J Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci. Eng.

(2013) 35:131–142
DOI 10.1007/s40430-013-0010-5

TECHNICAL PAPER

Applying QFD to business development environment

Marcelo Farhat de Araujo • Luı́s Gonzaga Trabasso

Received: 10 April 2010 / Accepted: 29 March 2012 / Published online: 28 March 2013
 The Brazilian Society of Mechanical Sciences and Engineering 2013

Abstract This research aims at proposing adaptations in Keywords Business development  QFD  Strategy 
the quality function deployment (QFD) methodology; National quality award  Scope completeness
analyzing its use to assist business development projects
(BDP); and evaluating the results of a case study. In order Abbreviations
to support the analysis of the use of QFD in the business AW Action plan absolute importance
development environment, a bibliographic review was BDP Business development project
performed and a case study of a BDP was set-up and BNQP Baldrige national quality program
executed in a small enterprise in Brazil. Finds indicate that EFQM The European foundation for quality
QFD is a valuable tool to assist BDP; the case study results management
point up the benefits gathered by organization when the HOQ House of quality
proposed procedure was applied; the adaptations suggested MOE Measure of effectiveness
in the QFD matrices make possible the usage of the PMBOK Project management body of knowledge
intrinsic QFD deployment process in the business envi- PNQ Brazilian national quality award
ronment and produced a procedure to assess the com- PVPNQ Point value
pleteness of the BDP scope, in which the focus of the QFD QFD Quality function deployment
deployment process is moved from the deployed charac- Rij Relationship between requirement and action
teristics to the evaluation criteria of these characteristics. plan
Because only one case was studied, it was not analyzed the RW Action plan relative importance
implications of the proposed planning procedure in dif- TRIZ Theory of inventive problem solving
ferent types of organizations and projects. Similar studies V&V Verification and validation
should be conducted to reveal the effect of these
Subscripts
differences.
i Requirement index
j Action plan index
n Number of action plans
p Number of requirements
Technical Editor: Fernando Forcellini.

M. F. de Araujo (&) 1 Introduction

Aeronautics Institute of Technology (ITA), São José dos
Campos, SP 12216-680, Brazil
e-mail: m.f.araujo@terra.com.br Innovation, continuous improvement and customer satis-
faction are critical factors to survive in the competitive
L. G. Trabasso business scenario. The economics of industrial innovation
Mechanical Engineering Division, Aeronautics Institute of
states that value is produced by the creative effort of
Technology (ITA), São José dos Campos, SP 12228-900, Brazil
e-mail: gozaga@ita.br market players fulfilling client needs, not by the inherent

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balance between offer and demand [11, 27]; so companies
are compelled to continually transform their organization,
products and services to satisfy the latest market
opportunities.
However, this business development process, as
defined by Dunphy and Stace [7], is not a straight line to
a rewarding future; frequently, it would lead companies
to face arduous obstacles and severe crisis. Constant
cycles of crisis and amendments allied with the intrinsic
uncertainty convert the conduction of this process into a
tough task, mostly when the process is guided essentially
by the reaction against the changes on the market sce-
narios, driving the company toward an undetermined
direction.
As an answer to this inherent loss of focus, authors e.g.,
Porter [24], Lobato [20] and Shapiro [28], endorse the
adoption of the competitive strategic management process,
with a systematic approach of continuous improvement.
Even though the competitive strategic management is
identified as a worthy process, the costs experienced during
its implementation and execution, are significant and may
not be supported by start-up companies.
These circumstances present to those companies a
dilemma stated as follows: should the company resources
be applied to maintain the operational and prospecting
tasks that support the current status or to the long-term
plans that would promote the required business improve-
ments and lead it to a stronger market position?
The objective of this paper is to present an alternative
method to deal with this dilemma. The proposed method
uses the quality function deployment (QFD) to deploy the
enterprise stakeholders’ needs into a set of prioritized
action plans. This procedure aims to determine the tasks
which are most related to the stakeholders’ goals to invest
the company’s resources.
A small educational enterprise in Brazil set-up its
business development project to achieve this objective.
Araujo and Trabasso [3] describe the initial planning phase
of this project where the QFD was used to assist the
deployment of the project requirements into a determined
set of action plans, which were further deployed into the
organizational business processes.
The analysis done by the authors has endorsed the
hypothesis that the QFD methodology can assist the
deployment of company strategic objectives and eases
the planning stage of a business development project
(BDP). The quality of the BDP, measured by its com-
pleteness, for instance was not within the scope of that
analysis. This paper addresses this very aspect of the use of
QFD in BDP and proposes slightly changes on QFD
methodology to assess the completeness of business
development projects.
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J Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci. Eng. (2013) 35:131–142
2 The enterprise BDP
Resources scarcity does not occur only with start-up
companies; however the consequences of the inadequate
resource application tend to be more severe for this type of
enterprises, in which a fault could lead to the risk of
exhausting all their savings [18]. It is not unusual if a
potential crisis is identified, a company structural
improvement should be implemented to overcome it;
consequently, the resources wear out dilemma would
emerge simultaneously.
This deadlock shows up when the company has to
choose if its resources should be invested on the pros-
pecting and production tasks, that support the present
operation or on the plans that would be able to guarantee
strong market positions in the future. Apparently, a dead-
lock is seen as a no-escape-trap, although many inventions
have arisen from contradictions identified as unfeasible for
many years. Altshuller [2] in his theory of inventive
problem solving (TRIZ) presents many examples of crea-
tive and simple solutions that transpose the initial system
contradiction with a lot of benefits.
TRIZ application on management processes has been
studied by several authors [8, 14, 25, 34]; who have pre-
sented practical examples and proposed methods to deal
with systems based essentially on information. In all cases,
an analogy shall be proposed to associate the actual system
properties with the physical properties shown on the TRIZ
contradiction matrix.
The dilemma presented herein has been identified as to
perform as many tasks as possible (operational and
improvement tasks) against the company available
resources. The TRIZ analogy found was capacity or pro-
ductivity against loss of system energy.
Analyzing the contradiction matrix [2] the following
inventive principles have been identified (naturally, one
can see they are related to tangible product design):
• Replace mechanical system.
• Transformation properties.
• Prior action.
• Pneumatic, hydraulic construction.
The first inventive principle, replace mechanical system,
would induct solutions that increase the automation level of
tasks, even in the production process or on management
activities and consequently improving the efficiency.
However, the investments required could exceed the
company assets.
The transformation properties principle would lead to a
promising system rearrangement, where a pool of organi-
zations sharing resources could elucidate the problem.
However, this solution is very complex; due to a significant
J Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci. Eng. (2013) 35:131–142 133

number of compatible companies facing the same kind of
troubles should be identified.
The prior action principle was recognized as the utili-
zation of previous efforts made by other organizations
toward their management excellence. A wide range of
business reference models are available at low cost. These
models encompass good practices adopted by successful
companies and structured requirements that could lead the
company through its improvement changes. The adoption
of a reference model could save worthy resources [15] due
to:
• As a direction is clearly determined lot of on the run
discussions are eliminated;
• The model should be used as a road map, saving time of
planning;
• Success cases are available for further analysis.
As soon as the general idea of adoption of a reference
model is a consensus in the organization, the next decision
would be on the choice among the several available.
A literature review shows many different reference models,
with diverse format, intended goal and complexity. The
observed variety allied with the individual company’s
characteristics; make difficult the evaluation of the model
that best fits the enterprise needs. From the set of reference
models available, those listed were selected and analyzed
(see Table 1):
• Standardized quality assurance systems, e.g.,
ISO9001:2000 [16], AS9100 [30] and ISO/TS 16949
[17].
• Specific business process models, e.g., PACE Product
and cycle-time excellence model [22], SCOR Supply
chain excellence [4], CMMI—capability maturity
model integration [31].
• National quality award requirements, e.g., Baldrige
National Quality Program (BNQP) [23], EFQM Excel-
lence Award [32], Brazilian National Quality Award
(PNQ) [12].
Although all the reference models presented could bring
benefits to their users, a careful analysis of the differences
shown in Table 1 can help the choice of the best one that
would suite the company needs and reveal characteristics
that facilitate or make difficult their implementation.
Resuming the analysis of the initial dilemma detailed
herein, the reference model chosen by the company was the
PNQ requirement due to:
• The requirements are clearly defined and determined
based on best practices observed on successful
organizations.
• A quest for excellence would be promoted since the
early evolution phases aiming to follow the statement:
do right at the first time.
• All business processes would be involved during the
quest for excellence.
• There is a lot of reference material available e.g.,
manuals, cases for study and training courses at low
cost.
• Requirements are annually reviewed and updated.
• The implementation plan could be tailored to fit the
organization actual needs, according to its development
stage and budget.
The reference model choice is only the first step of the
BDP. A great amount of labor hours should be invested in
planning, executing and controlling the changes that have
to be performed, so the efficiency and accuracy of the
subsequent tasks are very important to guarantee the min-
imal resources waste. For this reason, the use of methods

Table 1 Main features of the analyzed reference models

Reference model Requirements Purpose Documentation and training Amplitude Revision Prior
of effect frequency action
affinity

Standardized quality Clearly Fulfill customers and Standards, training courses Value creating On a Low
assurance systems defined regulatory and consulting processes regular
requirements supports basis
Specific business Clearly Achieve excellence in Books, manuals, training A specific process Frequently High
process models defined the specific process courses and consulting and its interfaces
National quality awards Clearly Achieve excellence in Manuals, cases for study, All company (see Annually High
defined business management training courses and note 1)
consulting
Competitive strategic Defined on Best performance when Books, consulting All company Not None
management (see note the run facing threats assessed
2)
Note 1: national quality awards could be a single item of the strategic planning of huge companies
Note 2: although the competitive strategic management is not available as a reference model format, it was analyzed and presented in Table 1 to
compare this more complex system to the others

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that assists the project planning phase such as the Project
Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK) [26] and the
critical chain [13], among others, are recommended.
Without any contradiction with these methods, the
authors suggest a procedure to assist the early planning and
project definition phases of the company’s quest of excel-
lence using the QFD [1]. In doing so, the main advantage
obtained is to group all the company efforts in a unique
map that shows how the requirements are accomplished
and gives an overall view of the established action plans.
3 Applying QFD to business development environment
QFD is a native tool within the product development
environment whose purpose is to drive the design and
manufacturing tasks to meet the customer’s needs and
requirements. Clearly, some adjustments should be imple-
mented to bring QFD to the business development envi-
ronment. Essentially, the alterations were performed in the
QFD matrices inputs and outputs, as shown in Table 2, and
on the requirements importance weights that were replaced
by the quality award requirement point values i.e., the PNQ
[12] requirement point values (see Fig. 1).
Another advantage gathered from the choice of a
national quality award as the reference model to be pursuit
is observed by the fact that the expected result from the first
QFD matrix has already been achieved when the quality
award requirement was determined.
The analysis of the process that creates the BNPQ cri-
teria, basis for the PNQ criteria, revealed that surveys were
carried out in high-performance companies with the pur-
pose of determining the characteristics that make them
successful, to reveal the concepts that represent the
expectations of all organizations’ stakeholders i.e., the
inputs of the first QFD matrix (see Table 2). The BNPQ
criteria and weights were built upon these concepts i.e., the
output of the first QFD matrix.
So, the company’s BDP could initiate from the second
QFD matrix where the quality award criteria are deployed
into action plans that represent the company’s actual
Table 2 QFD matrices comparison between product and business development
QFD matrix Product development
Input Output
1 Customers’ needs System requirements
2 System requirements Parts characteristics
3 Parts characteristics Production processes
4 Production processes Manufacturing operations
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J Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci. Eng. (2013) 35:131–142
planed effort to accomplish the established requirements.
Figure 1 depicts the second QFD matrix where the PNQ
criteria are deployed into a set of action plans.
The PNQ weighting values and relationship score
between requirements and action plans are used to deter-
mine the relative importance among the action plans (see
Eqs. 1 and 2). This result drives the company to focus the
efforts to the activities that have the higher value scores.
Consequently, a prioritized list of action plans is created.
X
p
 
AWj ¼ PVi  Rij ð1Þ
i¼1
where AW = action plan absolute importance, PV = PNQ
point value, Rij = relationship value between the
requirement and the action plan, p = number of
requirements, i = requirement index, j = action plan
index.
AWj  100%
RWj ¼ Pn ð2Þ
j¼1 AWj
where AW = action plan absolute importance, RW = ac-
tion plan relative importance, n = number of action plans,
and j = action plan index.
Recursively, in the 3rd QFD matrix the most important
action plans could be deployed into the company’s busi-
ness processes and these processes into its critical tasks,
yielding the 4th QFD matrix, to display how the company’s
operation would support the BDP. However, the deploy-
ment level should be individually analyzed for each project
and could vary according the company complexity. Process
importance factors could be assessed on the 3rd QFD
matrix, with few adjustments on Eqs. 1 and 2. The setting
up of threshold level used to filter items from one QFD
matrix to another is out of the scope of this paper; however,
many examples can be found in Loureiro [21].
The correlation among the action plans offers new
opportunities to explore system contradictions i.e., each
action plan pair that presents a negative correlation e.g.,
action plans 1 and 2 (see Fig. 1), can be analyzed with the
help of the TRIZ.
Business development
Input Output
Stakeholders’ needs Model requirements
Model requirements Action plans
Action plans Business processes
Business processes Critical tasks
J Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci. Eng. (2013) 35:131–142 135

Correlation between action plans

Action Plan 12
Action Plan 11
Action Plan 10
Action Plan 9
Action Plan 8
Action Plan 7 + --
Action Plan 6 +
Action Plan 5
Action Plan 4 --
Action Plan 3 --
Action Plan 2 + --
Action Plan 1 -- -- +
Action Plans
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Legend:

PNQ Point Value

Relative weight
Relationship Intensity

Action Plan 10

Action Plan 11

Action Plan 12
- Strong (Value = 9)

Action Plan 1

Action Plan 2

Action Plan 3

Action Plan 4

Action Plan 5

Action Plan 6

Action Plan 7

Action Plan 8

Action Plan 9
- Average (Value = 3)
- Weak (Value = 1)

Senior Leadership 40 4%
Leadership Continuous Improvement Culture 40 4%
Organization Performance Review 30 3%
Strategy Development 30 3%
Strategic Planning
Strategy Deployment 30 3%
Customer and Market Knowledge 30 3%
Customer
Customer relationship and satisfaction 30 3%
Social Social responsibility 30 3%
PNQ Requirements

Responsibility Ethics and governance 30 3%

Measure and Information Knowledge Management 20 2%
Knowledge Benchmarking information Management 20 2%
Management Intangible assets management 20 2%
Work Systems 30 3%
Human Resources Employee Learning and Motivation 30 3%
Employee Well-Being and Satisfaction 30 3%
Value Creation and Support Processes 50 5%
Process
Management
Vendor Processes 30 3%
Economic and Financial Processes 30 3%
Customer-Focused Outcomes 100 10%
Economic and Financial Outcomes 100 10%
Human Resource Outcomes 60 6%
Results
Vendor Outcomes 30 3%
Social Responsibility Outcomes 60 6%
Processes Outcomes 100 10%
1000 100%
Action Plan Absolute Importance 2480 2010 1680 1320 930 810 580 480 370 350 290 190
Action Plan Relative Importance 22%
1% 17%
1% 15%
1% 11%
1% 8%
1% 7%
1% 5%
1% 4%
1% 3%
1% 3%
1% 3%
1% 2%
1%
2%
3% 2%
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3%
4%
5% 4%
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7%
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9% 8% 8% 8% 8% 8% 8% 8%
10%
11% 10%
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11%
12%
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17%
18%
19% 18%
19%
20%
21% 20%
21%
22%
23% 22%
23%

Fig. 1 PNQ requirement deployment: 2nd QFD matrix

4 Case study In the first 2 years many actions were started, which,
however, lacked focus and control. For this reason, the
The case study here presented has been running since 2005 method proposed herein was seen as a valuable tool to help
with the purpose of validating the procedure previously the planning phase. From then up to 2007, the following
detailed. The case study organization is a kindergarten to activities were conducted:
elementary education school, based on São José dos
• Identification of initiatives related to the quest for
Campos, Brazil, operating since 1983, currently with 85
excellence process.
employees and about 500 students. However, its quest for
• Definition of the set of action plans to encompass all the
excellence was initiated 2 years before, when the PNQ was
initiated tasks.
selected as a guideline for its business development.

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136 J Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci. Eng. (2013) 35:131–142

Action Plans
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12
Legend:

Enterprise Resources Planning

Human Resources Excellence

Relationship Intensity

Making the Student a Citizen

Students with Special Needs

Balanced Scorecard (BSC)

- Strong (Value = 9)

External Communication
General Administration
Pedagogic Excellence

Customer Satisfaction
- Average (Value = 3)

Social Responsibility
- Weak (Value = 1)

PNQ Point Value

ISO9001:2000

Child care
Senior Leadership 40
Leadership Continuous Improvement Culture 40
Organization Performance Review 30
Strategy Development 30
Strategic Planning
Strategy Deployment 30
Customer and Market Knowledge 30
Customer
Customer relationship and satisfaction 30
Social Social responsibility 30
PNQ Requirements

Responsibility Ethics and governance 30

Measure and Information Knowledge Management 20
Knowledge Benchmarking information Management 20
Management Intangible assets management 20
Work Systems 30
Human Resources Employee Learning and Motivation 30
Employee Well-Being and Satisfaction 30
Value Creation and Support Processes 50
Process
Management
Vendor Processes 30
Economic and Financial Processes 30
Customer-Focused Outcomes 100
Economic and Financial Outcomes 100
Human Resource Outcomes 60
Results
Vendor Outcomes 30
Social Responsibility Outcomes 60
Processes Outcomes 100
1000
Action Plan Absolute Importance 3500 2550 2370 2100 2040 1560 1510 1500 1450 1360 1250 1240
Action Plan Relative Importance 16%
1% 11%
1% 11%
1% 9%
1% 9%
1% 7%
1% 7%
1% 7%
1% 6%
1% 6%
1% 6%
1% 6%
1%
2%
3% 2%
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11%
12%
13% 12%
13% 12%
13% 12%
13% 12%
13%
14%
15%
16%

Fig. 2 Initial QFD planning matrix

• Deployment of the quality award requirements into
action plans.
• Deployment of the action plans into the company’s
business processes.
The first step was consisted of an extensively internal
survey to find out the actions, programs and efforts per-
formed by the organization that could contribute to any
PNQ requirement. Amazingly, it has been found 72 dif-
ferent efforts with several levels of control, implementation
progress and complexity. This mess of purposes and goals
had so far toughened the control and the understanding of
the entire project scope. Although, all of these actions have
been identified, many of them had similar purposes and
were guided by the same person. Then, they were grouped
into a set of 39 actions, even though the new clusters were
not able to solve completely the problem initially identified
and a second approach was carried out and a set of action
plans was determined with the aid of a criterion stated by
Verzuh [33]. According to that, for every action plan
should be defined:
• Clear goals and outputs that lead to a controlled scope;
• One and only one coordinator;
• A deadline and a list of measures of effectiveness
correlated with the outputs;
• An allocated team.
After applying this approach, a set of 12 action plans
was proposed and its relationships with the PNQ require-
ments were determined (see Fig. 2). The QFD arrangement
for these relationships, associated with the weighs of the
requirements led to the assessment of the relative impor-
tance among the action plans, what, by its turn, was used to

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J Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci. Eng. (2013) 35:131–142 137

define priorities and assure that the resources are spent in 5.3 Absence of formal criteria to identify the intensity
the most important actions. of the relation between requirements
The QFD matrix shown in Fig. 2 depicts how the and engineering characteristics
selected action plans support the PNQ requirements. The
most important action plans can be identified accordingly Some authors e.g., Cohen [6], Kim [19], and Franceschini
to the action plan relative importance and these plans can and Rupil [10] proposed directives to analyze the intensity of
be recursively deployed toward the company structure the relations between the requirements and the engineering
addressing the internal business processes and their critical characteristics; however, these procedures are not able to
tasks that would support the project execution. clearly assess the sufficiency of the engineering character-
Although the QFD matrix shows the relationship istics to fully support the requirement accomplishment.
between all PNQ requirements and the action plans, the
recognition of the full coverage of the requirements is not
5.4 Relations do not address how the requirement is
easily assessed. For instance, observing Fig. 2, it is possi-
accomplished
ble to detect that the requirement ‘‘Vendor Outcome’’ is
weakly associated to the set of action plans, due to only
Even though the relations inferred in the QFD matrices can
three weak relations were found; on the other hand, it was
be associated to a measure of effectiveness (MOE), as
identified at least three strong relations for the requirement
recommended by Cohen [6], they are not specific or do not
‘‘Value Creation and Support Processes’’; however, there is
refer how the requirement will be achieved or verified.
no guarantee that these relations are not explaining the
Chen and Chen [5] corroborate this statement: ‘‘Wasser-
same portion of the requirement.
man formulated the QFD planning process as a linear
From the organization point of view, the completeness
programming model that select the mix of design features
of the business development project i.e., a plan that
which resulted in the highest level of customer satisfaction.
addresses every portion of the PNQ requirement, is a
The model focused on prioritizing the allocation of
worthy outcome to evaluate the actual effort required to
complete the BDP.
Table 3 Relevant action plans for the requirement: ‘‘Information
Knowledge Management’’
5 Assessing the completeness of the BDP scope Performance area (PNQ assessment criteria) Relevant action plan

A literature review revealed that many authors have studied Adequacy Not related
how the QFD methodology and the design team aspects Proactively General
administration
can affect the results of the QFD matrices. The main finds
Refinement Balanced scorecard
were classified and presented herein.
Innovation Not related
5.1 Relations are arbitrary and subjectively determined Dissemination Balanced scorecard
Continuity General
administration
Kim [19] reports that ‘‘The limitations of the current QFD
Integration Not related
practices mainly come from the fact that a HOQ (House of
Quality) requires subjective, interrelated and complicated
information’’, additionally Chen and Chen [5] state that the
design teams should use its own experience, knowledge and Table 4 Heuristic rule used to determine the relationship intensity
intuition to determine the engineering characteristics that between PNQ requirements (‘‘approach and process’’) and action
plans
would support the client requirement. These observations
confer an intrinsic uncertain to the QFD methodology. Intensity of the Symbol Value
relationship

5.2 Engineering characteristics could be insufficient Strong Four or more performance areas
to cover the requirements associated to the action plan
Average Two or three performance areas
Fehlmann [9], Kim [19], Shin and Kim [29], and Chen and associated to the action plan
Chen [5] observed that the selected engineering character- Weak One performance area associated to the
action plan
istics could be dependent with the others (multi-co-linearity)
Inexistent No performance areas associated to the
i.e., they could explain the same portion of the requirements action plan
leading to an overestimation of the requirement coverage.

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138 J Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci. Eng. (2013) 35:131–142

Action Plans
3 2 NR 1 7 5 9 12 11 4 8 10 6
Legend:

Enterprise Resources Planning

Human Resources Excellence

Making the Student a Citizen

Students with Special Needs
Relationship Intensity

Balanced Scorecard (BSC)

External Communication
- Strong (Value = 9)

General Administration

Pedagogic Excellence
Customer Satisfaction
- Average (Value = 3)

Social Responsibility

PNQ Point Value

- Weak (Value = 1)

ISO9001:2000
Not Related

Child care
Senior Leadership 40
Leadership Continuous Improvement Culture 40
Organization Performance Review 30
Strategy Development 30
Strategic Planning
Strategy Deployment 30
Customer and Market Knowledge 30
Customer
Customer relationship and satisfaction 30
Social Social responsibility 30
Responsibility Ethics and governance 30
PNQ Requirements

Measure and Information Knowledge Management 20

Knowledge Benchmarking information Management 20
Management Intangible assets management 20
Work Systems 30
Human Resources Employee Learning and Motivation 30
Employee Well-Being and Satisfaction 30
Value Creation and Support Processes 50
Process
Management
Vendor Processes 30
Economic and Financial Processes 30
Customer-Focused Outcomes 100
Economic and Financial Outcomes 100
Results
Human Resource Outcomes 60
Vendor Outcomes 30
Social Responsibility Outcomes 60
Processes Outcomes 100
1000
Action Plan Absolute Importance 1650 970 920 810 810 710 610 360 220 150 110 0 0
Action Plan Relative Importance 23%
1% 13%
1% 13%
1% 11%
1% 11%
1% 10%
1% 8%
1% 5%
1% 3%
1% 2%
1% 2%
1% 0%
1% 0%
1%
2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3%
4%
5% 4%
5% 4%
5% 4%
5% 4%
5% 4%
5% 4%
5% 4%
5% 4%
5% 4%
5% 4%
5% 4%
5% 4%
5%
6%
7% 6%
7% 6%
7% 6%
7% 6%
7% 6%
7% 6%
7% 6%
7% 6%
7% 6% 6% 6% 6%
8%
9% 8%
9% 8%
9% 8%
9% 8%
9% 8%
9% 8%
9% 8%
9% 8%
9%
10%
11% 10%
11% 10%
11% 10%
11% 10%
11% 10%
11% 10% 10% 10%
12%
13% 12%
13% 12%
13% 12%
13% 12%
13% 12%
13%
14%
15% 14%
15%
16%
17% 16%
17%
18%
19% 18%
19%
20%
21% 20%
21%
22% 22%

Fig. 3 QFD planning matrix: relationships determined with PNQ assessment criteria, not related items present

resources among design features, rather than determining refinement, innovation, dissemination, continuity, and
the target levels of engineering characteristics’’. integration) of the requirements classified as ‘‘approach
In order to achieve the completeness of the business and process’’ and on three areas (relevancy, actual result,
development project planning, an alternative procedure and tendency) of those ones classified as ‘‘result’’.
was proposed to identify the relations between the action In the example presented, the relationship between the
plans and the PNQ requirements. This procedure moves the action plans and the PNQ assessment criteria was deter-
focus of the relationship from the requirement itself to how mined first, by the identification of the most relevant action
the requirement will be verified i.e., the PNQ assessment plan for all the performance areas of the requirement under
criteria. analysis, see example in Table 3; second, a heuristic rule,
The PNQ assessment criteria are the instruments used to presented in Table 4, was used to infer the relationship
measure the actual organization status toward the excel- intensity.
lence model described in the PNQ requirements. The Applying this procedure, it was assessed an intensity of
assessment procedure evaluates the organization perfor- relationship, classified as ‘‘average’’, between the ‘‘Infor-
mance on seven distinct areas (adequacy, proactively, mation Knowledge Management’’ requirement and the

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J Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci. Eng. (2013) 35:131–142 139

action plans: ‘‘General Administration’’ and ‘‘Balanced
Scorecard’’.
The chosen of the more appropriate heuristic rule was
not included in the scope of this article. However, many
possible alternatives can be used e.g., introduction of dif-
ferent weights for each performance area or the association
of more than one action plan to a single performance area.
These alternatives could lead to slight differences in the
estimated relation intensity.
Even though some uncertain is expected in the estimated
relation intensity, some interesting results were gathered
when the proposed procedure was applied to the case study.
The new QFD planning matrix shown in Fig. 3 has sub-
stantial differences in comparison with the first table pre-
sented in Fig. 2:
• Superposition among the action plans was reduced due
to only one plan was chosen as relevant to each PNQ
assessment criterion.
• Some action plans were not identified as relevant to any
of the PNQ requirements.
• It was possible to identify the portion of the PNQ
assessment criteria that was not covered by the selected
set of action plans. The column ‘‘Not related’’, in Fig. 3
represents this lack of relation.
• Consequently the action plans’ prioritized order was
modified.
This result compelled the project team to eliminate the
lack of relation between the planned actions and the PNQ
requirements. So the project was reviewed and a new set of
action plans was determined, where some plans had their
scopes enlarged, new plans were added and non-relevant
plans were merged into more significant ones e.g., ‘‘Child
care’’ and ‘‘Making the Student a Citizen’’ action plans
were merged into ‘‘Pedagogic Excellence’’.
Table 5 presents the modified set of action plans; items
formatted in bold cases represent additions to the action
plan scope, and suppressed items were marked with a
crossing line.
Finally, a third QFD matrix was appraised and the
results were presented in Fig. 4.

Table 5 Modified set of action plans

ID Action plan Scope

1 Pedagogic • Development, implementation, monitoring and improving of pedagogic practices

excellence • Excellence in taking care and students well been
• Determine directives for evaluation of vendors of pedagogic resources and methods
• Development, implementation, monitoring and improving of practices that ease the inclusion of students with special
needs in the pedagogic process
2 Customer • Identify clients and students satisfaction factors; obtain benchmarking data
satisfaction • Determine and implement actions to maximize client satisfaction
• Determine strategic goals to improve client satisfaction
3 General • Determine and promote the leadership process through the school structure; determine the organizational directives,
administration objectives and goals; monitor the organization performance, guidance and control of the organizational process
4 ERP • Increasing of the operational process automation; excellence in the organization operation processes
• Management of the internal information system
5 ISO9001:2000 • Quality assurance of the organizational processes; guidance of the continuous improvement process
6 Child care • Excellence in taking care and students well been
7 Human resources • Improve results through the increasing of employees’ performance, motivation and capabilities; promote the
employees’ well been; organize the school work processes
8 Students with • Development, implementation, monitoring and improving of practices that ease the inclusion of students with special
special needs needs in the pedagogic process
9 Social • Development, implementation, monitoring and improving the relationship with the community (e.g., social aid)
responsibility • Development, implementation, monitoring and improving of practices to form citizens
10 Making the • Development, implementation, monitoring and improving of practices to form citizens
student
a citizen
11 External • Sponsoring of communication channels between the sch ool and the community (e.g., clients, government and
communication neighborhood)
12 BSC • Monitor and analyze the organization performance; analyze benchmarking data; identify and propose corrective
actions
13 Corporate • Assure the transparency and accuracy of the organization results
governance • Provide the adequate feedback to the organization stakeholders according ethics and legal standards

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140 J Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci. Eng. (2013) 35:131–142

Action Plans
3 1 2 7 9 12 13 5 11 4 NR
Legend:

Enterprise Resources Planning

Human Resources Excellence
Relationship Intensity

Balanced Scorecard (BSC)

External Communication
- Strong (Value = 9)

General Administration

Corporate Governance
Pedagogic Excellence

Customer Satisfaction

PNQ Point Value

- Average (Value = 3)

Social Responsibility
- Weak (Value = 1)

Not Related
ISO9001:2000
Senior Leadership 40
Leadership Continuous Improvement Culture 40
Organization Performance Review 30
Strategy Development 30
Strategic Planning
Strategy Deployment 30
Customer and Market Knowledge 30
Customer
Customer relationship and satisfaction 30
Social Social responsibility 30
Responsibility
PNQ Requirements

Ethics and governance 30

Measure and Information Knowledge Management 20
Knowledge Benchmarking information Management 20
Management Intangible assets management 20
Work Systems 30
Human Resources Employee Learning and Motivation 30
Employee Well-Being and Satisfaction 30
Value Creation and Support Processes 50
Process
Management
Vendor Processes 30
Economic and Financial Processes 30
Customer-Focused Outcomes 100
Economic and Financial Outcomes 100
Results
Human Resource Outcomes 60
Vendor Outcomes 30
Social Responsibility Outcomes 60
Processes Outcomes 100
1000
Action Plan Absolute Importance 1530 1000 840 770 690 630 590 470 220 170 0
Action Plan Relative Importance 22%
1% 14%
1% 12%
1% 11%
1% 10%
1% 9%
1% 9%
1% 7%
1% 3%
1% 2%
1% 0%
1%
2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3% 2%
3%
4%
5% 4%
5% 4%
5% 4%
5% 4% 4%
5% 4%
5% 6% 5% 4%
5% 4%
5%
6%
7% 6%
7% 6%
7% 6%
7% 6%
7% 7% 6%
7% 6%
7% 6%
8%
9% 8%
9% 8%
9% 8%
9% 8%
9% 8% 8% 8%
10%
11% 10%
11% 10%
11% 10%
11% 10% 9%
9%
10% 11%
11%
9%
12%
13% 12%
13% 12%
13% 12%
13% 12%
13% 12%
14%
15% 14%
15%
16%
17%
18%
19%
20%
21%
22%

Fig. 4 QFD planning matrix: relationships determined with PNQ assessment criteria, not related items eliminated

6 Conclusions • Relations are arbitrary and subjectively determined in

the QFD process, conferring an intrinsic uncertain.
The authors have suggested the usage of QFD as a tool • Engineering characteristics could be insufficient to
to assist the business development project planning phase cover the requirements and could explain the same
of an enterprise. When applied to a case study company, portion of the requirement.
it leads to a considerable simplification of business • The absence of a formal criterion to identify the
scenario where 72 distinct actions were translated into 12 intensity of the relation between requirements and all
action plans. Furthermore, QFD has helped rank the the engineering characteristics makes difficult the
action plans, optimizing the resources allocation as a requirement coverage analysis.
consequence. • Relations do not address how the requirement is
Although QFD is a worthy tool to assist the planning accomplished.
phase of business development projects, the completeness
In the case study presented, where the PNQ require-
of the plan is not easily verified, due to:
ments were defined as the organization goals, the

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J Braz. Soc. Mech. Sci. Eng. (2013) 35:131–142
completeness of the business development plan was ana-
lyzed with the help of an alternative procedure that moves
the focus of the QFD relationships from the PNQ
requirement itself to how the requirement shall be verified
i.e., the PNQ assessment criteria. The well-defined scope of
the PNQ assessment criteria allied with the chosen of only
one action plan to each single PNQ assessment criterion;
lead to a new QFD planning matrix with some significant
gains as follows:
• The superposition among the action plans was reduced.
• The portion of the PNQ assessment criteria that was not
covered by the action plans was easily identified.
• The assignment of the ‘‘not related’’ items guides the
project scope review toward the full coverage of the
PNQ requirements.
6.1 Opportunities for new developments
Even though the case studied had the business development
as its background, the problems identified and the proposed
solutions are not exclusive of this environment. New
studies shall be performed to find out if these findings can
be expanded to the product development environment and
how the QFD methodology can be improved to congregate
features to move the relationship focus to the final product
verification requirements aiming to determine a finite and
verifiable scope able to assist the assignment of the not
covered requirements and to address how the client
requirement will be actually achieved.
The procedure presented herein, where the PNQ
requirements are deployed with the assistance of the QFD
matrices, was seen as a worthy tool to the initial planning
phase of BDPs. Similar studies shall be performed to
analyze the advantages and disadvantages on applying this
procedure to other reference models e.g., standardized
quality assurance systems, specific business processes and
other business prizes.
Doing so, specific assessment criteria, based on the
chosen model requirements, shall be determined to make
possible the relation between the criteria and the action
plans. It is essential to analyze the project completeness
and highlights the eventual lack of relation.
This work does not include the determination of the best
mathematical rule to find out the relation intensity between
a PNQ requirement and the action plans based on the PNQ
assessment criteria. More detailed studies shall be con-
ducted to analyze the effect of the use of different rules in
the results gathered in this study and in the QFD
methodology.
Researches aiming at generalizing the use of assessment
criteria in the determination of the relationship intensity
between the QFD deployed characteristics; also, in
141
business or in product development environments, shall be
carried out, as a matter of fact, this procedure can reduces
the superposition among the proposed solutions; defines a
more clear project scope and anticipates the project anal-
ysis against the verification and validation (V&V)
requirements.
Many authors [8, 14, 25, 34] have been using analogies
to apply TRIZ in non-tangible systems with many benefits;
however, much time can be saved if the TRIZ algorithms,
contradiction matrix and inventive principles were expan-
ded to fit the specific needs of the business development
environment.
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