Fuzzy QFD For Supply Chain Management With Reliability Consideration
Fuzzy QFD For Supply Chain Management With Reliability Consideration
www.elsevier.com/locate/ress
Abstract
Although many products are made through several tiers of supply chains, a systematic way of handling reliability issues in a various
product planning stage has drawn attention, only recently, in the context of supply chain management (SCM). The main objective of this
paper is to develop a fuzzy quality function deployment (QFD) model in order to convey fuzzy relationship between customers needs and
design speci®cation for reliability in the context of SCM. A fuzzy multi criteria decision-making procedure is proposed and is applied to ®nd
a set of optimal solution with respect to the performance of the reliability test needed in CRT design. It is expected that the proposed approach
can make signi®cant contributions on the following areas: effectively communicating with technical personnel and users; developing
relatively error-free reliability review system; and creating consistent and complete documentation for design for reliability. q 2001 Elsevier
Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Fuzzy QFD; Reliability; Customer satisfaction; Supply chain management
required relationship for the reliability attributes between in Section 4, apply fuzzy QFD to ®nding design speci®ca-
the CRT and the components of CRT would be fuzzy in tions for reliability in the context of SCM. In Section 5,
many places. This is just a simple example where many study results are summarized.
relationships in SCM could be fuzzy. Therefore, in SCM,
it is important to de®ne customers and their fuzzy needs
properly at every chain. Consequently, customers' fuzzy 2. QFD studies
needs have to be identi®ed in relation to design speci®cation
as well. QFD consists hierarchically of several HOQ. Typically
Quality function deployment (QFD) is often used to the ®rst HOQ represents the relationship between the end
understand customers' needs on the product and to users' needs and product design variables as displayed in
relate them with design speci®cations through several Fig. 2. In the second HOQ, design variables of a product are
hierarchies of house of quality (HOQ). De®ning cus- related to those of components. In the third HOQ, design
tomers and their needs at each stage is not relatively variables of components are related to job attributes.
dif®cult compared to re¯ecting recursively both fuzzy needs Finally, in the last HOQ, job attributes are related to person-
and relationship in several HOQs. Fuzzy QFD has been nel job assignment.
developed mainly in view of fuzzy relationship between Much variation of QFD has been extensively studied
the customers' needs and design speci®cations (Khoo and recently. We review it in terms of application areas and
Ho [3]). However, not much research has been done to deal methodological issues. Main application areas of QFD are
with fuzzy customers' needs for reliability tests in the the new product design (Halbleib et al. [4], Belhe and
context of the SCM. Kuisak [5]). Examples of other application areas include
The main objective of this paper is to develop a fuzzy service improvement (Trappey et al. [6]), software develop-
QFD model in order to convey fuzzy relationship between ment (Haag et al. [7]), business planning (Crowe and Cheng
supply chains in terms of multi-attribute reliability require- [8]), rehabilitation engineering (Logan and Radcliff [9]),
ments. A fuzzy multi criteria decision making procedure is education process (Pitman et al. [10]), construction manage-
proposed and is expected to make signi®cant contributions ment (Mallon and Muligan [11]), and road traf®c accident
on the following areas: effectively communicating with control (Sohn [12]) as well.
technical personnel and users; developing relatively error- Some methodological problems of QFD are associated
free reliability review system; and creating consistent and with dimension problem of the relational matrix, compari-
complete documentation for design for reliability. son method of customer requirements and assessment of
Organization of this paper is as follows. In Section 2, relational matrix.
QFD studies are reviewed. In Section 3, a fuzzy multi In terms of methodology, ®rst, the dimension problem
criteria decision making procedure is illustrated. We then, (Kim and Shin [13]) has been indicated. That is the size
S.Y. Sohn, I.S. Choi / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 72 (2001) 327±334 329
of house of quality increases as the dimension of customers' the relationship between the customer requirements and the
needs and the number of potentially related design variables design speci®cations. In order to identify such relationship,
becomes large. One of the main problems associated with a group discussion is often held and the correlation is assigned
large dimension of the relational matrix is the dif®culty of to each combination of customer requirement and design
setting priorities of customers' needs in an accurate manner. speci®cation variables based on the linguistic expression
Accuracy of QFD depends on the comparison results of such as `strong' or `weak' relationship. Linguistic expres-
customers' needs. In order to avoid such accuracy problems sion could often be fuzzy or stochastic (Tanaka and Asai
due to a large dimension, several partition methods have [17]). Nevertheless most of the QFD literature assumes a
been suggested including those applied to group technology crisp relationship, which may not fully re¯ect the reality.
(Kim and Shin [13]). Other suggestions include the use of Tanaka and Asai [17] tried a fuzzy analysis based on the
attribute categorization and evaluation (ACE) matrix (Park linguistic expression on the relationship in QFD. Their
et al. [14]). Instead of putting all needs in one dimension, fuzzy approach, however, is limited to the relational matrix
ACE matrix categorizes them into a three by three matrix and helps setting priorities of design variables but it does not
where each block consists of a combination of attributes provide the way to ®nd the optimal levels of design variables.
from a group of basic, discriminant, and exciting needs When some retrospective data are available, a classical
and a group of positive, negative and neutral needs. In this regression can be utilized in QFD to ®nd the relationship
way, comparison can be done within each block and reduces between the customers' needs and design variables. In view
the burden of a large dimensional comparison. of the fact that the characteristics of customers' needs are
Secondly, in order to assess the relative importance typically observed as frequency, Poisson regression can be a
of customer requirements, analytical hierarchy analysis proper approach to estimate such a relationship, when the
(AHP) and conjoint analysis are often used (Saaty [15]). frequency is relatively low (Sohn [18±20]). When such a
When comparing customer requirements, AHP takes pair- sample based relationship is estimated, most of the QFD
wise comparison while conjoint analysis uses rating or literature set the ranking of design variables based on the
ranking, method, respectively. Various comparison methods point estimate alone, neglecting the in¯uence of the
(pairwise comparison, rating and ranking) are evaluated and sampling error. It is recommended that the interval estima-
the following results are obtained (Elrod and Louviere [16]): tion be used for the comparison purposes, acknowledging
superior estimation ef®ciency of rating model to the ranking the sampling error. Other problem is that the relationship
model; relative informational ef®ciency of rankings to pair- between the customer needs and design variables may not
wise comparison; and rating models being less vulnerable to be ®xed. In this case, a random effects model (Sohn [21])
bias than ranking models. can be applied.
Next methodological problem lies in the assessment of Next, when a regression approach is used to estimate
330 S.Y. Sohn, I.S. Choi / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 72 (2001) 327±334
the relationship, one has to be careful in scaling data, matrix relating customers' needs to manufacturing variables
since the magnitude of the estimated regression coef®cients X. Note that f(X) includes cross product terms of x1 ; ¼; xn in
depends on the unit of dependent variable (customers needs) addition to xj themselves. Selection of cross product terms in
and explanatory variables (design speci®cations). Not f(X) depends on the evaluation of the relationship between
considering this point, erroneously, regression coef®cients the manufacturing variables. For instance, for a positive
could be directly utilized to represent the degree of relation between x1 and x2, a12x1x2 can be added to f(X)
relationship. where a12 is positive.
In QFD, the relationship of our interest is not restricted to For each element of fuzzy set matrix, A, we assume a
that between the customers' needs and design speci®cation. triangular membership function. That is each element of A
Since numerous attributes are involved in design speci- matrix, a ik, has a center point aik and spread cik with
®cation, there could be potential correlation between the membership function
speci®cation variables. Many authors use the relational
maik
a 1 2 ua 2 aik u=cik
2
matrix of design speci®cation variables at the top of the
HOQ but the meaning and the usage of this matrix has for i 1; ¼; m; k 1; ¼; n 0 :
scarcely been mentioned. Additionally, in the next hierarchy of HOQ, manu-
In summary, it can be pointed out that the fuzzy concept facturing variables for CRT production (X) can be viewed
has not been fully cooperated in assessing the relation as CRT makers' requirements on the reliability test of CRT.
between the customers' needs and design variables; and CRT makers would try to conduct internal reliability tests to
even the crisp relation is not fully utilized to ®nd the optimal meet the PC monitor makers' requirements on the speci®ed
levels of design variables to best meet the customers' needs. attributes. We assume that the following fuzzy relationship
In applying QFD to ®nding the optimal degree of satis- between the n £ 1 matrix of CRT makers' manufacturing
faction for reliability tests in the SCM context, the following requirements X: an n £ p 0 matrix of fuzzy relational matrix
areas deserve the concern of fuzzy analysis: required level B; and a p 0 £ 1 vector g(Z) which is a function of z1 ; ¼; zp ;
of reliability test for the ®nal product; relational matrix representing the reliability test items for CRT
between the end users' needs and the design speci®cation
of the ®nal product; required level of reliability for the X Bg
Z:
3
subsystem of the ®nal product; relational matrix between
the design speci®cations of the ®nal product and those of By replacing X in Eq. (1) with Eq. (3), we ®nd
the subsystem; required level of reliability for the compo-
Y Af
Bg
Z:
4
nent. Adding these fuzzy relationship and requirement need
to be dealt with in terms of fuzzy multi-criteria decision Our objective is to ®nd the tolerable level of CRT
making problem. In Section 3, we propose a fuzzy multi makers' reliability test results Z, which will eventually
criteria decision making technique applicable to design for satisfy PC monitor users' requirement level ri for each
reliability (DFR) in the context of SCM. attribute yi. That is to ®nd Z such that
R1 , Y Af
Bg
Z , R2 ;
5
3. Fuzzy multi criteria decision making
where elements of A,B,R1, and R2 are fuzzy with triangular
In this section, we show how QFD can be used not only to membership function speci®ed in Eq. (2). When A and B are
help setting priorities of customers' needs but also for opti- fuzzy, extension principle needs to be applied (Zadeh [22]).
mizing the levels of reliability test when the customer However, a closed form of membership function for Eq. (4)
requirements are fuzzy and the relationship between those cannot be found analytically based on sequential fuzzy set
and the design speci®cation variables are fuzzy as well. For analysis related to Eqs. (1) and (3). Therefore, instead of
illustration purpose, we consider two-stage supply chains of applying fuzzy set concept to A and B sequentially, we
manufacturing, but it can be easily extended to more general apply it to the ®nal coef®cients on Z after recursively ®nd-
cases. ing the relationship in Eq. (4).
Consider the schematic for design for reliability of a PC In order to ®nd the optimal Z which satis®es the fuzzy
monitor in the context of SCM displayed in Fig. 1. Suppose inequality in Eq. (5), we use Zimmerman's approach (Tong
that the end users' requirements on the functions of a PC [23], Lai and Chang [24]).
monitor (yi's) are identi®ed to have the following relation- First, we de®ne Y 2 R2 , 0 as constraint and Y 2 R1 . 0
ship with manufacturing variables of CRT (xj's) as goal. Then we transform all the constraints into goals.
Y Af
X;
1 That is Y 2 R2 , 0 is transformed as 2Y 1 R2 . 0. Next
we denote gl be the element of Y 2 R1 and 2Y 1 R2. For
Where Y is an m £ 1 vector of customers' needs for PC l 1; ¼; 2m; fuzzy inequality gl . 0 shows to be almost
monitor; f(X) is an n 0 £ 1 vector of function of manu- positive. The exact de®nition of gl . 0 is that gl . 0 and
facturing variables of CRT x1 ; ¼; xn ; A is an m £ n 0 fuzzy the membership function of gl at 0 is mgl
0 # 1 2 h;
S.Y. Sohn, I.S. Choi / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 72 (2001) 327±334 331
4. Examples
Fig. 4. Relationship between CRT design process and aging test.
In this section, we show a case based on the author's
consulting experience in order to illustrate how the proposed relationship matrix between the users' requirements and
approach can be applied for QFD in SCM context. CRT manufacturing variables, using one of 9, 3, and 1
As displayed in Figs. 3 and 4, ®rst of all, we summarize values representing very strong, strong and weak relation,
PC monitor users' requirements
yi ; i 1; ¼; 5 as bright- respectively (Misterek [25]). Intercorrelation between CRT
ness, linearity, focus, white balance, and convergence. manufacturing variables are also assigned re¯ecting their
Corresponding CRT manufacturing variables
xk ; k mutual impact. So model (1) for HOQ 1 can be written as
1; ¼; 5 are mask operation and welding, black matrix, follows
¯uorescent paint, electron gun sealing, and electron tube HOQ 1
operation which represent the sequence of CRT manufac-
turing process. Cross functional team is formed to assign the y1
9x1 1 x3 1 9x4 1 3x5 1 3x3 x2 1 3x3 x4 =28
8
CRT manufacturing variables
xk ; k 1; ¼; 5 as custo- y3 1:14z1 z3 1 0:1z1 z5 1 1:11z3 z5 1 0:1z3 z4 1 0:03z4 z5
mers' needs and relate them with reliability tests named
such as COEK, SHORT, MIK, Pin-C, and Stem-C
zj ; j 1 0:01z21 1 0:89z23 1 0:02z21 z3 1 0:09z1 z23 1 0:23z25
1; ¼; 5: Again cross functional team members assign the rela-
tionship matrix between the CRT manufacturing variables 1 0:01z22 z4 1 0:08z1 z3 z5 1 0:02z1 z2 z3 z4 1 0:09z2 z3 z4
and reliability test variables, 9, 3, and 1 representing very
strong, strong and weak relationship, respectively. Resulting 1 0:08z2 z4 z5 1 0:02z1 z2 z4 1 2:74z1 1 0:21z2 1 2:56z3
model (3) is as follows
HOQ 2 1 0:34z4 1 6:12z5 1 0:9z2 z4 1 0:03z1 z2 1 0:09z2 z3
Table 1
y2 0:21z1 1 0:11z3 1 0:17z4 1 0:12z5 1 0:03z1 z2 Fuzzy optimization result
1 0:02z3 z4 1 1:11z3 z5 1 0:1z1 z5 1 0:03z4 z5 1 0:01z21 COEK z1 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.005 0.00
SHORT z2 0.13 0.20 0.00 0.10 0.003 0.17
MIK z3 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.002 0.00
1 0:08z23 1 0:23z25 1 0:01z1 z2 z3 1 0:02z1 z2 z4 PIN-C z4 0.02 0.00 0.09 0.00 0.00 0.01
STEM-C z5 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
h 1.00 Na 1.00 Na 1.00 Na
1 0:09z2 z3 z4 1 0:08z1 z3 z5 1 0:08z2 z4 z5 1 0:02z1 z2 z4
Brightness h1 Na 0.18 Na 0.24 Na 0.68
Linearity h2 Na 0.67 Na 0.29 Na 0.48
1 0:09z2 z4 z5 1 0:02z21 1 0:09z1 z23 1 0:81z23 Focus h3 Na 0.54 Na 0.82 Na 0.40
White balance h4 Na 0.10 Na 0.95 Na 0.19
Convergence h5 Na 1.00 Na 1.00 Na 1.00
1 0:01z22 z4 1 0:02z1 z2 z3 z4
S.Y. Sohn, I.S. Choi / Reliability Engineering and System Safety 72 (2001) 327±334 333
For fuzzy set representation for very small R2, we assume variables in each supply chain. In this paper, we used the
triangular membership functions with [r1, r2, r3, r4, hierarchies of QFD to systematically relate customers'
r5] [0.05, 0.05, 0.05, 0.05, 0.05] as center points and [c1, needs with design variables in each supply chain of product
c2, c3, c4, c5] [0.02, 0.02, 0.02, 0.02, 0.02] as spread development process. We then recursively consider those
values. relationships so that end users' requirement can be identi®ed
Based on this structure, we calculate triangular member- as functions of reliability test performance variables in the
ship functions of individual goal m gl (0) for l 1; ¼; 5 and last chain of the product design process. Next, we proposed
®nally solve Eq. (6). a fuzzy multi criteria decision-making procedure to ®nd a
According to the optimal solution illustrated in Table 1 set of optimal solution with respect to the reliability perfor-
with the medium level of spread we used, four kinds of mance needed. This optimization procedure can be easily
reliability tests (COEK, SHORT, MIK, STEM-C) need to extended to other types of models by accommodating
be perfectly satis®ed while the failure rate of the reliability various fuzzy optimization approaches including a gamma
test of PIN-C could be allowed upto 9% in order to fully operator. Although the model was developed with our appli-
satisfy customer needs where each need has the same degree cation in mind, it can be used to perform a host of various
of importance. levels of fairly general supply chains. We expect that our
Next we relax h to be different for each need in order to approach can make signi®cant contributions on resolving
accommodate different degrees of importance of each need. reliability issues in SCM context, which has scarcely been
In view of the fact that the brightness in considered as the considered previously.
most important requirement for the monitor, we assume that
the relative importance is as follows: w1 0:6; w2 0:1;
w3 0:1; w4 0:1; w5 0:1; we ®nd the optimal solution Acknowledgements
to be (z1 0:00; z2 0:10; z3 0:00; z4 0:00; z5 0:00)
as displayed in Table 1. In this case, overall customer satis- This work was supported by Korea Research Foundation
faction can be achieved although the failure rate of reliabil- Grant (KRF-97-005-E00191).
ity test with respect to SHORT is increased up to 10%. It is
interesting to note that the degree of satisfaction for each
goal varies and those goals for Brightness and Linearity are
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