WHAT IS QUALITY

FUNCTION
DEPLOYMENT (QFD)?
Quality Glossary Definition: Quality function deployment (QFD)

Also called: matrix product planning, decision matrices, customer-driven engineering

Every organization has customers. Some have only internal customers, some have only external
customers, and some have both. When you are working to determine what you need to accomplish
to satisfy or even delight your customers, quality function deployment is an essential tool.

BACKGROUND
QFD is a focused methodology for carefully listening to the voice of the customer and then
effectively responding to those needs and expectations.

First developed in Japan in the late 1960s as a form of cause-and-effect analysis, QFD was brought
to the United States in the early 1980s. It gained its early popularity as a result of numerous
successes in the automotive industry.

METHODOLOGY
In QFD, quality is a measure of customer satisfaction with a product or a service. QFD is a
structured method that uses the seven management and planning tools to identify and prioritize
customers’ expectations quickly and effectively.

Beginning with the initial matrix, commonly termed the House of Quality (Figure 1), the QFD
methodology focuses on the most important product or service attributes or qualities. These are
composed of customer wows, wants, and musts. (See the Kano model of customer perception
versus customer reality.)

Once you have prioritized the attributes and qualities, QFD deploys them to the appropriate
organizational function for action, as shown in Figure 2. Thus, QFD is the deployment of customer-
driven qualities to the responsible functions of an organization.
Quality Function Deployment: Most Important Product/Service Attributes or Qualities
 Quality Function Deployment of Customer-driven Qualities to Responsible Organizational
Functions

HOW TO BUILD A HOUSE

OF QUALITY WITH
TECHNICAL AND
COMPETITIVE
BENCHMARKING
Quality Glossary Definition: House of Quality

The House of Quality (HOQ) is defined as a product planning matrix that is built to show how
customer requirements relate directly to the ways and methods companies can use to achieve those
 requirements. House of Quality diagrams use a design that resembles the outline of a house and
can be created using technical and competitive benchmarking data. HOQ is considered the primary
tool used during quality function deployment to help facilitate group decision making.

Benefits of building a House of Quality include:

 A customer’s needs and requirements are established, then used to build and prioritize
service offerings and products.
 Identifying customer needs and requirements, then ensuring they are achieved, leads to
customer satisfaction and loyalty.
 Improving a company’s understanding of its customers, which leads to better customer
utilization, overall sales, and share of wallet.

House of Quality diagrams rely heavily on identifying and maintaining the voice of the customer
(VOC). VOC is a way of obtaining and implementing the customer’s stated needs and requirements
for their services or products.

TECHNICAL BENCHMARKING
Technical benchmarking means determining how well both your organization and the competition
fulfill customer needs in terms of design requirements.This work is usually performed by design staff
to ascertain the capabilities of products or services, especially in comparison to the products or
services of leading competitors.

You can plot this evaluation as a score on the vertical axis of a House of Quality, as shown in the
figure below. Some people score the design requirements on a scale of one to four, with four being
the best. This method results in a plot across the bottom of the House of Quality.

COMPETITIVE BENCHMARKING
Competitive benchmarking compares one company against a selection of leading competitors. The
company is evaluated based on how well or poorly it’s doing by examining and understanding the
important aspects associated with its product or services.

Add another "room" on the right side of the House of Quality to reflect how well your organization
and the competition satisfy customer requirements (identified on the vertical axis on the left side of
the matrix). As in the case of technical benchmarking, plot this evaluation as a graph. You can also
add more columns to the right side of the matrix to include other information as needed.

Comparing the results of the technical and competitive benchmarking data should show a
consistency. If a product scores high in the competitive comparison, it should also score high on the
technical comparison. Treat inconsistencies as flags signaling a potential problem with a design
requirement.

This completes the House of Quality. Each of the appropriate organizations and ad hoc teams
developing the products and services can put this information to use. The integrated product and
process development team then manages the development of the other matrices to ensure the
complete and effective design and development of the customer offering.
IDENTIFYING BENCHMARK TARGET
VALUES USING HOUSE OF
QUALITY
Establishing target values for each design requirement is necessary. This action establishes
concrete goals for the design engineers and further defines customer requirements. These values
need to be measurable, and you can develop them from historical records, designed experiments, or
analysis of what the competition is doing. Once the team agrees on the target values, enter them on
the horizontal axis with the design requirements.

Benchmarking Using House of Quality

HOUSE OF QUALITY EXAMPLE

In this example of a House of Quality, a company is takes on a contract to install a new server
system design to help a customer’s increased need for faster response times and better information
management. This company selects a group of employees tasked with ensuring the customer’s
requirements are included.

With the use of focus groups and multiple interviews, plus a selection of information technology
resources based on a chosen sample size, the group of employees finds the VOC. They then
determine the value and needs of this data, and apply it to the Customer Needs section of the House
of Quality.

The company also worked with an engineering team who were tasked with developing the product
and ensuring it matches the customer’s needs, as shown in the correlation matrix below.

House of Quality Example