ARTICLE IN PRESS

Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599

www.elsevier.com/locate/ijpe

Strategic management of logistics service:

A fuzzy QFD approach
Eleonora Bottani, Antonio Rizzi
Department of Industrial Engineering, viale delle Scienze 181/A, Campus Universitario, University of Parma, 43100 Parma, Italy
Received 20 April 2005; accepted 15 November 2005
Available online 3 March 2006

Abstract

Logistics and Supply Chain Management literature indicates that customer service management has become a strategic
issue for companies in the new millennium. By improving logistics performances, companies increase customer satisfaction
and gain market shares.
The aim of this paper is to propose an original approach for the management of customer service. The approach is based
on the quality function deployment (QFD), a methodology which has been successfully adopted in new products
development. Specifically, the paper addresses the issue of how to deploy the house of quality (HOQ) to effectively and
efficiently improve logistics processes and thus customer satisfaction. Fuzzy logic is also adopted to deal with the ill-defined
nature of the qualitative linguistic judgments required in the proposed HOQ.
The methodology has been tested by means of a real case application, which refers to an Italian company operating in
the mechanical industry.
r 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Logistics service; Customer service management; Fuzzy QFD; House of quality

1. Introduction customers cannot be acquired counting only on

The importance of customer service as a strategic
issue has emerged in particular during the last
decade, due to a twofold reason. First, brand power
has progressively decreased, making products al-
most undifferentiated in terms of trademarks.
Customers do not rely on brands except in a few
market niches, such as fashion. Second, due to
technology diffusion, the functionalities and tech-
nological features of products tend to be the same
(Franceschini and Rossetto, 1997). Today, new
Corresponding author. Tel.: +39 521 905872;
fax: +39 521 905705.
E-mail address: e.bottani@ied.unipr.it (E. Bottani).
brands or on technical characteristics of products.
On the contrary, the breath of logistics services
related to products may play a significant role in the
competitive scenario (Vandermerwe and Rada,
1988; Bailey, 1996). As a consequence of this shift
towards service, customers have become more and
more exacting about logistics performances (Lee-
Kelley et al., 2002).
Customer service, hereafter understood to be the
service performance perceived by customers as a
result of logistics processes and activities, has been
widely recognized as a mean to gain competitive
advantage. Through customer satisfaction, compa-
nies retain their customers and gain new mar-
ket shares (Zeithaml, 1988; Christopher, 1998).

0925-5273/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ijpe.2005.11.006
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
586 E. Bottani, A. Rizzi / Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599
However, even though new customers are welcomed
almost in every line of business, the main objective
of companies is to maintain customers for a long-
time period. The total value of a lifetime customer is
almost unquantifiable, and allows firms to achieve a
competitive advantage against competitors (Chris-
topher, 1998; Bailey, 1996). Bailey (1996), stresses
the significant role of service quality in achieving
competitive advantage, and, conversely, the weak
importance of sales and profits.
According to the so-called ‘‘disconfirmation
paradigm’’ (Philip and Hazlett, 1996; Zeithaml et
al., 1990), customer satisfaction is achieved when
logistics performances delivered by the supply chain
meet customer requirements. To this extent, Ro-
bledo (2001), states that customers evaluate service
by comparing their perceptions of the service
received with their expectations; thus, the gap
between customer expectations and perceptions is
a synthetic measure of customer satisfaction. Since
customers will be satisfied when perceptions exceed
their expectations, understanding these require-
ments is an imperative for firms.
In addition, when speaking about service man-
agement, a dynamic perspective should be adopted.
Customer service is not a steady concept, but is
continually in a state of change, and evolves
through a continuous improvement cycle (Morris,
1996; Baines, 1996). Therefore, the quantitative
measure of logistics performances delivered and
expected has to be repeated over time, periodically
auditing gaps between expectations and percep-
tions. When a lack of correspondence occurs, viable
logistics areas and factors of intervention have to be
identified, pondered and ranked in terms of
efficiency and effectiveness. Since interventions
imply costs, before taking steps toward implemen-
tation, a costs/benefits analysis is appropriate, in
order to undertake actions starting from those
factors with the highest impact on customer service.
To conclude, providing logistics service which
meets customer expectations is a continuous pro-
cess, which can be summarized in the following
steps:

understanding the customer’s voice, that is
requirements and expectations in terms of
relevant logistics performances;

assessing customer’s service perception;

if a gap between perception and requirements
occurs, identifying viable steps that can be imple-
mented to improve customer satisfaction;

identifying costs and benefits related to each step;
and

implementing the most efficient actions for
customer satisfaction by means of a cost/benefit
analysis.
A similar process is followed in new products
development, where customer requirements have to
be engineered into products features. The quality
function deployment (QFD) methodology has been
found as a viable tool which can be successfully
applied for this purpose (Akao, 1990). QFD has
been defined by the American Supplier Institute as
‘‘A system for translating consumer requirements into
appropriate company requirements at each stage from
research and product development to engineering and
manufacturing to marketing/sales and distribution’’.
As detailed in the next section, by assessing how
each ‘‘how’’ (engineering characteristics) impacts on
each ‘‘what’’ (customer requirements), QFD makes
it possible to rank ‘‘hows’’ in terms of efficiency to
reach the required ‘‘whats’’.
A preliminary review of the literature has high-
lighted only few references where QFD has been
associated to service assessment, none of which can
be directly related to logistics issues. Lapidus and
Schibrowsky (1994), illustrate the QFD applicabil-
ity as a method for improving service starting from
customer complaints. In their approach, customer
complaints become the ‘‘whats’’ to be considered in
the house of quality (HOQ). Conversely, we
propose a proactive approach to be adopted before
complaints occur: thus, ‘‘whats’’ do not emerge
from complaints but from logistics and supply chain
management literature.
Behara and Chase (1993), illustrate the QFD
process in matching customer requirements to
specific topic areas in service management. How-
ever, these applications do not provide a general
methodology to plan and manage the trade-offs and
correlations associated with customer requirements
and firm viable actions.
Stuart and Tax (1996), propose the QFD
application to manage the service design phase.
They suggest the use of HOQ as an effective mean
to plan processes for a successful execution of
services. Their approach is of general purpose and
depicts the general traits of a QFD approach to
design service strategies. However, the authors do
not detail how the approach may be deployed for a
practical in-field application. In conclusion, the
works cited above deal with service management
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
E. Bottani, A. Rizzi / Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599
under a general perspective, and do not focus the
approach on service performances which stem from
logistics processes and activities.
Starting from the work of Stuart and Tax (1996),
we develop a tool suitable to be adopted in the
logistics context. Moreover, one of our main
objectives is to introduce a methodology that could
be directly adopted by practitioners in the logistics
field. A cost/benefit analysis is also introduced to
identify and rank the most efficient steps toward
improvement of logistics processes and customer
satisfaction. A fuzzy approach is adopted since
the methodology mainly relays on qualitative
judgments given by panel of experts and by
customers.
The remainder of the paper is organized as
follows. In the next paragraph, after a brief
description of the QFD methodology, the approach
proposed is detailed. Then, a real case application of
the QFD methodology is presented. The case refers
to an Italian company operating in the mechanical
industry. Concluding remarks are finally presented.
2. The fuzzy QFD approach
2.1. QFD fundamentals
Quality function deployment originated in 1972
in Japan, as a methodology to be adopted to
improve products quality in Japanese firms, such as
Mitsubishi, Toyota and their suppliers (Hauser and
Clausing, 1988). QFD methodology has introduced
a twofold innovation in traditional product devel-
opment processes. First, the application of QFD
requires the careful consideration of customer
during the development process (Akao, 1990).
Second, the QFD approach has introduced the
collaboration among different business areas as a
prerequisite for product design. This is obtained by
setting up appropriate work groups, whose mem-
bers belong to different business units involved in
the product design phase (Bouchereau and Row-
lands, 2000).
Two main QFD approaches to production devel-
opment emerge from literature analysis (Choen,
1995), namely the ‘‘matrix of matrices’’ and the
‘‘four-phases model’’. In this paper, we focused on
the four-phases approach to product development,
whose steps have been thoroughly described by
Hauser and Clausing (1988) and Bouchereau and
Rowlands (2000).
587
This approach is composed of four successive
matrices (the customer requirement planning ma-
trix, the product characteristics deployment matrix,
the process and quality control matrix and the
operative instruction matrix), which are applied in
as many phases of the product design process. We
focused on the customer requirement planning
matrix which has been used to develop the model
for strategic customer service management.
The customer requirements planning matrix, also
called the ‘‘House Of Quality’’ because of its typical
shape, is the first step in investigating customer’s
needs and requirements. It is composed of two main
parts, related to customer’s requirements (‘‘what’’
customer needs) and technical elements (‘‘how’’ the
product has to be made) respectively. The HOQ is
thus adopted by the design work group to transform
the customer’s requirements and needs into product
characteristics.
The HOQ can be built by following an eight steps
process. At the beginning of the process, customer’s
needs and requirements have to be identified.
According to Hauser and Clausing (1988), those
elements are also called ‘‘customer’s attributes’’
(CAs), and are generally known as a result of
surveys or direct questions to customers. CAs are
listed in row in the HOQ; if necessary, they can be
grouped into sets that express similar expectations
(step 1).
Customer’s attributes are weighted in order to
express their relative importance. The weight of
each CA is inserted in a column in the matrix
(step 2).
Next, firms have to establish how their products
perform against those of competitors. Generally,
the evaluation of a firm product is carried out by
directly asking customers how products/services are
rated in relation to the competition. Benchmarking
analysis can also aid in this evaluation. The results
of this step are thus added in a column in the right
side of the matrix (step 3).
In order to develop a new product, CAs must be
translated into ‘‘engineering characteristics’’ (ECs)
that probably affect one or more CAs. Engineering
characteristics are measurable attributes concerning
a firm’s product or service; they are listed in
columns in the HOQ (step 4).
The core element of the matrix is the ‘‘relation-
ships matrix’’. In order to complete this part of the
HOQ, the relationships between customer’s needs
and firm’s ability to meet those needs have to be
determined. The relationships are expressed with
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
588 E. Bottani, A. Rizzi / Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599
graphic symbols that indicate how and to what
extent each engineering characteristic meets each
customer’s attribute. Usually, symbols express three
degrees of strength (weak, medium, strong), which
are translated in an appropriate rating scale, such as
1-3-9 or 1-5-9. In general, no specific justifications
should be provided for the choice of the adopted
rating scale. Absence of symbols means absence of
relationships (step 5).
In a similar manner, the top side of the HOQ,
called the ‘‘correlations matrix’’, is then filled in,
expressing how ECs affect each other. A positive
relationship indicates that two ECs can complement
or improve each other, while a negative one suggests
that trade offs are required. Correlations are
indicated with graphic symbols that express the
degree of relation between ECs. Symbols are then
translated into a four-value rating scale (strong
negative, negative, positive, strong positive), such as
1-3-7-9 or 1-3-5-9. Again, it is possible to have no
correlations between ECs (step 6).
Moreover, firm’s products are compared with those
of competitors. To this extent, the work group carries
out a quantitative benchmark analysis of competitors’
engineering characteristics. The results are added in a
row in the lower part of the matrix (step 7).
Finally, firms have to introduce a target measure
for each EC in the matrix. The target measure
translates customer’s expectations into numerical
values, in order to quantitatively assess firm’s
performances against customer’s requirements.
The lower part of the HOQ is therefore completed
introducing the goal measure of each EC (step 8).
The typical structure of the HOQ is shown in
Fig. 1.
The result of the matrix is the ranking of ECs in
descending order of importance. To this extent,
either the absolute and/or the relative importance of
each EC against customer’s requirements have to be
quantitatively evaluated.
As stated above, in the traditional QFD applica-
tions the generic position Rij in the relationships
matrix expresses the relationship between the ith
CA and the jth EC with a numeric scale. Therefore,
the absolute importance AIj, j ¼ 1,ym of each EC
can be calculated as
X
n
AIj ¼ W i Rij ; j ¼ 1; . . . ; m
i¼1
being Wi the relative importance of the ith CA, Rij
the numerical value added to the position (i,j) of the
Correlations matrix
Engineering characteristics (ECs)
Customer’s attributes
Benchmark analysis
Relative importance
of CAs (Wi)
(CAs)
Relationships matrix (Rij)
Absolute importance of ECs (AIj)
Relative importance of ECs (RIj)
Technical analysis of competitors
Target values of ECs
Fig. 1. The house of quality.
matrix, j ¼ 1,y,m and i ¼ 1,y,n the number of
ECs and of CAs respectively.
The relative importance RIj can be derived from
the absolute importance AIj, through the following
equation:
AIj
RIj ¼ Pm ; j ¼ 1; . . . ; m. (2)
j¼1 AIj
Literature analysis has pointed out that engineer-
ing characteristics are usually ranked based on RIj
rather than on AIj. Thus, the higher the RIj, the
more important the engineering characteristic that
should be incorporated into the product in order to
improve customer satisfaction.
2.2. The proposed methodology
The approach proposed is based on the transla-
tion of HOQ principles from product development
field to logistics service management. While the
traditional HOQ correlates customer requirements
(‘‘whats’’) with engineering characteristics of new
product under development (‘‘hows’’), in our
approach customer service requirements in terms
of logistics performances (‘‘whats’’) are crossed over
with viable strategic actions, either technical (such
as the adoption of a more performing technology)
(1)
or managerial (i.e. a reorganization of processes in
the supply chain), that could be undertaken by the
firm’s top management to improve logistics pro-
cesses (‘‘hows’’).
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
E. Bottani, A. Rizzi / Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599 589

Correlations matrix (Tkj)

Hows
Strategic Actions (SAs)

Relative importance
Service Factors (SF)

Real importance of
of CFs (Wi)

CFs (Wi*)
Whats

Relationships matrix (Rij)

Relative importance of SAs (RIj)

Real importance of SAs (RIj*)

Cost for implementation of SAs (Cj)

Benefits of SAs (Uj)

Fig. 2. The house of quality for the strategic management of the logistics service.

The resulting customer service HOQ is shown in Table 1

Fig. 2. List of viable indicators for the evaluation of logistics service,
As can be seen from the table, ‘‘whats’’ elements adapted from Franceschini and Rafele (2000)
express service factors SFi, i ¼ 1; . . . ; n affecting Service factors Description
logistics service perception. These factors have been ‘‘whats’’
extensively described by logistics and supply chain
Lead-time Time period elapsing from customer’s
management literature. The reader will find a
order until receipt
comprehensive list of the main criteria that can be Regularity The dispersion around the mean value of
used for the evaluation of the logistics service in the delivered lead-time
Franceschini and Rafele (2000). For the sake of Reliability Capability to deliver orders within the due
clarity, the service factors proposed by the authors date
Completeness Capability to deliver full orders when
are shown in Table 1, together with a brief
required
description. Flexibility Capability to modify orders in terms of
Obviously, service factors listed in table do not due date and quantity when required
provide an absolute description of all viable factors Correctness Avoidance of mistakes in orders delivered
that could be considered when perceived service has Harmfulness Avoidance of damages in orders delivered
Productivity Number of item produced in a given time
to be assessed. Depending on particular circum-
period
stances, factors could be either added or removed.
However, our paper strives to introduce a new
methodology for customer service management
rather than to formalize an exhaustive framework undertake in the logistics field to improve service
of factors affecting customer service perception, performances have to be identified and ranked in
which have been widely addressed by logistics and terms of both effectiveness and efficiency with
SCM literature. regard to customer service improvement. Those
Once customer service has been assessed, viable actions correspond to ‘‘hows’’ in the proposed
strategic actions SAj, j ¼ 1; . . . ; m the firm can customer service HOQ. A list of possible ‘‘hows’’
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
590 E. Bottani, A. Rizzi / Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599
Table 2
List of viable strategic actions
Strategic actions Description
‘‘hows’’
Just-In-Time JIT is a philosophy originated in the
philosophy manufacturing sector which has been
extended to supply chain management. It
helps to streamline the logistics pipeline
through the efficient flow of materials and
information, i.e. by providing the right
materials, in the right quantities and
quality, in the right place at the right time.
Warehouse The efficiency and the effectiveness of the
management logistics flows are deeply affected by
optimisation optimized warehouse & distribution
centres management policies. Shipping &
receiving, storage, picking activities can
largely benefit from ad hoc optimization
tools.
Transport Transportation has been recognized as a
management paramount factor affecting effectiveness
and efficiency of logistics processes.
Through transportations, the product
value is increased by making it available
where and when it is required. However,
transports add significant costs, which
could jeopardize the profitability of the
supply chain. Therefore specific
optimization tools can be considered as
viable actions to improve logistics
performances perceived by customers.
Information Information technology is generic term
technology used to include hardware, software and
networking technologies, such as servers,
computer networks, expert systems,
software for communication, such as
Enterprise Requirement Planning (ERP),
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), etc.
All these tools play a significant role in
synchronizing the flow of goods with the
flow of information, which affects the
logistics performance of the supply chain.
Demand forecasting Accurate forecasting methods make it
methods possible to match supply and demand,
smoothing uncertainty, reducing safety
stocks and stock outs. The set up of
collaborative programs, such as CPFR,
VMI, or consignment aimed at reducing
uncertainties may be encompassed in this
category.
Other Depending on the particular
circumstance, other strategic actions in
the logistics field may be considered.
when customer service performance related to
logistics activities has to be improved is shown in
Table 2.
Again, Table 2 does not provide a definitive
framework of all the options available, which
depend on the particular circumstances.
The roof of correlations, the weights Wi [n  1],
the relationships matrix Rij [n  m] and the relative
importance of SAs vector RIj [1  m] complete the
HOQ. It is worth stressing that the weight vector,
the correlations matrix and the relationships matrix
translate linguistic judgments given by human
beings. Therefore, an effective mean to deal with
them would appear to be fuzzy logic.
The fuzzy set theory was originally introduced by
Zadeh (1965) to deal with ill-defined problems,
characterized by a certain degree of uncertainty and
vagueness. The main advantage of the adoption of
fuzzy logic is the opportunity to express ill-defined
judgments, such as the impact of a SA on a SF.
Moreover, the use of fuzzy numbers becomes very
important in decision-making problems, where
linguistic scales are adopted and where a panel of
decision makers (DMs) is involved in the judgment
process. To this extent, fuzzy numbers make it
possible to reproduce the typical subjective way of
thinking of human beings. As an example, let us
assume a firm scores 90% in fill rate. In a crisp
approach, this value will match one and only one
linguistic value, that is there is a biunivocal
relationship between performances and judgments.
Therefore, a performance judgment ‘‘very high’’
under ‘‘fill rate’’ factor means a score of 90% and
only 90% for every DM, even though DMs may
have a different perception of ‘‘very high’’. Con-
versely, in a fuzzy approach, DMs may mean
different performance with the same value, i.e. if
the firm scores 90% in fill rate, its service
performance against fill rate parameter could be
considered as ‘‘very high’’ by a customer, and
‘‘high’’ by another one, with a certain degree of
membership. This implies that the value ‘‘90%’’
should belong to the two categories ‘‘very high’’ and
‘‘high’’ at the same time and to a different extent.
The degree of membership is assessed through the
respective membership functions.
To conclude, fuzzy logic allows to take into
account the different meaning that we may give to
the same linguistic expression. As a matter of fact,
this is why the fuzzy approach has been so widely
adopted in different research fields, as witnessed by
the massive literature on the subject. The reader
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
E. Bottani, A. Rizzi / Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599
may refer to Zadeh (1965), and Zimmermann (1991),
for a complete description of fuzzy numbers and
related algebra.
From now on, unless specified, all parameters
should be thought of as fuzzy triangular numbers.
In our approach, four new fuzzy elements have been
added to the traditional HOQ, namely:

the weighted importance of service factors;

the weighted importance of strategic actions;

the cost for the implementation of strategic
actions; and

the marginal benefit of strategic actions.
These elements, as well as their role in ranking
SAs, are detailed below.
2.2.1. Weighted importance of service factors
The weighted importance Wi* of SFs is a [n  1]
vector which expresses the real importance of each
SF. The introduction of Wi* is required to weight
each service factor considering not only the
importance the customer gives it, which is expressed
by the value Wi, but also the performance delivered
by the firm for that factor. To gain a competitive
advantage, the firm must provide superior service to
the customers on critical service factors, that is
either those that are perceived as the most
important ones or where service perceived is
inferior. Conversely, improving service either for a
factor whose importance is trivial or where the firm
already delivers a superior service is useless.
The weighted importance Wi* is computed by
assessing the distance di between firm performance
and that which is perceived by customers as
superior, the latter being the performance that
allows the firm to achieve customer satisfaction.
Both the performance delivered and the target
superior value could be retrieved from customer
service surveys by asking the customer directly.
Since both performance values are fuzzy, a distance
between fuzzy numbers has to be assessed. To this
extent, the Hamming procedure is suggested to be
adopted (Chien and Tsai, 2000). This procedure
identifies the distance between two fuzzy numbers as
the distance between the centres of gravity of the
respective membership functions. From a mathe-
matical point of view, given two fuzzy sets A and B,
the Hamming distance dðmA ðxÞ; mB ðxÞÞ between two
fuzzy numbers belonging to A and B respectively,
591
can be computed as
Z



dðmA ðxÞ; mB ðxÞÞ ¼
mA ðxÞ  mB ðxÞ
dx, (3)
X
where X is the universe of discourse. Due to the
calculation method, the resulting Hamming distance
is a crisp value.
The di parameters are then calculated according
to Eq. (3). Then, the weighted importance Wi* of
SFs can be derived as follows:
W i ¼ d i  W i ; i ¼ 1; . . . ; n. (4)
2.2.2. Weighted importance of strategic actions
This element strives to determine which strategic
action has the highest impact on customer satisfac-
tion. It takes into account the weighted importance
of service factors, the relationships matrix and the
correlations matrix.
As already detailed, the generic position Rij in the
relationships matrix expresses the relationship
between the jth SA with the ith SF. Again, a
fuzzy linguistic scale may be usefully adopted by
DMs to interpret the vagueness and incomplete
understanding of the relationships between ‘‘hows’’
and ‘‘whats’’.
The importance RIj of each strategic action
can then be calculated applying the following
equation:
X
n
RIj ¼ W i  Rij ; j ¼ 1; . . . ; m, (5)
i¼1
where Wi* is the fuzzy weighted importance of
ith service factor, while Rij is the fuzzy number
expressing the impact of the jth SA versus the ith
SF.
In a similar manner, the generic position Tkj, j,
k ¼ 1,ym, k6¼j, in the correlations matrix expresses
the correlation between the kth and the jth ‘‘hows’’.
In order to quantitatively ponder the correlation
between ‘‘hows’’, we adopt the approach of Tang et
al. (2002). According to the authors, the correlation
Tkj can be interpreted as the incremental changes of
the degree of attainment of the jth ‘‘how’’ when the
attainment of the kth one is unitary increased.
Using this definition, the weighted importance RIj*
can be computed as follows:
X
RIj ¼ RIj  T kj  RIk ; j ¼ 1; . . . ; m. (6)
k¼j
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
592 E. Bottani, A. Rizzi / Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599
2.2.3. Cost and marginal benefit of strategic actions
In order to complete the assessment and ranking
of strategic actions, their cost of implementation
should be considered. In this situation fuzzy logic
becomes a fundamental tool in dealing with ill-
defined issues such as the evaluation of costs. While
a DM may find objective difficulties in quantita-
tively assessing the costs of implementation of
strategic actions, he/she can more easily give a
judgment on a linguistic scale, ranging for instance
from Very High to Very Low. This is why, in the
lower part of the HOQ a fuzzy parameter Cj has
been added to ponder the cost of implementing the
jth strategic action.
The marginal benefit Uj of strategic actions can be
calculated through the ratio between benefits and
costs, as expressed by the following equation:
1 are used as components in assembly lines. The
U j ¼ RIj  ; j ¼ 1; . . . ; m.
Cj
Since both RIj* and Cj parameters are fuzzy
numbers, Eq. (7) describes an operation between
fuzzy numbers; the resulting Uj is thus a fuzzy
number. In order to make SAs comparable and
rank the results, defuzzified values should be
computed. Due to its simplicity, the Yager method
(Yager, 1981) is suggested as a viable tool to adopt
in order to obtain final crisp marginal benefits.
Starting from a fuzzy triangular number a(l,m,u),
the defuzzified value is computed as
l þ 2m þ u
. (8)
4
Once crisp values have been computed, SAs can
be finally ranked. In particular, according to
Trappey et al. (1996), the greater the crisp Uj
parameter, the higher the implementation priority
of the corresponding strategic action. Strategic
action which scores the highest is the one which
has the highest impact on customer service, and
therefore whose implementation should be consid-
ered by the firm top management to improve the
logistics performance.
3. Application of the methodology
In this paragraph, the methodology developed is
applied to a real industrial case, which refers to a
major Italian company operating in the mechanical
industry.
The main objective of the application is twofold.
On the one hand, it is aimed at assessing its
robustness and consistency, where robustness and
consistency are respectively understood to be
related to the applicability of the methodology
and to the reliability of the result obtained. On the
other hand, the application strives to consider
practical implications in managing customer service
through a QFD approach.
3.1. The company
Since it was established in 1973 in Northern Italy,
the firm has been acquiring specific experience in
designing and manufacturing special piping compo-
nents. Specific expertise has promoted high-level
specialization in stainless and carbon steel manu-
facturing, making the firm an industry leader in the
domestic market of special piping parts. Products
(7) automobile and mechanical industries are one of the
most important markets for the firm sales, account-
ing for almost 60% of the company’s revenue. The
rest of the turnover comes mainly from sales to
appliances industry and process plants. Other
relevant figures for 2001 are: 450 employees, 45
millions Euro of aggregate turnover, about 35,000
tons of steel are processed every year, while every
day 40 km of welded pipes of stainless and carbon
steel are shipped from warehouses directly to the
assembly lines of the buyers.
The main customers of the firm are major
manufacturers which have recently set up programs
to streamline the supply processes. Buyers have
been requiring adequate logistics performances
from their suppliers to reduce inventory, avoid
control of orders accuracy and turn the supplying
process from a traditional approach to a JIT one.
As a consequence, the firm has been asked not only
for remarkable products from a technical point of
view, but also for remarkable logistics perfor-
mances, basically in terms of lead time, reliability
and accuracy of shipments. Operating in a very
competitive scenario from a logistics point of view,
the firm needs to proactively manage customer
service to retain its customers and gain new market
shares. To this extent the QFD approach proposed
in this paper has been recognized by the company
top management as a valid tool to control logistics
performances and promptly tune service delivered
to match customer requirements.
Practical consequences of the application of the
QFD tool were expected in the assessment of service
provided by the firm and in the evaluation of the
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
E. Bottani, A. Rizzi / Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599
most efficient actions that the management could
undertake to improve logistics performance and
customer satisfaction.
A workgroup has been set up to apply the
methodology. The team was headed by academi-
cians from the Department of Industrial Engineer-
ing of the University of Parma, and included firm
executives reporting directly to logistics, IT, and
production chief officers. The group has worked for
4 months, mainly through roundtable discussions,
where the main elements of the HOQ and their
mutual relationships have been defined. In the
following paragraph the main results obtained are
presented.
3.2. Results and discussion
When applying the proposed HOQ to the real
case, appropriate ‘‘whats’’ have to be identified. To
this extent, four firm main buyers were asked to
take part in the application. In the following, they
will be indicated as C1, C2, C3, C4.
First of all, the importance of each customer has
been weighted through the percentage of profit
margin generated, as shown in Table 3.
The main service factors ‘‘whats’’ to be consid-
ered in the real case application have emerged from
a preliminary survey phase, which has been
performed through direct interviews carried out by
academicians with the customers involved in the
project. A survey has been adopted because it
emerged as one of the most efficient and effective
ways to ponder the performance perceived for each
factor affecting customer satisfaction (see Keller
et al., 2002).
The relevant logistics ‘‘whats’’ are shown in
Table 4, together with a brief description.
The second part of the application focused on the
assessment of viable SAs ‘‘hows’’, their mutual
correlations, as well as of the relationships judg-
ments between SAs and customer SFs. The work-
group agreed to adopt a linguistic approach,
Table 3
Importance ranking of the firm’s main customers
Customer Importance (%) Importance judgment
C1 0.35 Very high
C2 0.30 Very high
C3 0.25 High
C4 0.10 High
593
Table 4
Service factors considered in the real case application
Service factors Description
Lead-time Time period elapsing from customer’s
order until receipt.
Flexibility Capability to modify orders in terms of
due date and quantity when required.
Accuracy Avoidance of mistakes and damages in
orders delivered.
Reliability Capability to deliver orders within the due
date.
Fill rate Common indicator of customer service
performance related to inventory. It can
be defined as the percentage of units
available when requested by customers.
Frequency Number of deliveries accomplished in a
given time period.
Organization Customer’s opportunity to establish a
accessibility contact with firm’s staff. Usually,
customers need to contact firms because
they have some questions to be answered,
they need firm’s actions, they have some
problems with products, they want to
submit complaints.
Complaints Process subsequent to the recognition of
management some errors in service provided, that
allows service quality standards to be
reestablished.
therefore a first instructive phase was required to
introduce the workgroup members to fuzzy set
theory and fuzzy logic. In a similar manner,
appropriate linguistic scales were set up for the
evaluation of relative and weighted importance of
SFs, the relative and weighted importance of SAs,
the costs for the implementation of SAs, together
with values in the relationships and correlations
matrixes.
Strategic actions ‘‘hows’’ were identified based
both on literature analysis and the firm character-
istics, whose peculiarities have emerged from round-
table discussions. Results are shown in Table 5 with
a brief description for each point.
During the survey phase, the four customers have
also been asked about the importance of service
factors, in order to determine the relative impor-
tance of service factors, as well as to assess the
distance between the service delivered for each
factor and the performance that is perceived as
superior. The four customers have been asked to
rank the relative importance of each SF on a 4-point
linguistic rating scale, ranging from VL (Very Low)
to VH (Very High). The fuzzy scale is shown in
Table 6.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
594 E. Bottani, A. Rizzi / Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599
Table 5
Strategic actions considered in the real case application
Strategic actions Description
Just-In-Time JIT is a philosophy originated in the
philosophy manufacturing sector. It helps to smooth
the production process through the
efficient flow of materials, i.e. by
providing the right materials, in the right
quantities and quality, Just-In-Time for
production.
Order picking Order picking is the activity by which a
optimization number of goods are retrieved from a
warehousing system to satisfy a number
of customer orders.
Information Information technology is generic term
technology used to include hardware, software and
networking technologies, such as servers,
computer networks, expert systems,
software for communication, such as
Enterprise Requirement Planning (ERP),
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI), etc.
Demand forecasting Forecasting methods are tools that aim at
methods foreknow customers’ demand, in order to
reduce its uncertainty.
Customer CRM is a generic term which
relationship encompasses methodologies, software,
management and Internet capabilities that help the firm
to manage customer relationships in an
organized way.
Warehouses lay-out Warehouses lay-out embrace the optimal
optimization assignment of items to storage locations,
the arrangement of the functional areas of
the warehouse, the number and location
of docks and input/output (I/O) points,
the number of aisles, etc.
Table 6
Linguistic judgments and corresponding fuzzy numbers
Judgment Fuzzy number
Very high (VH) (0.7; 1; 1)
High (H) (0.5; 0.7; 1)
Low (L) (0; 0.3; 0.5)
Very low (L) (0; 0; 0.3)
wi,x is the fuzzy triangular number which is
adopted to translate the linguistic importance
judgment given to the ith SF by the xth customer.
wi,x fuzzy numbers have been pooled to determine
an aggregate value to be used in the HOQ, that is
the relative importance Wi previously defined. To
this extent, the relative importance Wi of service
factor ith can be computed as a weighted average of
wi,x, being weight the importance of customers. The
weighted average takes into account the issue that
not all customers are equal: being resources limited,
the firm should tend to provide best class service for
those factors which are important for key custo-
mers. In the specific case, the following equation is
applied.
X
4
Wi ¼ I x  wi;x ; i ¼ 1; . . . ; n; (9)
x¼1
being Ix the importance of xth customer surveyed
(x ¼ 1,y,4).
Based on values shown in Table 3, the work
group has expressed a fuzzy importance judgment
using the same 4-point linguistic scale. The resulting
fuzzy numbers have been used in the computation
of Wi. Results are shown in Table 7. As can be seen
from the table, the four customers consider delivery
reliability, accuracy and flexibility as the most
important factors.
Once Wi were calculated, the weighted impor-
tance Wi* ½n  1 of SFs was computed in accor-
dance with Eq. (4). As regards to the crisp distance
di between the firm’s performance and the one that
is perceived by customer as superior, the parameter
has been computed as the average of crisp distances
di,x the generic xth customer perceives against ith
service factor, as shown in the following equation:
P4
d i;x
d i ¼ x¼1 ; i ¼ 1; . . . ; n. (10)
4
Parameters di,x have been obtained basing on the
survey results and by applying Eq. (3). To this
extent, a section of the survey was dedicated to
performance judgments about the service delivered
by the firm to its customers. The customers were
asked to judge the service level they were receiving
for each service factor, using the linguistic scale
shown in Table 6. Moreover, for each SF, the
customers had to indicate the judgment which best
matched their perception of a superior service. di,x
parameters as they result from the survey, di values,
and the corresponding weighted importance Wi* are
shown in Table 8.
From outcomes analysis, it emerges that custo-
mers perceive a significant difference between the
firm’s service performance and optimum one in
terms of delivery accuracy. As can be seen compar-
ing Tables 8 and 7, delivery accuracy is not
considered as the most important service factor
from customers’ point of view, but since the
performance delivered is far from meeting customer
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
E. Bottani, A. Rizzi / Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599 595

Table 7
Fuzzy importance wi,x assigned to service factors by each customer and the relative importance of service factors Wi

Service factors

Lead-time Flexibility Accuracy Reliability Fill rate Frequency Organization Complaints

accessibility management

Importance C1 VH H H VH VL L L L
judgment C2 L H H VH L L VL L
C3 L H VH H L L VL L
C4 H VH H H L VL L L

Relative importance C1 (0.7; 1; 1) (0.5; 0.7; 1) (0.5; 0.7; 1) (0.7; 1; 1) (0; 0; 0.3) (0; 0.3; 0.5) (0; 0.3; 0.5) (0; 0,3; 0,5)
wi,x C2 (0; 0.3; 0.5) (0.5; 0.7; 1) (0.5; 0.7; 1) (0.7; 1; 1) (0; 0.3; 0.5) (0; 0.3; 0.5) (0; 0; 0.3) (0; 0,3; 0,5)
C3 (0; 0.3; 0.5) (0.5; 0.7; 1) (0.7; 1; 1) (0.5; 0.7; 1) (0; 0.3; 0.5) (0; 0.3; 0.5) (0; 0; 0.3) (0; 0,3; 0,5)
C4 (0.5; 0.7; 1) (0.7; 1; 1) (0.5; 0.7; 1) (0.5; 0.7; 1) (0; 0.3; 0.5) (0; 0; 0.3) (0;0.3; 0.5) (0; 0,3; 0,5)

Relative importance (0.740; 2; 3) (1.3; 2.59; 4) (1.3; 2.59; 4) (1.48; 2.98; 4) (0; 0.72; 1.8) (0; 0.81; 1.8) (0; 0.51; 1.6) (0; 1.02; 2)
of service factors Wi

requirements, it should be considered as one of the
key service factors to tune.
The next step in the construction of the HOQ was
the assessment of the relationships matrix Rij
½n  m. To this extent, strategic actions SAs for
customer satisfaction have been listed in columns,
while service factors SFs have been crossed over in
rows. The degree of relationship (weak, medium,
strong) between SAs and SFs has been expressed by
the work group using graphics symbols, which are
usually adopted in crisp QFD approaches. Since
fuzzy logic is exploited to well cope with the ill-
defined nature of linguistics judgements, graphics
symbols have been then translated into as many
fuzzy triangular numbers instead of crisp ones.
Table 9 shows the correspondence between symbols
and fuzzy numbers.
During this phase, the work group benefited from
a preliminary literature survey phase, which strived
to highlight the relationships between service factors
and strategic actions. The resulting relationships
matrix is shown in the centre of Table 11.
The roof of correlations was built up in a similar
manner. Again, traditional QFD symbols have been
used to express the correlations between strategic
actions (strong negative, negative, positive, strong
positive); symbols have been thus translated into
fuzzy triangular numbers, as shown in Table 10.
Once the relationships matrix and the roof of
correlations were compiled, the relative importance
RIj and the weighted importance RIj* of each
strategic action were computed in accordance with
Eqs. (5) and (6) respectively. Results are shown in
Table 11.
Then, the cost Cj for the implementation of each
strategic action was determined to evaluate the
marginal benefit Uj. To this extent, the work group
members were asked to express a linguistic judg-
ment about the investment required for each
strategic action, by using the same 4 value fuzzy
scale previously shown in Table 6. Results are
shown in Table 11. It should be remarked that fuzzy
logic was found to be a very consistent and easy to
use tool to handle such a vague, imprecise and ill-
defined issue as costs estimation for strategic
actions.
Then, the fuzzy resulting benefits Uj have been
computed according to Eq. (7). Finally, fuzzy Uj
parameters were de-fuzzified applying Eq. (10).
Crisp Uj obtained can be regarded as synthesis
parameters, expressing the overall efficiency of
implementing the jth strategic action. The final
ranking of strategic actions together with the fuzzy
and crisp Uj values are shown in the last two rows of
Table 11.
As a result, Information Technology emerged as
the strategic action with the highest implementation
priority, since, despite the very high cost for
implementation, it makes it possible to improve
the most important service factors, such as delivery
accuracy and reliability. In addition, Information
Technology has positive relationships against lead-
time, fill-rate, delivery frequency and organization
accessibility, and it has been proved to have positive
correlations against other strategic actions. In
particular, a strong positive relationship can be
found between information technology and JIT
implementation and there is a positive relationship
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
596 E. Bottani, A. Rizzi / Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599

Table 9

(0.056; 0.150; 0.225)

(0.163; 0.324; 0.5)
(0.423; 0.842; 1.3)
(0.111; 0.224; 0.3)
Degree of relationship, graphic symbols and corresponding fuzzy

importance Wi*

(0; 0.102; 0.32)

(0; 0.203; 0.45)
(0; 0.09; 0.225)
numbers

(0; 0.225; 0.5)

Weighted Degree of relationship Graphic symbol Fuzzy number

Strong K (0.7; 1; 1)
Medium J (0.3; 0.5; 0.7)
Weak m (0; 0; 0.3)
importance Wi

(1.48; 2.98; 4)

(0; 0.51; 1.6)

(0; 0.72; 1.8)
(0; 0.81; 1.8)
(1.3; 2.59; 4)
(1.3; 2.59; 4)
(0.740; 2; 3)

(0; 1.02; 2)
Relative

Table 10
Degree of correlation, graphic symbols and corresponding fuzzy
numbers
Distance di

Degree of correlation Graphic symbol Fuzzy number

0.075
0.075
0.125
0.325

0.125

0.25
0.25
0.2

Strong positive K (0.7; 1; 1)

Positive J (0.5; 0.7; 1)
0.1
0.1

0.5
0.1

0.6
C4

Negative (0; 0.3; 0.5)

0

0
0

&
Strong negative ’ (0; 0; 0.3)
0.1
0.1
0.1

0.5
C3

0
0
0

0
Distance di,x

0.6
0.5
0.1

0.1

0.5
0.5
C2

0
0

0.1
0.5
0.6
C1

between information technology and demand fore-

0
0
0

0
0

casting methods.
Distances di from the optimum performance and weighted importance Wi* of each service factor

VH
VH
VH

VH
C4

H
H

H
H

4. Conclusions
Optimum performance

VH
VH
VH
VH
VH
C3

H
H

This study has addressed the applicability of

L

QFD in the logistics and supply chain management

context. More specifically, an original methodology
VH
VH
VH
VH
C2

H
H
H

has been proposed and adopted to rank viable

strategic actions a firm can undertake to improve
VH
VH
VH

VH
C1

logistics performances.
H
H

H
H

The methodology developed could be rightly

considered as a useful tool for selecting the most
C4

H
H
H
H

H
H

L
L

efficient and effective logistics leverages to reach

customer satisfaction. In particular, the methodol-
Performance judgments

VH
VH

ogy allows the identification of the service factors

C3

H
H

H
H

L
L

that are perceived to affect logistics performances

from the customer’s point of view, enabling the
VH
C2

H
H

assessment of possible gaps between customers’ and

L
L
L
L

firm’s perception of logistics service. As a matter of

fact, this is why firm’s perception should not be
VH
VH
C1

H
H
H
L
L

considered as the starting point in developing

service strategies, while direct interviews with
Organization accessibility
Complaints management

customers are required. In our approach, such an

issue is addressed through the computation of the
distance between firm performance in terms of
logistics service and that which is perceived by
Frequency
Reliability
Lead-time
Flexibility
Accuracy

customers as superior.
Fill rate
Table 8

In a similar manner, basing on the importance of

customers, the weighted importance of service
Table 11
The customer service house of quality

0;0.3;0.5

0.7;1;1

0.5;0.7;1

Strategic actions Relative Real importance

importance W i W i*
Just-In-Time Order picking Information Demand Customer Warehouses
philosophy optimization technology forecasting relationship lay-out
methods management optimization

Service factors Lead-time (0.7; 1; 1) (0; 0.3; 0.5) (0.7; 1; 1) (0; 0.3; 0.5) (0.740; 2; 3) (0.056; 0.150; 0.225)
Flexibility (0.7; 1; 1) (0.3; 0.5; 0.7) (0; 0.3; 0.5) (1.3; 2.59; 4) (0.163; 0.324; 0.5)
Accuracy (0.3; 0.5; 0.7) (0.3; 0.5; 0.7) (1.3; 2.59; 4) (0.423; 0.842; 1.3)
ARTICLE IN PRESS

Reliability (0.3; 0.5; 0.7) (0.3; 0.5; 0.7) (0; 0.3; 0.5) (1.48; 2.98; 4) (0.111; 0.224; 0.3)
Fill rate (0.3; 0.5; 0.7) (0.3; 0.5; 0.7) (0; 0.72; 1.8) (0; 0.09; 0.225)
Frequency (0.3; 0.5; 0.7) (0; 0.3; 0.5) (0; 0.81; 1.8) (0; 0.203; 0.45)
Organization accessibility (0.7; 1; 1) (0.7; 1; 1) (0; 0.51; 1.6) (0; 0.102; 0.32)
Complaints management (0.7; 1; 1) (0; 1.02; 2) (0; 0.225; 0.5)

Relative importance RI j (0.3125; 1.1076; 2.16) (0; 0; 0.0675) (0.248; 0.99; 2.3075) (0; 0.045; 0.2475) (0; 0.357; 0.97) (0; 0; 0.0675)
Real importance RI j* (0.486; 2.099; 4.5013) (0; 0; 0.0675) (0.4665; 2.131; 4.715) (0.124; 0.7391; 2.555) (0; 0.357; 0.97) (0; 0.3323; 1.1475)
E. Bottani, A. Rizzi / Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599

Cost of implementation C j (0.7; 1; 1) (0.5; 0.7; 1) (0.7; 1; 1) (0.5; 0.7; 1) (0.5; 0.7; 1) (0.7; 1; 1)
Utility factor U j (0.486; 2.099; 6.430) (0; 0; 0.135) (0.4665; 2.131; 6.736) (0.124; 1.056; 5.11) (0; 0.51; 1.94) (0; 0.3323; 1.639)
Crisp values 2.779 0.03375 2.8659 1.836 0.74 0.5759
597
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
598 E. Bottani, A. Rizzi / Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599
factors allows the firm to identify the key factors of
intervention in order to improve the perceived
service. As an example, delivery reliability emerges
in Table 7 as the most important factor from
customers’ point of view, while, based on the
judgements the customers give on the performance
delivered, delivery accuracy should be considered as
the key service factors to tune (see Table 8).
In order to assess and rank viable strategic actions,
in the approach proposed we have introduced a utility
factor, which considers the costs of implementation
for each ‘‘how’’. The utility factor can be directly
adopted as a synthesis parameter to select the most
suitable strategic action to implement.
The methodology has been found to be an effective
and easy tool to adopt. Once a preliminary survey
phase concerning customer service perception is
properly set up, results returned can be easily
processed in the proposed HOQ, giving the most
efficient strategic action to improve customer service.
In addition, the QFD approach proposed has made it
possible to appraise the beneficial impact of strategic
leverages over service factors, as well as the positive
correlations with other strategic actions.
Since personal judgements are required when
building the customer service HOQ, fuzzy logic has
been adopted as a useful tool. Through fuzzy logic
linguistic judgments a DM gives to weights,
relationships and correlations have been appropri-
ately translated into triangular a fuzzy number.
Moreover, fuzzy logic has allowed to cope well with
uncertainties and incomplete understanding of the
relationships between ‘‘hows’’ and between ‘‘hows’’
and ‘‘whats’’. In addition, fuzzy logic becomes
fundamental to dealing with several parameters
that seem difficult to express in a quantitative
measure. As an example, detailed information
about costs of implementation for strategic actions
are usually not available, while linguistic judge-
ments on costs can be easily obtained.
The methodology proposed does not deal with
the practical implementation of strategic actions.
Future work may be thus directed to extend a
similar QFD approach from a strategic level to
tactical and operational ones.
References
Akao, Y., 1990. Quality Function Deployment: Integrating
Customer Requirements into Product Design. The Produc-
tivity Press, Cambridge, MA.
Bailey, G., 1996. Customer care—Making it work. Managing
Service Quality 6 (3), 36–38.
Baines, A., 1996. Designing customer service programmes. Work
Study 45 (1), 20–23.
Behara, R.S., Chase, R.B., 1993. Service quality deployment:
Service quality by design. In: Sarin, R.V. (Ed.), Perspectives in
Operations Management: Essays in Honor of Elwood S.
Buffa. Kluwer Academic Publisher, Norwell, MA.
Bouchereau, V., Rowlands, H., 2000. Quality function deploy-
ment: The unused tool. Engineering Management Journal,
45–52 February.
Chien, C.J., Tsai, H.H., 2000. Using fuzzy numbers to evaluate
perceived service quality. Fuzzy Sets and Systems 116,
289–300.
Choen, L., 1995. Quality Function Deployment: How to Make
QFD Work for You. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,
Reading, MA.
Christopher, M., 1998. Logistics and Supply Chain Management.
Pitman Publishing, London, UK.
Franceschini, F., Rafele, C., 2000. Quality evaluation in Logistics
services. International Journal of Agile Management Systems
2 (1), 49–53.
Franceschini, F., Rossetto, S., 1997. Design for quality: Selecting
product’s technical features. Quality Engineering 9 (4),
681–688.
Hauser, J.R., Clausing, D., 1988. The house of quality. Harvard
Business Review 66 (3), 63–73.
Keller, S.B., Savitskie, K., Stank, T.P., Lynch, D.F., Ellinger,
A.E., 2002. A summary and analysis of multi-item scales used
in logistics research. Journal of Business Logistics 23 (2),
83–281.
Lapidus, R.S., Schibrowsky, J.A., 1994. Aggregate complaint
analysis: A procedure for developing customer service
satisfaction. Journal of Services Marketing 8 (4), 50–60.
Lee-Kelley, L., Davies, S., Kangis, P., 2002. Service quality
for customer retention in the UK steel industry: Old
dogs and new tricks? European Business Review 14 (4),
276–286.
Morris, J., 1996. Leading to customer care. Industrial and
Commercial Training 28 (5), 7–10.
Philip, G., Hazlett, S.A., 1996. The measurement of service
quality: A new P-C-P attributes model. International Journal
of Quality & Reliability Management 14 (3), 260–286.
Robledo, M.A., 2001. Measuring and managing service quality:
Integrating customer expectations. Managing Service Quality
11 (1), 22–31.
Stuart, F.I., Tax, S.S., 1996. Planning for service quality: An
integrative approach. International Journal of Service In-
dustry Management 7 (4), 58–77.
Tang, J., Fung, R.Y.K., Baodong, X., Wang, D., 2002. A new
approach to quality function deployment planning with
financial consideration. Computers & Operations Research
29, 1447–1463.
Trappey, C.V., Trappey, A.J.C., Hwang, S.J., 1996. A com-
puterized quality function deployment approach for retail
services. Computers and Industrial Engineering 30 (4),
611–622.
Vandermerwe, S., Rada, J., 1988. Servitization of business:
Adding value by adding services. European Management
Journal 6 (4), 314–324.
Yager, R.R., 1981. A procedure for ordering fuzzy subsets of the
unit interval. Information Science 24, 143–161.
 ARTICLE IN PRESS
E. Bottani, A. Rizzi / Int. J. Production Economics 103 (2006) 585–599 599

Zadeh, L.A., 1965. Fuzzy sets. Information and Control 8,
338–353.
Zeithaml, V.A., 1988. Consumer perception of price, quality and
value: A means-end model and synthesis of evidence. Journal
of Marketing, 2–22.
Zeithaml, V.A., Parasuraman, A., Berry, L.L., 1990. Delivering
Quality Service: Balancing Customer Perception and Expec-
tations. The Free Press, New York, NY.
Zimmermann, H.J., 1991. Fuzzy Set Theory and its Applications,
second ed. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Boston.