Xu Et Al. 2010 Revision

Int. J. Productivity and Quality Management, Vol. 6, No.
4, 2010 457
A comprehensive review on recent developments in

quality function deployment
Jenny Xu, Xun Xu* and Shane Q. Xie

Department of Mechanical Engineering,
University of Auckland,
Private Bag 92019, Auckland, New Zealand
Fax: +64-(9)-373-7479
E-mail: jennyxu.nz@gmail.com
E-mail: x.xu@auckland.ac.nz
E-mail: s.xie@auckland.ac.nz
*Corresponding author
Abstract: Originally developed in Japan in the late 1960s and based on the
concepts of quality control and value engineering, quality function deployment
(QFD) has been considered a useful tool for product development. It can
effectively translate customer requirements into appropriate engineering
characteristics for each stage of product development and production such as
planning, product design, production process development and manufacture.
This paper aims to provide a more balanced review of QFD that exhibits
enough depth to be useful to researchers as well as enough breadth to cater for
amateur readers. The focus is on materials published between 2005 and 2009.
Previous reviews on QFD are commented and followed by reviews on recent
developments of new methodologies, technical improvements and integration
of QFD with other tools. The reviewed methodologies include fuzzy set
theory, multicriteria decision analysis model, artificial neural network and
hybrid approaches. Resource allocation, Kano’s model, failure mode and
effects analysis, robust design and an assortment of other recently developed
tools are reviewed and evaluated in the context of their integration with QFD
in an effort to improve the effectiveness and applicability of QFD in product
design.
Keywords: quality function deployment; QFD; review; product development;

product design; customer requirements; CRs; engineering characteristics; ECs;
methodologies; technical improvements; integration.
Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Xu, J., Xu, X. and
Xie, S.Q. (2010) ‘A comprehensive review on recent developments in quality
function deployment’, Int. J. Productivity and Quality Management, Vol. 6,
No. 4, pp.457-494.
Biographical notes: Jenny Xu received her BE (Hon.) with first class honours
and specialising in Mechatronics from the University of Auckland,
New Zealand in 2008. She is now a PhD student at the University of Auckland
doing research in the field of rapid product development technologies, methods
and tools.
Xun W. Xu received his BSc and MSc from China. In 1996, he received his
PhD from the University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology
(UMIST), UK. He is now an Associate Professor at the Department of
Mechanical Engineering, the University of Auckland, New Zealand. He is a
Copyright © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

458 J. Xu et al.
Fellow of ASME and a member of IPENZ. In addition to his teaching and

research activities at the University of Auckland, he has been actively engaged
in various industrial consultancy works. He heads the Manufacturing Systems
Laboratory and the CAD/CAM Laboratory in the University of Auckland. He
has published numerous research monographs and is on the Editorial Boards
for a number of international journals. His main interests lie in the areas of new
product development, CAD/CAPP/CAM, STEP and STEP-NC.
S.Q. Xie received his MSc and PhD from Huazhong University of Science and
Technology (HUST), China in 1995 and 1998, respectively. He also received
his PhD from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand in 2001. He is
currently an Associate Professor in the area of mechatronics and leads a group
working in medial robotics and info-mechatronics. His current research
interests are biomechatronics, smart sensors and actuators, rehabilitation and
medical robots and rapid product development technologies, methods and tools.
He is the Editor, Guest Editor, member of Editorial Boards of four international
journals. He has also published more than 150 papers in refereed international
journals and conferences.
1 Introduction
Quality function deployment (QFD) is an effective tool for product development

dedicated to translating customer requirements (CRs) into appropriate engineering
characteristics (ECs) for each stage of product development and production such as
planning, product design, production process development and manufacture. It is a
customer-driven planning process that carefully ‘listens’ to the ‘voice of the customer’
(VOC) and provides them with what they need in order to achieve higher customer
satisfaction (Sullivan, 1986; Akao, 1990; Menon et al., 1994). It was originally developed
in Japan in the late 1960s by founder Akao when he combined his work in quality
assurance (QA) and quality control points with function deployment from value
engineering. The intention was to produce a QA method that would design customer
satisfaction into the product prior to manufacture, unlike most of the existing quality
control methods that aimed to fix a problem during or after manufacturing. In this sense,
QFD can help a company shift from the traditional inspected-in quality to designing
quality into the product (Guinta and Praizler, 1993). Successful implementations have
produced many benefits such as lower start-up costs, shorter design cycles, promotion of
teamwork, improved communication, improved design creativity and the increase in
competitiveness (Bossert, 1991; Kovach et al., 2007). Due to this, adoption of QFD has
been seen in various industries and applied throughout the world following its initial
introduction to the USA and Europe in the 1980s. In recent years, QFD has been
integrated with various tools such as value analysis (VA) and maintenance excellence
(ME) in order to create synergistic approaches to help an organisation reach new levels of
competitive strength (Oke et al., 2009; Lazreg and Gien, 2009). There has also been
research into incorporating additional concerns such as environmental awareness and
looking at reducing times and costs required for new product design to follow growing
trends such as more environmentally friendly practices and agile manufacturing
(Genevois and Bereketli, 2009; Bottani, 2009; Sun et al., 2009).
A comprehensive review on recent developments in QFD 459
Figure 1 House of quality
For product design, QFD is usually carried out by using a series of translation matrices.
This is known as the most commonly used four-phase model and can be considered a
blueprint for product development which covers all the basic product development steps
(Cohen, 1995). As the name suggests, the four-phase model divides a product
development process into four phases by using four matrices. The first phase is to gather
CRs for the product in question called WHATS and transforming these needs into ECs
called HOWs. This particular phase is fundamental in product development and the
corresponding QFD matrix is given a special name called the house of quality (HoQ)
which links and identifies the relationships between and amongst CRs and ECs, also
known as product or CR planning. Figure 1 demonstrates a typical HoQ structure and its
contents. The second phase involves the transformation of the prioritised ECs from the
first phase into part characteristics, also called part deployment. The following phase
460 J. Xu et al.
known as process planning then transforms the key part characteristics into process
parameters and these are finally transformed in the last phase of production planning into
production requirements. Essentially, the QFD process provides a formal linkage between
objectives (WHATs) and responses (HOWs) to fully deploy the customer needs (CNs)
phase by phase throughout product development (Sullivan, 1986; Hauser and Clausing,
1988; Cohen, 1995).
The HoQ is of particular importance in QFD as this is where CNs for a product are
identified and the corresponding technical attributes found and ranked by incorporating
the company’s competitive priorities. The HoQ provides a link from the VOC to that of
the design team so that process and production plans can be developed in the later steps
of the QFD process. For further information, reader is referred to the work by Chan and
Wu (2002–2003) who presented a comprehensive review of QFD and in particular
covered in detail the HoQ phase.
2 Existing reviews of QFD
The development of QFD has made tremendous progress since the day it was first created
and introduced to the public. A large number of articles can be found discussing the
technical advancements, methodological improvements and new applications of QFD.
Aside from these, a small number of QFD review papers have also been published in the
past. These papers often have their specific focuses. An approach taken by a few review
papers is to provide broad coverage with a focus on categorisation and classification
of the previously published QFD papers (Chan and Wu, 2002; Carnevalli and Miguel,
2008). A vast number of QFD-related articles were sorted into main groups and
subgroups based on their content. Due to the large number of papers covered, it is
impossible for such review papers to go into much detail regarding each one, thus, such
review papers are most helpful to readers who already have some background knowledge
on the subject and can act as a guide for selecting further reading materials which are
relevant to the reader’s area of interest. This type of review also helps highlight the key
areas of development made so far in QFD and by doing so, draws attention to those areas
that require more work or have the potential to be further developed. Another common
approach is to focus on a certain aspect of QFD and give a more in-depth and detailed
explanation of the work that has been carried out in the area. For example, a focus on the
QFD process would see a comprehensive description of the different phases involved
and any important definitions and problems associated with the process (Chan and Wu,
2002–2003), while a review with a focus on the mathematical models of QFD would
present a comprehensive analysis of the different models that have been developed and
implemented (Li et al., 2008a). A third approach results in reviews that take the form
of a short summary which gives a very general overview of QFD (Johnson, 2003). This
is most appropriate for readers who have little to no knowledge of the subject and is
well-suited for introducing the basics of QFD.
Unlike all the existing review articles, this paper aims to provide a more balanced
review of QFD that exhibits enough depth to be useful to researchers as well as enough
breadth to cater to amateur readers. The review encompasses the key methodologies and
technical improvements of QFD. Also featured are the successful applications of QFD.
Product development is the application domain of the review. The focus is on materials
published from 2005 onwards. The review has been divided into three main sections. The
topics covered include:
1 Development of different methodologies used in the QFD process
2 Technical improvements based on existing methodologies
3 Integration of QFD with other tools.
3 QFD methodologies
Based on different situations and needs, various numerical analysis methods have been
developed, utilised and/or combined with QFD in order to improve the reliability and
accuracy of QFD. This section covers a number of commonly used methods in QFD, e.g.,
fuzzy set theory, multicriteria decision analysis model and artificial neural network
(ANN). Other methods with less implementation as well as several hybrid approaches are
also presented.
3.1 Fuzzy set theory

Fuzzy sets or fuzzy set theory was introduced in the 1960s. It can be used to express
the knowledge of a system using human linguistic understanding. The fuzzy set allows
for partial membership where the degree of membership in a set is expressed by a number
between zero and one, with zero indicating entirely not in the set, one indicating
completely in the set and a number in between representing partial belonging to the set.
The application of fuzzy set theory in QFD has played an important role in improving
QFD, in particular, in handling subjective and linguistic data. There are several known
advantages of using fuzzy set theory in QFD. Fuzzy QFD allows for decision-making
with estimated values using incomplete or uncertain information and thus making QFD
suitable for uncertain or approximate reasoning (Bouchereau and Rowlands, 1999). This
is supported by results obtained when comparing implementations of both crisp and fuzzy
QFD in automobile component design (Kannan, 2008). The findings suggest that fuzzy
logic is fundamental when dealing with several parameters that are difficult to express in
a quantitative measure.
Fuzzy set theory can be applied either as a standalone method or in combination with
other methodologies in the QFD process. In general, fuzzy set theory is used to construct
the HoQ, which includes determining the importance of CRs and ECs related to a product
as well as the relationships between CRs and ECs, and among ECs. This is an important
step in the QFD process as it allows for prioritisation of factors in the hope of achieving
the greatest overall customer satisfaction.
Several approaches for incorporating fuzzy set theory in the QFD process have been
reported. For example, it has been used to determine the importance of ECs, a vital
step in the successful application of QFD. The final importance of ECs can be derived by
considering two relationship measures. The fuzzy relationship between ECs and CRs is
examined as well as the correlation between the ECs to produce the aggregate importance
of the EC (Chen et al., 2005; Kwong et al., 2007; Sun et al., 2008). In the fuzzy expected
value operator approach, two fuzzy expected value models are used to determine the
target values of ECs in handling different practical design scenarios. The basic idea
462 J. Xu et al.
behind this approach was originally proposed by Liu and Liu (2002). The decision which
produces the maximum expected return will then be selected. It is suggested that this
approach allows for unambiguous interpretations such that everyone has the same
understanding of the principles of the models (Chen et al., 2005). The fuzzy expert
system-based approach determines the fuzzy correlation measure for threshold impact
values of ECs and fuzzy relation measure for EC importance values separately. These
values are combined to determine the aggregate importance values for ECs which
are normalised before ranking takes place. The flowchart in Figure 2 summarises this
process. Fuzzy expert systems are those that use fuzzy logic instead of Boolean logic to
reason about data. It involves steps such as fuzzification, aggregation, application of
implication method, composition and defuzzification (Kwong et al., 2007).
Figure 2 Fuzzy expert-based approach for QFD

Another approach to find the importance of ECs is by using a fuzzy weighted average
method based on α-cuts. An α-cut refers to all fuzzy numbers as intervals whose
members have values greater than some number α between zero and one which has
been set as a minimally acceptable membership value. This approach forms a pair of
non-linear programmes to find the α-cut of the fuzzy weighted average to derive
membership functions of ECs which are not explicitly known. The method of averaging
level cuts is then used in the process of defuzzification to prioritise the ECs in order to
identify critical ECs to attain maximum customer satisfaction (Liu and Liu, 2002).
Fuzzy set theory can also be used to determine the importance of CRs. Saaty’s
method of looking at pairwise comparisons has been used in the past in crisp decision
applications to determine CR importance weights. This has been adapted into a fuzzy
pairwise comparison ranking method to better deal with the inevitable vagueness present
in the decision-making process. Coupled with a total integral value defuzzification
technique, the priorities of CRs can be found and transferred into the priorities of ECs
(Li et al., 2006).
Another important issue to consider when determining CR and EC importance is the
presence of multiple decision-makers (DMs) who are participating in the judgement,
thus, making the construction of the HoQ a group decision-making problem. Due to
the different personal backgrounds of the DMs, individual judgments are given in
multiformat or multigranularity which makes them difficult to assess. It is therefore
useful to fuse these judgments into a unified aggregated judgement which will reflect
the opinions of the whole focus group. This can be achieved through the use of fuzzy
set theory. A fuzzy logarithmic least squares model (LLSM) and a fuzzy weighted least
squares model (WLSM) can be applied to collect individual judgments to form the final
aggregated group judgment (Zhang and Chu, 2009). The need to fuse multiple preference
styles was also addressed by Buyukozkan et al. (2007) who proposed a new fuzzy group
decision-making approach by integrating group decision-making and fuzzy set theory
which supported the combination of linguistic and numerical information for QFD so
that CRs may be more effectively prioritised. This in turn allowed the identification of
important ECs for consideration in product design.
Fuzzy set theory is a popular methodology that is also used in combination with other
methods in the QFD process and will see a frequent mention in the subsequent sections.
3.2 Multicriteria decision analysis model

The multicriteria decision analysis model aims to provide a compromised and optimised
solution that is subject to conflicting constraints. Implementations include multi-objective
decision analysis and multi-attribute decision analysis. The application of multicriteria
decision analysis in QFD helps designers make trade-offs among various characteristics
and features in order to obtain an optimal solution.
3.2.1 Analytic hierarchy process and analytic network process

Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and analytic network process (ANP) are the two
common types of multicriteria decision-making techniques. AHP was developed in the
1970s and has been extensively studied and applied in different fields since then.
AHP decomposes a decision problem into a hierarchy of less complex and manageable
subproblems which can be solved easily and independently. Pairwise comparisons are
464 J. Xu et al.
then performed to produce numerical priorities which determine the most suitable
decision. This technique can be applied in the QFD process to find the importance
weights of CRs. ANP is a more general form of AHP and uses a network approach in
restructuring decision problems. This technique has fewer limitations as it does not
require independence among elements and can thus be a more effective tool in real world
applications where interdependence may exist among the alternatives considered in a
decision. Both AHP and ANP have the advantage of easy integration due to great
flexibility and ease of use. However, noteworthy drawbacks include arbitrary choice of
scales and crispness in pairwise comparisons when applied in the QFD process. Table 1
below summarises the differences between AHP and ANP.
Table 1 Difference between AHP and ANP
Aspect AHP ANP

Structure Unidirectional Multidirectional
Relation type Hierarchical Network
Nature of relationship Linear Non-linear
Nature of problem Simple Complex
Environment Static Dynamic
Feedback No Yes
To better deal with the inherent impreciseness and vagueness present in QFD, fuzzy set
theory is often used in combination with multicriteria decision analysis (Ertay et al.,
2005; Kahraman et al., 2006; Lin and Lee, 2008; Raharjo et al., 2008a). Fuzzy ANP has
the ability to handle uncertain and incomplete information and can be used to prioritise
CRs by taking into account the degree of interdependence between CRs and ECs as
well as among the CRs and ECs through means of fuzzy AHP. This then allows the
determination and ranking of important ECs to be considered when designing a product
(Ertay et al., 2005). Further development of this work saw the addition of a mixed integer
linear programming model which is used to optimise target improvements (Kahraman
et al., 2006). Figure 3 shows a network representation of the QFD model using this
approach, the super-matrix derived from this representation is:
G CNs PTRs
Goal (G ) ⎛0 0 0 ⎞
⎜ ⎟ (1)
W= Customer needs (CNs) ⎜ w1 W3 0 ⎟
Product technical requirements ( PTRs) ⎜⎝ 0 W2 W4 ⎟⎠
Although termed differently, CNs are comparative to CRs, while product technical
requirements (PTRs) are comparative to ECs, and G represents the goal. w1 represents the
impact of the goal, namely producing a product that will satisfy the customer. W2 is a
matrix which indicates the impact of CNs on each of the PTRs. W3 and W4 are matrices
which represent the inner dependencies of the CNs and PTRs, respectively. In order to
calculate w1, W2, W3 and W4, fuzzy AHP methodology must be applied. The extent
analysis method proposed by Chang (1996) was used in this case due to its simplicity and
similarity to crisp AHP (Ertay et al., 2005; Kahraman et al., 2006). The final results
obtained are then used in the prioritisation of the ECs in product design.
A difficulty faced by the ANP approach is the increase in the number of pairwise
comparisons required for an evaluation due to additional interdependency relationships.
This may be a problem when there is an overly large number of CRs and ECs. One
possible solution is to place an initial limitation on the number of factors to be included in
the model. This is achieved by using the fuzzy Delphi method which can be applied to
downsize the numerous factors into a limited number of more important factors (Lin and
Lee, 2008).
Figure 3 Network representation of the fuzzy AHP QFD model
So far, fuzzy ANP has only been used to analyse the inter and inner relationships among
CRs and ECs. The major limitations for this restricted model are the disregard of other
relevant and important factors in the QFD such as competitive benchmarking information
and the inconsideration of any feedback information. In view of these facts, a generalised
ANP model in QFD has been proposed to better exploit QFD potentials. This generic
model takes into account feedback information, incorporates new product development
(NPD) risk and considers competitors’ benchmarking information for CRs and ECs
so that all elements in the HoQ can be accurately and systematically determined. The
proposed ANP network model consists of the goal (achieving the best product design),
the demanded quality, the quality characteristic, the NPD risk and the competitors’
benchmarking information. The three main types of arcs to represent relationships are the
outer dependence arcs, the inner dependence arcs and the feedback arcs. The dependence
arcs convey a dependence condition either between clusters or within a cluster (Raharjo
et al., 2008a).
3.2.2 Linear programming (LP) and goal programming (GP)

Linear programming (LP) and goal programming (GP) are multi-objective optimisation
techniques that are a branch of multicriteria decision analysis. These techniques can
be used in the QFD process to optimise the final level of customer satisfaction achieved
466 J. Xu et al.
by determining the importance of ECs and minimising the difference between the
customer’s expectation and the final product. An LP with fuzzy CR considerations can be
used as an optimisation method for EC or components selection to produce a product
design that will best satisfy the customers (Luo et al., 2008). A major disadvantage of LP
is that linear relationships do not always adequately represent the relationship functions
present. In fact, some relationship functions can be very complex which may call for
the use of non-linear mathematical models to formulate the problem. Other drawbacks
associated with the use of LP include the assumed continuity of EC values (real world
values tend to be more discrete), difficulty in clearly specifying actual functional
relationships between CRs and ECs, and the lack of cost-effective methods to quantify
the relationship between cost and ECs. Thus, new programming approaches have been
made to address these issues (Lai et al., 2005, 2006). Some of these are covered later in
the other approaches section.
GP can be considered an extension, or more general form, of LP. It is capable of
handling a relatively large number of variables, constraints and conflicting objective
measures. Rather than trying to maximise or minimise the objective criterion directly as
in LP, GP seeks to minimise the deviations between set target values and what can be
achieved within the given set of constraints (Tian and Che, 2007). This approach is often
used in combination with other methods during application which will be covered later in
the hybrid approaches section.
3.3 Artificial neural network
ANNs, or simply neural networks, are a type of mathematical models based on the
concept of learning-by-example. A neural network consists of a large number of
processing elements known as neurons or nodes, each of which is associated with a
weight value that represents the information utilised by the net to solve a given problem.
Every neuron performs a simple arithmetic operation before passing on the output
to the next element. ANN can be trained to ‘learn’ and generate data based on the
obtained knowledge. The application of ANN in QFD has the potential of reducing the
development time required. Outstanding strengths of ANN include its ability to deal with
a vast amount of input data, to tolerate faults with imprecise input and to handle complex
relationships. However, one noted drawback is the extensive training data needed in order
to generate relatively accurate outputs.
It is suggested that a fuzzy-based neural network is another effective way to
determine the final importance of CRs and ECs in the QFD process (Deng and
Kuo, 2008; Yang et al., 2008). An improvement in computational efficiency becomes
important as the number of rules and complexity of membership functions increase. ANN
provides a means to obtain fuzzy reasoning results in an efficient manner by training
the neural network to learn fuzzy input and output relations. A simple three-layer,
feedforward neural network can be used for fuzzy reasoning. The network consists of an
input layer, a hidden layer and an output layer. Input nodes are used to describe fuzzy
membership function for different fuzzy sets, while output nodes describe the output
membership function for the output variables. The neural network is trained using
available correct data sets through backpropagation and takes into account all the relevant
fuzzy rules which consider CR importance, CR and EC relations, market competitiveness
and technical competitiveness to determine the final importance of ECs (Yang et al.,
2008).
Alternatively, neural networks can also aide QFD practitioners in the initial
prioritisation of CRs prior to the identification of important ECs. The planning matrix of
the HoQ contains information regarding what customers want and also the priority of
what customers want. However, the self-stated raw importance of CRs according to the
customers does not always sufficiently reflect the actual importance of the CRs during
product design. Thus, a modified planning matrix utilising ANN is proposed to measure
the actual importance of CRs which can then be applied to subsequent analysis of the
HoQ such as EC determination and ranking. A backpropagation neural network (BPNN)
is one that uses a supervised learning method and feedforward architecture and is able to
accommodate complex and non-linear data relationships. The learning algorithm utilised
in such a network means the error between the network’s prediction output and the target
output is minimised. Once the BPNN has been completely trained, the weights between
the input and output neurons become representative of the actual importance of the CRs.
The revised planning matrix approach is then able to provide final relative importance
information of CRs which is used to identify ECs that affect customer satisfaction the
most (Deng and Kuo, 2008).
3.4 Other approaches

Some approaches have been proposed to broaden the horizon of QFD development or as
improvements to mainstream methodologies. For example, to overcome the limitations of
LP as described in the multicriteria decision analysis section, various new approaches
have been proposed to more accurately determine the optimal set of ECs in product
design (Lai et al., 2005, 2006; Liu, 2005). Dynamic programming helps make a set of
interrelated decisions without requiring the full relationship curve between involved
factors. It is also a more practical approach as it recognises the limited number of
alternatives. In the case of QFD, the set of interrelated decisions consists of decisions
on the final importance value of each EC. As such, dynamic programming allows the
determination of an optimal combination of EC values in a systematic way by utilising
only a group of discrete points containing the necessary information. This means
less time and resources are required and the values of each EC, the related cost and
overall customer satisfaction achieved are generated at the same time at the end of
the optimisation process (Lai et al., 2005). Although dynamic programming is
an improvement from LP, there still exist drawbacks such as the limitation to
single-objective problems and difficulty in specifying the appropriate weights of each
objective in advance. Linear physical programming (LPP) is a new multi-objective
optimisation problem that is able to obtain optimal local and global weights by
integrating this procedure with the optimisation process and taking into account
competition analysis and meeting satisfaction levels for CRs (as opposed to ranking). It
can be considered an extension to GP and presents the unique feature that allows a
different priority to be given to each CR when the requirements are at different stages
(Lai et al., 2006).
A further improvement on fuzzy logic-based approaches is the evidential reasoning
(ER) based QFD methodology, which is able to deal with such extreme uncertainties as
incomplete and missing information by using belief structures developed on the basis of
468 J. Xu et al.
the theory of evidence (Shafer, 1976). This proposed approach allows both customers and
QFD team members to freely express their opinions and to make true judgements as
well as accommodate situations where no assessment information has been provided.
It also takes into account both customer wants and customers’ preferences in the EC
prioritisation process (Chin et al., 2009).
Another new approach looks at prioritising ECs without the need to know explicitly
the relationships among them by embedding the maximum set-minimum set-based
ranking method (Chen, 1985) into a fuzzy weighted average supported method (Kao and
Liu, 2001) to construct a pair of non-linear programmes to be solved for the prioritisation.
This approach is suitable for use when the weights of CRs are not crisp numbers or if the
fuzzy weights of CRs do not sum to unity, as most other fuzzy number ranking methods
are unable to be applied effectively in such cases (Liu, 2005).
3.5 Hybrid approaches
Different methods have various advantages and strengths in different areas and
applications. If properly combined, they can serve far more synergistically than when
being used individually. This section presents a brief overview on a number of hybrid
approaches used in the QFD process.
Regression analysis can be used to model a dependent response variable as a function
of the independent explanatory variables. The method of least squares is commonly used
to estimate the best fit parameters of the model through minimisation of the sum of
squared residuals. Regression analysis is often combined with fuzzy set theory to produce
programming models that are able to determine the functional relationships between CRs
and ECs in the QFD process (Fung et al., 2005, 2006; Chen and Chen, 2006). Furthering
the work of Fung et al. (2005) on fuzzy expected value operators, a hybrid approach
which integrates this idea and fuzzy regression has been proposed. To obtain a more
central tendency of the relationships, a least squares fuzzy regression with asymmetric
triangular fuzzy coefficients is used. Asymmetric fuzzy numbers are able to produce a
better best fit regression line as they are able to deal with data sets that generate scatter
plots with data that do not fall symmetrically on both sides of the regression line.
Initially, this regression technique will be used to investigate EC and CR relationships
and the fuzzy expected value operator will then be employed to model the product
planning process to obtain optimal values for ECs (Fung et al., 2005).
An improvement to this hybrid model is the extension of the asymmetric triangular
fuzzy coefficients used in regression to asymmetric trapezoidal fuzzy coefficients.
Although asymmetric fuzzy coefficients have more flexibility in general in terms of
handling uncertainties than symmetric coefficients, it is noted that trapezoidal fuzzy
coefficients are able to deal with an even greater variety of uncertainties and ambiguities
which could not be modelled efficiently through triangular fuzzy coefficients (Fung
et al., 2006). This particular fuzzy regression approach, despite the improvement, is
still reduced to a LP problem. Due to the characteristics of LP, some coefficients tend to
become crisp when estimating the functional relationships in the QFD process. It is
desired that these coefficients be more non-crisp as this enables the generation of better
results since the spread of data can be interpreted by many fuzzy coefficients. Thus, a
non-linear programming-based fuzzy regression approach is proposed so that a more
diverse spread of coefficients can be obtained. This methodology utilises symmetric
triangular fuzzy coefficients due to their simplicity and ease of handling to transform a
fuzzy regression problem into a crisp non-linear programming model (Chen and Chen,
2006).
Genetic algorithm (GA) is an intelligent search technique used to find exact or
approximate solutions to optimisation and search problems. The essential principle of GA
is based on the natural selection rules of the ‘survival of the fittest’ theory and utilises
techniques inspired by evolutionary biology such as selection, mutation, inheritance
and recombination to extract and combine the best features across generations of
possible solutions in order to achieve an optimal or near-optimal solution (Xu, 2009).
Distinguishing characteristics that set GA aside from most of the classical optimisation
techniques include working with the coding of a parameter set as opposed to the
parameters themselves, searching from a population of points rather than a single point,
using objective function information and not other auxiliary knowledge, and following
probabilistic transition and not deterministic rules (Singh et al., 2003). GA can be used in
combination with GP and applied to the QFD process to obtain optimal values of ECs
that will maximise customer satisfaction. A limitation of classic GP is the assumption of
linear relationships between CRs and ECs. However, this is not the case in real life and
the existing relationships are often non-linear. Traditional algorithms such as the simplex
method used in GP is unable to deal with non-linear optimisation models, this problem is
addressed by integrating GA in GP. This hybrid approach has proved effective in both
linear and non-linear cases in QFD (Tian and Che, 2007).
Another hybrid approach to more effectively link CRs and ECs for product design
combines AHP and an interpretive structural modelling (ISM) technique. AHP is used
to evaluate CR importance, while ISM tackles the interdependency of CRs to clarify
their structural relationships. The ISM technique helps clarify causal, logical and rule
relationships among elements in a set by employing notions of graph theory (Sage, 1977)
and can be used to construct structures such as influence and priority structures. It is
believed that this approach will help the design team to better identify features that will
increase customer satisfaction (Lin et al., 2006). The ISM technique can also be used
alongside QFD to help manage variety when designing product families. QFD and ISM
are applied successively to first identify the exterior drivers of design variation then
to visualise the hierarchy of component interactions within a product to help designers
create variant design solutions in a product family to cater to different market requests
(Hsiao and Liu, 2005).
TOPSIS is a technique for order preference by similarity to the ideal solution. An
approach which combines this with AHP was proposed to aid designers in identifying
important CRs and ECs and to provide an effective evaluation of the final design
solution. This hybrid approach first applies AHP to determine the relative overall
importance of CRs and ECs before using TOPSIS to perform competitive benchmarking.
A search strategy is then used to set target values for ECs of the recommended design
alternative. It is suggested that this particular approach is able to help designers to
systematically consider the relevant design information involved and more effectively
determine key design objectives and optimal conceptual alternatives (Lin et al. 2008).
To deal with the uncertainty present during product planning while taking into
account financial constraints, a hybrid approach integrating fuzzy set theory and the
method of imprecision (MoI) is proposed. MoI is a more generalised synthesis strategy
that was first presented by Scott and Antonsson (1998) and is used in place of the more
470 J. Xu et al.
common weighted sums approach during the optimisation process due to its greater
flexibility. According to MoI, the overall customer satisfaction of a product can be found
by aggregating the membership functions of the design variables, xj, u(xj), j = 1, … , n,
and their relative weights vj, j = 1, … , n.
This is demonstrated by the following equation:
1
⎛ n ⎞ s
ys = f s ( ( u1 ( x1 ), v1 ) ,… , ( un ( xn ), vn ) ) = ⎜ ∑ v ju j ( x j )
s
⎟ (2)
⎜ ⎟
⎝ j =1 ⎠
∑
n
where ys is the total customer satisfaction, fs is the aggregating function and v =1
j =1 j
and vj ≥ 0, j = 1, … , n.
s establishes the degree of compensation with minimum compensation at s = –∞, full
compensation at s = 0 and super-compensation at s > 0 The value of s can be preset
to control the distribution of the development budget amongst the ECs. This way, the
hybrid approach allows for optimised values with the consideration of compensation
levels among ECs and is an effective support for complex product planning in a fuzzy
environment (Chen and Ngai, 2008). One drawback to this proposed approach is the fact
that selection of the value s is problem-dependent. This means that the design team must
choose the appropriate value to align with company strategies based on their engineering
knowledge and experience or through trial and error.
4 Recent improvements of QFD approaches
There are several well-known touchy issues with the original QFD. These include
potential complexity of large design problems (especially in large HoQs), choice of
conventional crisp weighting scale and representations for membership relationships,
randomness and subjectivity of information in HoQs, and uncertainties in the input data
and variability in the output. In order to improve the efficiency and effectiveness as well
as to enhance the inherent characteristics of QFD, a considerable amount of effort
has been made to improve QFD and existing approaches employed in its process. This
section presents a brief overview on some of the recent work done in this area.
A series of works by Zhai et al. (2007, 2008, 2009) saw the utilisation of rough
set theory in the QFD process as an alternative to the popular fuzzy numbers method.
Fuzzy numbers are used to quantify the vagueness of linguistic terms in order to
allow subjective assessments in the HoQ. One issue that has remained unresolved is the
effective determination of fuzzy number boundary intervals. A novel concept using rough
numbers and rough boundary intervals has been proposed to address this issue and
to manage the imprecise design information and facilitate decision-making in product
design. Classical rough set theory was proposed by Pawlak (1982) as a mathematical tool
to handle imprecise and uncertain data and it can be used to solve inconsistencies in
classification problems such as importance rankings in QFD by using the basic notion of
approximations. By integrating with fuzzy arithmetic operations to create a rough set
enhanced fuzzy approach, the degree of vagueness of design information can be directly
evaluated based on the data given. This improved approach is able to provide more
insight into the perceptions of both customers and designers by respecting the objectivity
of the original data and hence may result in a more reliable QFD analysis.
To produce more feasible design solutions, a series of enhancements have been made
to overcome the encountered user problems and inherent limitations of the QFD process.
A differential assessment (DA) method was developed to enable the inclusion of design
constraints and provide greater insight into the relationship between design decisions
and customer satisfaction so the possibility of obtaining flawed outcomes is reduced
(Leary and Burvill, 2007). Another approach is through using product attribute function
deployment (PAFD) which is based on the principles of decision-based design (DBD).
The DBD method considers a problem in an enterprise view and optimises a single
criterion so difficulty associated with weighting factors and multi-objective optimisation
is no longer an issue. This single-objective optimisation approach also better captures
real design trade-offs and leads to more realistic results. This new approach is able to
overcome some limitations of the original QFD such as irrational importance rankings,
incorrect aggregation of customer preferences, unrealistic settings of target values,
biased towards meeting CRs and ignorance of uncertainty. It does so by extending the
qualitative matrix principles of QFD to identify relationship and interactions while
utilising the quantitative decision-making processes of DBD so the needs from both the
producer and consumers are taken into consideration when assessing design alternatives
(Hoyle and Chen, 2009).
A product must not only meet the most important CRs but also perform better than
its competitors’ in terms of quality, cost and timeliness in order to achieve the greatest
competitive advantage. However, the CNs and competitors’ performance are factors
which change over time and have been oversimplified in the current design process. A
new dynamic benchmarking methodology utilising exponential smoothing-based
forecasting technique alongside competitive benchmarking has been proposed to more
accurately integrate the dynamics and interactions of these two factors into QFD analysis.
Forecasting is first used to model the trend of the importance rating values and
competitive benchmarking information obtained through AHP, a strength-weakness-
opportunity-threat (SWOT) based competitive weighting scheme is then used to find the
necessary weights by analysing the interaction between the two factors. It is expected that
this extended QFD will achieve higher accuracy in CR ranking which in turn increases
the likelihood of success of a product design or upgrade process (Raharjo et al., 2008b).
An alternative CR ranking method which also considers competitors’ information
was introduced by Lai et al. (2008). CRs are rated from three different perspectives –
competition, performance and customer, to produce weights that indicate the most
important CRs to be met for the product to be competitive.
Various other improvements have been made to improve CR ranking in QFD. The
two-tuple linguistic method is a more precise and consistent approach for linguistic
information processing and can be used in place of fuzzy set theory. It is based on the
concept of symbolic translation and represents the linguistic information through use of
two tuples (s, α), where s is a linguistic term and α is a numerical representation of
the symbolic translation. To rank the CRs, aggregation is first applied to determine the
collective linguistic preference values and then exploitation used to prioritise the CRs.
The relative importance of CRs is then found and entropy, a measure for the amount
of information by a discrete probability distribution, is used for competitive analysis
to obtain the final importance of CRs. This combined approach is able to use all the
information from the customers so final ranking is more reasonable and applicable (Li
et al., 2008b).
472 J. Xu et al.
5 Integrated QFD
Nowadays, product planning and design are no longer isolated tasks. Rather, they are a
part of business management and decision-making should be projected from diverse point
of views. A good example of this is the consideration of financial or resource factors
when choosing a design solution; failure to do so would likely result in hard to achieve or
unfeasible solutions. Original QFD lacks the mechanisms that are able to handle such
‘side’ issues and QFD alone cannot cope with a whole suite of problems from different
angles and needs. As such, various quality tools and approaches have been proposed
to be integrated with QFD to improve its effectiveness and applicability in product
design. Resource allocation, Kano’s model, robust design (RD), conjoint analysis (CA)
and an assortment of other tools are reviewed and their integration with QFD discussed in
this section.
5.1 Resource allocation
If realistic conditions such as availability of resources are not taken into consideration in
the design process, results obtained from QFD could potentially be infeasible. Resource
allocation has been introduced in conventional QFD in order to alleviate the identified
shortcoming. Physical resources, financial situation as well as competition strategies can
all be part of the resource allocation consideration when applied in QFD.
A modified QFD using a two-phased cost-design-parameter (CDP) optimisation
method integrates the notions of market value and design strategy to allow the design
team to attain maximum goal achievement with the minimum cost. Goals are set for CRs
in the first phase and a model solved with standard integer programming is used to
achieve them, while respecting cost limits in the second phase. This approach helps
designers to choose the correct expenditure on design functions so product value may be
optimised. It can also incorporate fixed and variable costs. The approach is especially
effective when considering improvements to existent design solutions (Iranmanesh et al.,
2005). Further work on the CDP approach saw the development of a three-stage model
for product design to optimise ECs. This extended approach specifically targets new
product design that is based on existing products (Iranmanesh and Thomson, 2008). The
three stages of the improved model are as follows:
• Stage 1 works on a strategic level and ECs are compared to those of its rivals and
goals are defined according to customer preferences.
• Stage 2 works on the tactical level and the degree of product improvement for each
EC is found through GP.
• Stage 3 works on the operational level by optimising EC values while maintaining

product design functions.
Another QFD approach that considers competition strategies and resource allocation
was proposed by Hsiung and Chang (2006). Optimal resource allocation under limited
resources was found by solving a LP model representing the QFD analysis.
5.2 Kano’s model

Kano’s model is a theory of product development introduced in the 1980s. The objective
is to better understand CRs by classifying them into five main categories. These
are attractive (A), one-dimensional (O), must-be (M), indifferent (I) and reverse (R).
Attractive requirements are those that have the highest influence on customer satisfaction.
These are also known as delighters. Customers may not expect them and not meeting
them will not cause any dissatisfaction, although fulfilling these requirements may
provide more than proportional satisfaction and can also serve to give the product an edge
over competitor products. One-dimensional requirements provide proportional customer
satisfaction in that the higher level of fulfilment, the higher the customer satisfaction and
similarly for dissatisfaction when unfulfilled. Must-be requirements are the basic criteria
of a product and are generally taken for granted by the customer. Achieving these
requirements will not increase satisfaction but inability to do so will result in extreme
dissatisfaction. Indifferent requirements do not contribute much to overall customer
satisfaction as customers are not very interested in whether it is present or not. Reverse
requirements indicate that customers do not desire this product attribute and
expect the opposite. An additional category besides those mentioned is the questionable
requirements (Q) which assume the customer has misunderstood the question when an
illogical response is provided. The model employs a specific questionnaire format to
detect the types of CRs, then proceeds to find the absolute importance of CRs once all
data have been gathered (Matzler and Hinterhuber, 1998; Sireli et al., 2007; Lee et al.,
2008).
Figure 4 Kano’s model of customer satisfaction
Customer +
Satisfaction
Attractive
Requirement One-dimensional
Requirement
Product
- + Performance
Must-be
Requirement
-
474 J. Xu et al.
Kano’s model effectively explains that for some CRs, customer satisfaction is
dramatically increased with only a small improvement in performance, whereas for other
CRs, customer satisfaction is increased by only a small amount even when the product
performance is greatly improved (Tan and Shen, 2000) and serves as a useful tool in
product design to help designers achieve maximum customer satisfaction. Application of
Kano’s model in QFD would strengthen the CR handling and address the inadequacy of
recognising customer expectations. Figure 4 shows Kano’s model of customer
satisfaction which can be integrated in the QFD process to find the optimal design
solution.
A fuzzy non-linear programming model integrating Kano’s model for QFD was
proposed by Chen and Ko (2008) based on the existing fuzzy linear model developed by
Chen and Weng (2003) and simplifies Kano’s model for classifying ECs into three
categories (A, M and O) according to each EC’s importance to customer satisfaction.
Through application, it was found that this new non-linear model is able to achieve a
higher degree of total customer satisfaction than the old linear model. Another integrated
approach combining fuzzy QFD and Kano’s model considers non-linear relationships of
CRs and ECs by using the extension principle (Zadeh, 1978) and α-cut approach. The
resultant information regarding the ranges of satisfaction degree of CRs and ECs can aid
the design team in selecting the optimal design solution (Mu et al., 2007).
Matzler and Hinterhuber (1998) and Sireli et al. (2007) incorporated a widely
accepted scoring method and a statistical significance test to better integrate Kano
results into the QFD process. The resultant of this combined model approach allows the
definition of four different levels of a product simultaneously to enable multiple product
design. This is especially useful and timesaving when considering the development of a
product family to be released to the market simultaneously or designing generations with
feature improvements over time. According to the authors, the proposed approach can
also help simplify more complex design tasks with a high number of CRs and ECs while
designing different levels of a product concurrently.
An integrated approach in QFD combining Kano’s model has also been proposed in a
product life cycle management (PLM) context. Fuzzy set theory was first applied to more
accurately verify the CRs and Kano’s model then applied to simultaneously categorise
the requirements. Attractive, must-be and one-dimensional requirements are listed
with top priority while indifferent and reverse requirements were postponed or removed
after considering development costs and customer satisfaction. It is suggested that the
proposed model is able to improve PLM performance by supporting changes in a
PLM system through providing qualitative precision and fine-tuning and as well as
coordinating CRs, various PLM functions and PLM modules through QFD matrices
(Lee et al., 2008).
5.3 Environmental issues

Environmental issues are being considered more and more important and indispensable
in product planning and design in recent years. However, conventional QFD methods
lack the mechanisms to take potential environmental needs into consideration. Therefore,
several QFD-based approaches have been introduced to incorporate environmental
requirements into product planning and design.
Eco QFD is a fuzzy modelling approach which enables the design team to choose
appropriate target levels for ECs by integrating customer, environmental, costing and
quality requirements. This model seeks the best balance between environmental
acceptability and overall customer satisfaction by introducing the environmental factor
such as reducing, reusing and recycling. Life cycle assessment (LCA), a method to assess
environmental impacts of a product standardised by ISO (Finkbeiner et al., 2006), has
been incorporated into QFD to identify the relevant ECs involved at the various stages of
raw material, manufacturing, distribute, use and recycle. A fuzzy multi-objective model
was then used to prioritise these ECs and various environmental concerns such that the
designers can focus their limited resources on critical issues to develop customer-oriented
and environmentally friendly products (Kuo and Wu, 2005; Kuo et al., 2009). Figure 5
shows an extension of the HoQ to accommodate environmental considerations in the
QFD process.
Figure 5 HoQ considering environmental concerns
The eco-design methodology proposed by Sakao (2007) employs LCA, an extended

quality function deployment for environment (QFDE) and theory of inventive problem
solving (TRIZ) to effectively support environmentally conscious design of products.
QFDE (Masui et al., 2003) is a method developed by incorporating environmental aspects
into QFD and evaluating improvement concepts. It has been further extended in this
approach to accommodate various contradictions to serve as the input for later TRIZ
processes. TRIZ (Altshuller and Altov, 1996) is a technology for generating innovative
solutions for problem solving. It provides methods for problem formulation, system and
failure analysis, and patterns of system evolution. The consecutive tools were connected
by correlating the outputs of the preceding tool and the inputs of the following one. For
example, results obtained from LCA can be used to define necessary requirements and
weightings in QFDE.
Another novel approach which incorporates cost and environmental factors in QFD
does so through the use of data envelopment analysis (DEA). DEA (Charnes et al., 1994;
Ramanathan, 2003) is a method for measuring the productive efficiency of decision-
making units (DMUs) and is used in this case to obtain the relative importance of
ECs when several other factors are considered simultaneously. The ratings of ECs with
respect to CRs and additional factors such as cost, environmental impact and level of
476 J. Xu et al.
difficulty are taken into consideration by DEA when estimating the relative importance.
The resultant efficiency score acts as a measure of an EC’s relative importance whereby a
higher efficiency indicates greater importance. Thus, DEA provides a simple and general
framework to facilitate QFD computations when more factors need to be considered and
allows designers to produce optimal eco-design solutions (Ramanathan and Jiang, 2009).
5.4 RD and QFD

RD method or Taguchi method (Taguchi, 1986, 1987) aims to improve engineering
productivity by consciously considering noise factors such as environmental variations
during product usage and manufacturing variation as well as the cost of failure in the
field. RD facilitates flexible designs and concurrent engineering. It focuses on improving
the fundamental function of the product to help ensure customer satisfaction. Integration
of RD with QFD is an alternative way to deal with uncertainty and can help obtain more
accurate rankings and priority relationships of ECs (Park et al., 2005; Kim et al., 2007;
Kim and Kim, 2009). A combined RD and QFD approach can also be used to handle
multiresponse optimisation problems subjected to conflicting objectives with different
priorities (Kovach and Cho, 2008).
Figure 6 Integration of QFD and RD methodologies
RD can be applied to find the mutual relationship values between CRs and ECs. This can
then be multiplied by the resulting values of weights of the relationship matrix as
obtained through AHP to find the final values of the mutual relationship of each category.
It is suggested that this method enhances consistency in subjective decision-making

compared to the original QFD process (Park et al., 2005). Another approach which uses
RD to help make prioritisation decisions and reduce the effect of uncertainty was
proposed by Kim et al. (2007). Two robustness indices are used to help determine the
absolute ranking of ECs and the priority relationship among ECs. The higher the value of
the robustness index, the lower the effect of uncertainty on the prioritisation decision and
vice versa. Therefore, a GP approach to maximise the value of robustness indices is able
prioritise the ECs in a similar manner as maximising objective functions. This integrated
approach is termed Robust QFD and its framework consists of uncertainty modelling,
variability derivation, EC prioritisation and robustness evaluation and improvement to
enhance the validity of QFD decisions (Kim and Kim, 2009).
To better address multiresponse optimisation problems, aspects of QFD can be
combined with RD methodology to create a novel approach known as quality function
robust design (QFRD) which is able to successfully incorporate design priorities that
reflect both customer and designer preferences when multiple responses were considered.
QFD is used to determine the factors and responses of interest as well as establish the
relative priorities for the individual ECs based on CNs. This information is then
incorporated into the planning and optimisation stages of the RD model using GP,
thereby, creating a unique optimisation strategy for solving multiresponse problems that
will produce solutions which accurately reflect what customers are willing to buy
(Kovach and Cho, 2008). Figure 6 indicates the proposed integration of QFD and RD.
5.5 Conjoint analysis

CA is a market research technique used to determine how people value different features
that make up a product. In other words, it is a method which allows for a quantitative
assessment of the impact of individual product attributes on overall product demand. A
controlled set of potential products is shown to respondents and the levels of individual
attributes making up the product can be determined through analysing respondent
preferences and feedback. CA is more suited to predict the impact of design changes or
alternate product solutions on sales and profitability, whereas QFD works at a greater
level of detail to develop solutions to CNs. These two methods have been identified to be
complementary and can achieve greater results when used simultaneously (Pullman et al.,
2002).
One integrative approach is the incorporation of CA into the standard HoQ
framework of the QFD process to form a Conjoint-HoQ as seen in Figure 7. The major
improvement in this method is the replacement of traditional rating scales (1–5 or 1–3–9)
with α, which represents component values of each CR based on product evaluation from
a customer’s point of view. These component values are also utilised to determine the
relationship weights between CRs and ECs in a more rigorous manner, leading to an
increase in consistency and validity of design-decisions. It is also suggested that the
introduction of the conjoint-HoQ methodology is imperative for a shift to the mass-
customisation paradigm as it allows companies to develop product families capable of
increasing market share while keeping design costs down (Olewnik and Lewis, 2007).
Kazemzadeh et al. (2008) proposed another integrated approach aimed to address the
problems associated with the use of classical HoQ using a five-step methodology. CA is
used to bridge the conceptual gap between customers and designers, balance the different
478 J. Xu et al.
levels of CRs, as well as prioritise these CRs. Another marketing technique known as the
two-stage clustering method is also employed in this approach to cluster customers into
different segments based on the main benefits derived from CA in order to support the
development of a product family. Further development saw the introduction of three
indices, the commonality percentage, the cost reduction and the satisfaction percentage,
to provide a basis for comparison between developing a generic product for all customers
and a customised product for each segment. This integrated approach greatly improves
the applicability of QFD and allows the design team to determine the optimal product
solutions considered from several viewpoints.
Figure 7 Conjoint-HoQ template
To conduct a relevant CA, it is impractical to include a large number of factors and

levels. This highlights the necessity and importance of selecting an appropriate set of
attributes and levels to generate a small number of product profiles to be rated by
prospective customers. This issue is addressed by an integrative approach which uses the
information obtained from the QFD process as inputs to CA to improve the NPD process
and produce products with more market value. CRs are converted to product attributes
and an augmented QFD is developed to obtain the relationships between ECs and product
attributes in terms of percentage improvements in product attributes due to percentage
changes in ECs. Integer programming is then used to determine a set of ECs to be
improved and their percentage improvements while also taking other constraints such as
cost into consideration (Chaudhuri and Bhattacharyya, 2005).
5.6 Other tools
In addition to the approaches discussed above, there are a number of other integrative
QFD methods proposed. Despite the variation in purpose and focus, they all aim to
enhance product design and development from different perspectives. These methods
are failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA), longitudinal-based method, axiomatic
design (AD), design structure matrix (DSM), customer relationship management (CRM),
process management (PM) and use of multiple tools.
5.6.1 Failure mode and effects analysis

FMEA is a structured procedure for identifying, prioritising and acting on potential
failures of a product with the intention of reducing the risks involved in new product
design. Failure modes can be regarded as errors or defects in a design (especially those
that affect the customer) and can be actual or potential. Effects analysis then refers to the
study of the consequences of those identified failures. Integrating FMEA in QFD fills the
blank for risk management and enhances the overall effectiveness and applicability of the
QFD process. To cope with the vague nature of the product development process, fuzzy
approaches are used for both FMEA and QFD. Extending the fuzzy LP QFD model by
Chen and Weng (2003), Chen and Ko (2009) introduced fuzzy FMEA in the approach for
determining the target values of ECs. The outcomes of the FMEA act as constraints in
finding final EC values that will maximise the customer satisfaction.
5.6.2 Longitudinal-based method

Another novel approach considers longitudinal effect to provide timing information in
product planning and design. By incorporating the longitudinal effect in the QFD process,
future trends of CRs can be studied and forecasted in order to be proactive and achieve a
better position in future competition. This is achieved through the extension of the HoQ
to include an additional time dimension when considering CRs. As a consequence, the
proposed model produces not only an optimal set of ECs, but also the timing of their
selection and provides the designers with a greater number of decision choices which
leads to better performance (Min and Kim, 2008).
5.6.3 Axiomatic design

AD is a system design methodology developed in the late 1970s and is composed of
two main axioms. The independence axiom states that the independence of functional
requirements must always be maintained. This axiom defines a minimum set of
independent requirements that characterise the design goals. The information axiom
states that among all the designs that satisfy the independence axiom, the best design is
one with the smallest information content (Suh, 1990, 2001). Integration of AD principles
in the QFD process can improve its suitability for concurrent development of new
products by overcoming such limitations as the inability to capture design object
architecture and by encouraging the use of a set of consistent criteria to assess design
decisions at any point of the design process. It is suggested that the main advantage of
integrating AD ideas in the QFD implementation is the avoidance of in-depth iterations
480 J. Xu et al.
which can significantly reduce the lead time and consequently decrease costs involved
(Goncalves-Coelho et al., 2005).
5.6.4 Design structure matrix
DSM is a popular representation and analysis technique that can be integrated with QFD
to help link the generated CRs and ECs to a realistic design schedule and cost in order to
find a feasible solution. These two techniques combined form a knowledge-based system
for product design planning and can help new product design projects succeed by
providing a comprehensive and accurate planning procedure to satisfy all requirements
by dealing with the scheduling and costing issues which are not explicitly addressed in
QFD (Hung et al., 2008).
Figure 8 Integration of CRM and QFD

5.6.5 Customer relationship management

CRM represents a strategy consisting of the processes a company uses to acquire, retain
and partner with its current and prospective partners to create superior value for the
company and its customers. Its goals include improved services provided to customers
and the use of customer information for targeted marketing. It was found that QFD
and CRM are complementary approaches and once combined, their capabilities can be
enhanced and customer relationship can be improved (Shahin and Nikneshan, 2008). This
integration greatly improves customer participation in product design to better prioritise
the desired product features and leads to an increase in overall customer satisfaction.
Figure 8 shows how the phases of CRM and QFD can be integrated.
5.6.6 Process management

PM techniques can be integrated with QFD to implement sophisticated methods such as
integrated product and process development (IPPD). IPPD aims to reduce product lead
time and cost as well as improve product quality by simultaneously optimising the
product and its manufacturing and sustaining processes to meet cost and performance
requirements. It provides a decision-support mechanism for all product-related processes
and consideration about a product’s design can be deployed in various phases of the
development process. This integrated approach focuses mainly on dealing with and
alleviating the managerial and organisational issues associated with the implementation
of QFD as opposed to improving specific technical issues (Chen, 2009).
5.6.7 Use of multiple tools

A quality-engineering-based approach for conceptual product design was proposed
in order to improve existing conceptual design methods to better consider the feasibility
of generated concepts while taken into account customer preferences in concept
selection. This method integrates the use of QFD, morphological matrix analysis (MMA),
multi-attribute decision-making (MADM) techniques and possibilistic optimisation
models (POMs) to produce results that are more informative and reliable to the
designers. A possibility distribution function (PDF) is also applied to account for cost
uncertainties in the early design stages. This quality engineering approach consists of five
interconnected elements of product definition, technology identification, technology
evaluation, development cost estimation and technology selection. Flexibility in
modelling uncertainty and in exploring different combinations of alternative technologies
for each EC is a key advantage offered by this approach (Fung et al., 2007).
5.7 Integrated QFD frameworks

Various QFD-based frameworks have been crafted with the intention of renewing the
original QFD in a contemporary context and systemising its process. These frameworks
provide alternative systems for product design teams under specific circumstances. This
section provides a brief overview on a number of these new frameworks and the
advantages they provide to designers. These frameworks include maintenance quality
function deployment (MQFD), total quality function deployment (TQFD), enhanced
482 J. Xu et al.
quality function deployment (EQFD), innovative quality function deployment (IQFD)

and innovative total quality function deployment (ITQFD).
5.7.1 Maintenance quality function deployment

MQFD is a framework which integrates total productive maintenance (TPM) and QFD
to improve the quality in the product maintenance area. TPM couples the principles of
maintenance engineering and total quality management (TQM), but has yet to incorporate
the strategy of infusing customer voices in its methodology (Seth and Tripathi, 2005).
QFD, on the other hand, is a specific tool for converting the voice of customers into
technical requirements. Adopting QFD into TPM will be a highly beneficial proposition
for achieving a higher degree of maintenance quality through the synergistic benefits
of both techniques. The general features of the MQFD model are as follows. Firstly,
translation of CRs to ECs occurs through utilising the QFD process. These outputs are
concerned with enhancing maintenance quality and are submitted to the top management
team to be directed for progressing through TPM. The developed TPM characteristics
are fed to the production system and outputs are reflected in the form of improved
maintenance quality, increased profit, upgraded core competence and enhanced goodwill.
These output values are then used for the generation of another HoQ and compared with
the set target. Thus, the implementation of MQFD can be seen as a continuous cyclic
improvement process which enables the tactical combination of QFD and TPM (Pramod
et al., 2006).
5.7.2 Total quality function deployment

The traditional QFD process is only concerned with the languages of external
customers and fails to include the involvement of all personnel and functions in order to
attain continuous quality improvement. TQFD is a novel approach which enables
the facilitation of spontaneous networking of functions and personnel for effective
translation of CRs into ECs. By decomposing the HoQ into a series of matrices for better
and simpler involvement of all the personnel and staff from all departments of the
organisation, TQFD brings out indirect benefits such as employee motivation, creativity
and team spirit while still exercising customer appraisal (Devadasan et al., 2006).
5.7.3 Enhanced quality function deployment

An EQFD was proposed in order to effectively incorporate the NPD cycle and achieve
a more systemic innovation. This approach and its suggested implementation process
allows for the simultaneous execution of the QFD process with the NPD cycle.
The EQFD characterises seven major features between it and the original QFD as
reinforcement and is successfully incorporated with NPD to ensure QA of new products
which is a major step from being just a tool for building charts. Further work saw the
development of a design engineering management system (DEMS) and a shop floor
management system (SFMS) to form a QA function deployment system for QFD to
handle NPD’s relevant QA activities. It is hoped that EQFD will be a step forward in
helping to realise QFD’s full potential (Shiu et al., 2007).
5.7.4 Innovative quality function deployment

Aside from quality, innovation is another key factor required to achieve core
competencies to face the ever increasing global competition. With this in mind, an
approach which integrates innovative management (IM) with QFD was proposed.
The core principles of IM are based on the use of idea generation tools and techniques
such as brainstorming, brain-writing, slip/card writing and nominal group technique
(NGT) (Smith and Ainsworth, 1993; Brahm and Kleiner, 1996). IQFD integrates IM
principles with the original QFD process by extending the conventional HoQ matrix to
include one more submatrix known as the innovation matrix. This appended version of
the HoQ has been named the house of innovative quality (HIQ). Figure 9 displays the
framework of the new HIQ.
Figure 9 HIQ framework
The additional innovation submatrix of the HIQ consists of creative ideas of the members
of the design team derived by employing IM techniques. While carrying out this task,
designers refer to the CR and EC sections to ensure the innovative solutions obtained
align with the information contained in those submatrices. Thus, IQFD facilitates the
484 J. Xu et al.
evolution of innovations by making use of the original data of the HoQ. Implementation
of IQFD is not a difficult process as it does not differ greatly from the standard QFD
process (Sankaran et al., 2008).
5.7.5 Innovative total quality function deployment

Another important factor to consider in QFD is the ability to react quickly to customers’
individual requirements. The agile ITQFD is an approach which integrates agility,
innovation and quality in products. It does so by absorbing the customer voice and
facilitating the development of the QFD matrices with the involvement of all the
concerned departments and functions of the organisations. The output of this method is in
the form of work instructions that reflect the knowledge obtained in the matrices. ITQFD
was developed on the basis of the TQFD and IQFD as shown in Figure 10 and provides
the synergistic benefits of both approaches to achieve core competencies of innovation,
quality and customer satisfaction (Vinodh et al., 2008).
Figure 10 Development stages of the agile ITQFD
6 Discussion and concluding remarks
This paper has provided a balanced and comprehensive review of QFD and the many
methodologies and approaches to implementing the QFD process. Improvements that
have been made to the QFD process in recent years have also been outlined and various
integrative QFD approaches introduced. Overall, QFD has been proven to be a valuable
tool and can bring a multitude of benefits when used appropriately. It maximises
customer satisfaction by focussing on what the customers want instead of what the
company thinks the customers want. This is done through listening to the ‘VOC’ directly.
It also allows for competitive analysis so that the company is able to understand how its
products rate against those of the competitors. By identifying the key CRs to satisfy, the
QFD process reduces the product development time and also decreases the likelihood of
design changes later in the product life cycle which leads to lower overall development
costs. Additional benefits include the promotion of better teamwork and documentation
of the decision-making process as QFD offers improved communication between team
members. This final section provides a summary of the reviewed contents and also gives
an indication of the growing trends in QFD research and identifies potential directions for
future work. To implement the QFD process successfully, there are several prerequisites.
There must be a design team with sufficient knowledge to use QFD techniques.
Otherwise, additional employee training may be needed. Full and continued support of
management is also necessary if a QFD programme is introduced. Admittedly, additional
resources are often required for QFD implementation. This, however, can be outweighed
by the positive impacts provided by QFD on product development outcomes and
customer satisfaction. Benefits in time and costs will also increase as design teams
receive better training and gain more experience.
Some of the common methods used in QFD are fuzzy set theory, multicriteria
decision analysis model and ANN. These are typically used with the intention of finding
the absolute importance, and prioritising the key CRs and the associated ECs in a HoQ.
By assuring and improving the accuracy of such rankings, the results obtained from
the QFD process can be used to ensure the product designed will maximise customer
satisfaction. Other methods, as well as hybrid methods have also been attempted to
broaden the horizon of QFD development or as improvements to mainstream methods.
Fuzzy set theory is primarily applied to handle subjective and linguistic data that
are often incomplete or uncertain. That is, it can help the design team come to the
optimal result under approximate reasoning. Due to the inherent uncertainties of the
decision-making process, fuzzy QFD has become vastly popular and considered in many
situations. ER is a method that has been suggested as an improvement to fuzzy logic due
to its ability to deal with extreme uncertainties such as incomplete or even missing
information through the use of belief structures. A further method which embeds
the maximum set-minimum set-based ranking method into a fuzzy weighted average
approach constructs a pair of non-linear programmes to be solved for the prioritisation of
ECs. This approach offers a more effective fuzzy number ranking method for more
accurate results. Hybrid approaches that utilise fuzzy set theory include fuzzy regression
and fuzzy MoI. Fuzzy regression is able to better determine the functional relationships
between CRs and ECs through the use of non-linear programming, while fuzzy MoI
allows the determination of the optimal solution while considering compensation levels
amongst ECs. The latter approach is particularly useful for complex product planning.
However, the fact the level of compensation must be selected based on experience or
through trial and error makes it unsuitable in time pressed situations.
Application of the multicriteria decision analysis model allows the design team
to make trade-offs amongst various conflicting characteristics to obtain a compromised
optimal solution. Multicriteria decision analysis techniques include AHP, ANP as well
as LP and GP. Both AHP and ANP are easy to use but require an arbitrary choice of
scales; difficulties may arise when there are a large number of pairwise comparisons to
be made. Thus, the suitability of utilising these techniques is hampered when it comes to
problems with many CRs and ECs to consider. Similarly, LP and GP techniques face
the difficulty in realistically representing real world situations and hence are not suitable
to be applied alone in the QFD process. This issue is clearly reflected in the case of
LP where all relationship functions are modelled linearly. Alternatively, dynamic
programming is able to find the optimal combination of EC values without requiring the
full relationship information between the involved factors so the amount of time and
resources needed for analysis is reduced. LPP takes into account competition analysis and
seeks to meet a certain satisfaction level for each CR instead of purely ranking them. This
new approach also assigns different priority to the CRs at different stages of the process
486 J. Xu et al.
making it more flexible and applicable in real life. Hybrid approaches that utilise
multicriteria decision analysis techniques, e.g., GA with GP, can effectively handle both
linear and non-linear cases. The use of ISM with AHP can more effectively link CRs with
ECs, while the use of TOPSIS with AHP can help designers to better evaluate the final
design solution.
ANNs are capable of modelling complex relationships between inputs and outputs as
well as identifying patterns in the data. It is a useful technique to use with QFD due to its
ability to handle vast amount of input data if required. However, the need to have
extensive training data to produce accurate outputs makes it unsuitable for use in some
situations.
Considerable effort has been made to overcome some of the issues associated with
the original QFD in order to improve its efficiency and effectiveness. Rough set theory
was utilised alongside the standard fuzzy set theory to provide more reliable analysis by
respecting the objectivity of the original data. A more precise and consistent two-tuple
linguistic method has also been proposed in place of fuzzy set theory to produce
final rankings that are more reasonable and applicable. Other means of improving the
importance rankings of CRs and ECs include the use of DA to enable the inclusion
of design constraints, DBD to better capture real design trade-offs and dynamic
benchmarking with forecasting to obtain outcomes that are more feasible and accurate
which will in turn increase competitiveness and the likelihood of success of product
design.
Nowadays, the design process plays an important part in overall business
management and decision-making must take into account a range of factors such as
limited resource allocation, the need for greater understanding of CRs and competition
strategies, incorporation of market research and consideration of environmental issues. In
order to meet this increasing demand to assess decision-making from different points of
views, it is necessary to integrate QFD with a variety of other available tools.
In regards to consideration of limited resources, QFD can be used with CDP
optimisation method that incorporates the notions of market value and design strategy
to enable the design team to obtain the optimum solution to the problem with the
minimum cost. DSM is another tool that can be integrated with QFD to provide a
planning procedure for new product design projects that will satisfy all requirements
while dealing with scheduling and costing issues.
For the optimisation of customer satisfaction, integration of QFD with Kano’s model
presents the advantage of recognising the optimal combination of key features of a
product design through categorising all CRs into groups that have different degrees of
influence on the final solution. The CA marketing technique determines how people
value different features of a product and can also be used to achieve this objective and
can even pave the way for a shift to the mass-customisation paradigm by producing
product families capable of increasing market share. CRM greatly improves customer
participation in the design process and will also lead to an increase in overall customer
satisfaction.
The need to produce more environmentally friendly products saw the integration of
LCA with QFD in order to identify the relevant EC involved in the various stages of the
product life. This allowed the design team to prioritise these characteristics appropriately
in such a way that the available resources are allocated in an optimal solution that is both
customer-oriented as well as eco-friendly.
Various other tools have been used together with the QFD process for a number
of reasons. RD takes into account noise factors such as environmental variations during
product usage to encourage flexible designs and concurrent engineering. It is an
alternative way of dealing with the uncertainties present and can improve the accuracy of
QFD analysis. The application of multiple tools such as MMA, MADM and POM
can also achieve this by allowing flexibility in modelling uncertainty and in exploring
different combinations of alternative technologies for ECs under consideration.
FMEA is used with QFD in order to handle risk management by identifying,
prioritising and acting on potential failures of a product. Longitudinal-based QFD is one
which has an added time dimension and future trends of CRs are forecasted to achieve
a better position in future competition. AD principles encourage the use of a set of
consistent criteria to assess design decisions in the QFD process and can improve its
suitability for concurrent development of new products. PM can also be integrated
with QFD, although this approach focuses mainly on dealing with the managerial and
organisational issues.
A handful of QFD-based frameworks have been produced with the intention of
renewing the original QFD in a contemporary context. These include:
a the MQFD which integrates TPM and QFD
b the TQFD which enables better involvement of all personnel and staff in the
organisation
c the EQFD which incorporates NPD with QFD
d the IQFD which facilitates the evolution of innovations
e the ITQFD which combines the IQFD and TQFD while offering the synergistic
benefits of both.
All of these QFD frameworks provide alternative systems for product design under
different circumstances.
As QFD gains more and more attention, the related technologies also get refined,
improved and optimised. There is an increasing need to consider more and more factors
in the process of implementing QFD. As NPD practices become more deeply rooted
in the entire business spectrum of a company, QFD will continue its presence in an
integrated fashion in relation to the company as a whole. This means that hybrid
techniques and integrations with QFD will continue to grow and future research in this
direction holds great potential. The importance of synergistic benefits that QFD may
bring about is widely recognised. There is a growing need to consider the actions of
competitors and forecast market conditions. Thorough and accurate understanding of
CNs is still an issue that will continue to attract researchers’ attention. It is also
abundantly clear that QFD has been used in many other areas other than customer
products development such as in the service industry, in educational curriculum
development, in transportation management and in situation analysis (Desai and
Thomassian, 2008, 2009; Das and Mukherjee, 2007, 2008; Raggi and Petti, 2006; Utne,
2009; Gentili et al., 2009). This trend will continue and so will the impacts of QFD in all
aspects of the product development process.
488 J. Xu et al.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to acknowledge the support of the International Investment
Opportunities Fund from the Foundation for Research, Science and Technology of
New Zealand under contract UOAX0723. The authors would also like to thank
Horace Gao for his contribution to the paper.
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Int. J. Productivity and Quality Management, Vol. 6, No.

A comprehensive review on recent developments in

Jenny Xu, Xun Xu* and Shane Q. Xie

Keywords: quality function deployment; QFD; review; product development;

Copyright © 2010 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

Fellow of ASME and a member of IPENZ. In addition to his teaching and

Quality function deployment (QFD) is an effective tool for product development

Figure 1 House of quality

2 Existing reviews of QFD

3.1 Fuzzy set theory

Figure 2 Fuzzy expert-based approach for QFD

3.2 Multicriteria decision analysis model

3.2.1 Analytic hierarchy process and analytic network process

Aspect AHP ANP

Figure 3 Network representation of the fuzzy AHP QFD model

3.2.2 Linear programming (LP) and goal programming (GP)

3.3 Artificial neural network

3.4 Other approaches

3.5 Hybrid approaches

4 Recent improvements of QFD approaches

5.1 Resource allocation

• Stage 3 works on the operational level by optimising EC values while maintaining

5.2 Kano’s model

Figure 4 Kano’s model of customer satisfaction

5.3 Environmental issues

Figure 5 HoQ considering environmental concerns

The eco-design methodology proposed by Sakao (2007) employs LCA, an extended

5.4 RD and QFD

Figure 6 Integration of QFD and RD methodologies

It is suggested that this method enhances consistency in subjective decision-making

5.5 Conjoint analysis

Figure 7 Conjoint-HoQ template

To conduct a relevant CA, it is impractical to include a large number of factors and

5.6 Other tools

5.6.1 Failure mode and effects analysis

5.6.2 Longitudinal-based method

5.6.3 Axiomatic design

5.6.4 Design structure matrix

Figure 8 Integration of CRM and QFD

5.6.5 Customer relationship management

5.6.6 Process management

5.6.7 Use of multiple tools

5.7 Integrated QFD frameworks

quality function deployment (EQFD), innovative quality function deployment (IQFD)

5.7.1 Maintenance quality function deployment

5.7.2 Total quality function deployment

5.7.3 Enhanced quality function deployment

5.7.4 Innovative quality function deployment

Figure 9 HIQ framework

5.7.5 Innovative total quality function deployment

Figure 10 Development stages of the agile ITQFD

6 Discussion and concluding remarks

Sakao, T. (2007) ‘A QFD-centred design methodology for environmentally conscious product

Xu, X. (2009) Integrating Advanced Computer-Aided Design, Manufacturing, and Numerical

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