants and technical hows, which results in a better understanding of design relationships.
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and House of Quality (HOQ) is a planning process for
products and services that starts with the voice of the customer. Basically, it enables people
to think together. You can also include a competitive analysis. People on your team will be
better aligned and able to think together toward a solution.
Why Use Quality Function Deployment?
• Effectively communicate customer requirements and strategically prioritize efforts
throughout the organization.
• Is a customer-driven process for planning products and services.
• Helps to identify important parameters to include in the design.
• Allows you to compare the design parameters with competitive products.
• Reduces the development time and is cost-effective.
Importance of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and House of Quality (HOQ)
Yoji Akao first developed Quality Function Deployment in Japan in 1966. QFD helps
incorporate all the customer needs into the final product in the early stages of the design
phase. Furthermore, it is a planning tool to determine the key areas in which the effort should
focus in relation to our technical capabilities.
Four primary phases of QFD – Product development steps
Product planning:
• Identify customer requirements.
• Translate VOC into design specifications or product control characteristics as a
planning matrix.
• Prioritize requirements.
• Evaluate competition and prioritize requirements.
Product design:
• Generate design ideas or concepts.
• Translate the outputs of the product planning phase into individual part details that
define part characteristics.
• Identify product risks.
• Define the product specifications.
Process planning:
• Define the product development process and establish critical component parameters.
• Establish critical process controls.
• Create a manufacturing process flowchart and document process parameters (or
target values).
Process control (production planning):
• Define the production requirements for each component/operation.
• Establish inspection and test methods.
• Define performance indicators to monitor the production process.
What is House of Quality (HOQ)?
A house of quality (HOQ) involves collecting and analyzing the “voice of the customer,” and
it is a key part of the Quality Functional Deployment technique. It is used to define the
relationship between customer desires and the product or company’s capabilities.
Step 1: Customer Requirements – “Voice of the Customer”
The first step in a HOQ is to determine the market segments and identify prospective
customers. The team collects customer requirements and rates them on a scale of 1 to 5, with
5 being the most important and 1 being the least. Then they calculate the relative importance.
Step 2: Technical measures
Product requirements or technical characteristics are aligned with the voice of the customer.
This step can be quite difficult as it involves people working in groups to skim out the
variables that may affect the customer requirement factors the most. Parameters should be
meaningful, measurable, and global.
Step 3: Roof / Correlation Matrix
The triangular “roof” matrix of the House of Quality is to identify how the design
requirements interact with each other. It helps the designers in the next phase of the QFD
project. The triangular matrix looks like a house with a roof. The interrelations are rated
strong positive as “+ +,” whereas strong negative as “- -“and blank for no interrelation.
Step 4: Relationship Matrix
Develop a correlation between customer requirements (or the voice of the customer) and the
design characteristics or technical requirements. Decide the symbols you want to use to
describe your desired grades. These should be consistent and easy to understand.
The ranking system use is a set of symbols for strong, medium, and weak relationships. Each
of the symbols represents a value of 9 for strong, 3 for medium, and 1 for weak.
Step 5: Importance Rating
The Importance Rating is the result of calculating the total sum of each column when
multiplied by the customer importance factor. It helps to determine where to assign the most
resources. Then, calculate the percentage of importance.
Step 6: Competitive Evaluation
Competitive Evaluation helps to understand competitor products that fulfill customer
requirements. It is a good idea to ask customers how the product or service rates are in
relation to the competition. Use surveys, customer meetings, or focus groups/clinics to obtain
feedback. Measure the satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 5, where 1 is highly dissatisfied and 5 is
highly satisfied.
Identify more specific target values for technical specifications to satisfy the VOC. This
section helps appropriate teams within the origination to develop next-level QFD.
Example of House of Quality (HOQ)
Quality Function Deployment functions such as House of Quality are used on consumer
products to identify and manage design trade-offs. It involves studying customer
requirements, which can take many forms. For example, a marketing survey that has been
targeted towards a certain marketing group is a way to study customer requirements.
It may not work well for existing products, but the results are quite efficient if you consider
solving a big design problem. Usually, the purpose of this survey is to find out what the
consumers want from the consumers. The House of Quality is a good patch between customer
requirements and engineering variables.
Example: We pick a car on which we are going to perform a house of quality analysis. Since
this is a hypothetical scenario, we will assume all the data.
Step 1: Customer Requirements-“Voice of the Customer”
The first thing you need to decide on is the customer requirements.
For example, the minimum requirements for a car might be:
• Speed
• Safety
• Low Fuel Consumption
• Reliable
• Cheap
The next thing we do is assume the importance of each of these car characteristics, like what
is important according to the customers.
For example, let us rate all of these on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most important and
1 being the least.
• Speed-3
• Safety – 4
• Low Fuel Consumption- 3
• Reliable -3
• Cheap-5
Step 2: Technical measures
The next thing you need to do is figure out the engineering parameters that you need in order
to design the car.
• Weight
• Type of engine (power)
• Cost of production
• Expected lifetime
• Dimensions
• Acceleration speed
It is also a good way to help establish the importance.
Step 3: Roof / Correlation Matrix
The first row is called up or down. In this column, you describe whether the following
parameter is better with a high value or low.
For example, it is always better we have low weight, high engine power and life, low cost of
production, high dimensions, and quick acceleration.
Similarly, you can now compare the effects of changing one alternative on the others. You
can use symbols such as ++ to represent a strongly positive effect, + for a positive effect, 0
for no effect,– for a negative, and – – for a strongly negative effect.
Step 4: Relationship Matrix
Now fill in all the boxes of the design parameter columns. This is the largest and most difficult
part of the design process.
The ranking system use is a set of symbols for strong, medium, and weak relationships. Also,
each symbol represents a value of 9 for strong, 3 for medium, and 1 for weak.
E.g., rate how the weight is related to speed, fuel consumption, safety, size, reliability, and
price. Do this for all the alternatives.
Step 5: Importance Rating
Sum up all of the values for each column of the engineering parameters and write the sum
at the bottom of the table. This is the total importance of each individual engineering
parameter.
Then calculate the percentage of importance: You add them up and then divide each
importance value by the total to get the percentages. This will help you decide which
parameters you need to focus on to meet the demands of the public.
It will also shed some light on the relative importance of each parameter in the design
process.
Furthermore, you can use as many designs as you want and test as many alternatives as
possible. It is all up to you! It all depends on the available data, the amount of detail you want
to go into, and the extent to which you are willing to invest your time and resources in this
process.
However, this process is very time-consuming if done manually, as many decisions must be
made. Hence, you have to decide which factors are worth considering and which are not for
one.
Step 6: Competitive Evaluation
Use further add-ons to compare different alternatives in order to check how the different
types of cars shape up with all the other alternatives.
Use a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being highly dissatisfied and 5 being highly satisfied. For each
customer requirement, rank 1 to 5 to the competitors and also for our product (car).
Also, use this add–on to check new designs that you make and learn to select the best
optimization for anything you want to make.
This also helps identify discrepancies that you may have in your designs–know what you are
lacking in your design that the public requires.
This is a good way to get everything in there at once. It is also suggested that you sign it as
soon as you agree on something.
