Designing new products, services and processes can be a complex task with many decisions that can have huge implications. Decisions need to be made to balance the customers and business requirements and produce mutually beneficial solutions. However, these decisions are often made using a senior ‘voice of experience’ or fragmented logic based on guesswork! Worse still, these decisions are often made without substantial team involvement which, without a solid rationale, can make it very difficult to gain whole team commitment
What is Quality Function Deployment (QFD)?
Quality Function Deployment, or ‘QFD’ is a powerful design tool, which prioritises ‘What’ is required and translates this into specific deliverables (ie. ‘How’ it will be achieved), at key stages of development, ensuring that what is delivered is ultimately linked to the customers' requirements.
QFD focuses on a matrix, known as the ‘House of Quality’, or ‘HOQ’ (the matrix looks a bit like a house because of its ‘roof’). This provides structure and focus. There are four ‘Houses of Quality’:
- Product Planning - translates the requirements of the customer into product / service design requirements, effectively creating a high-level, prioritised specification
- Product Design Planning - translates the design requirements into design characteristics, ie. identifying and prioritising the characteristics of you design concept that impact the key design requirements, which impact the key customer requirements
- Process Planning - translates the design characteristics into the key process operations, ie. it identifies and prioritises the processes which have most impact on the key characteristics of the design that ultimately impact the customer requirements
- Process Control Planning - translates the key process operations into production requirements, ie. the process requirements that are most important and ultimately impact the customer requirements
QFD considers many design factors systematically in each of the four ‘planning’ phases. It translates complex requirements, provides prioritisation and also provides a clear link all the way back through to the customer requirements, which is a critical aspect missing from many development processes. Besides training, coaching and facilitation of QFD, we can analyse your NPD processes and management systems to identify the best upgrades for your business using a variety of diagnostic options, such as Business Analysis, Product Reviews, Service Reviews, Process Reviews and Management System Reviews:
Why we get results
QFD has helped us to work together and agree what’s important and, more importantly, why!
- We have substantial experience training, coaching, facilitating and implementing QFD for products, services and processes
- We’re practical and pragmatic - our focus is always on getting results (we’re practitioners - not just trainers!)
- We tailor our services and approach to meet your needs
- Please contact us to discuss your requirements
Capability Development
The level of capability development is an important factor in Strategic and ‘Total Immersion’ deployments
- Training provides knowledge, but real understanding is only developed by doing
- We offer a range of coaching services, to guide capability development and ensure that results are achieved
- Beyond having people that can do, you’ll need your own, sustainable, support structure to ensure the continued growth and success of your capability - we’ll help you create, or develop, your infra-structure to achieve this
Please contact us to discuss your requirements
Next Steps
We’d be glad to provide more details, or discuss your requirements with you. Please contact us