Contents

Introduction........................................................................................................................................................................... 2

QFD...................................................................................................................................................................................... 2

Six Sigma.............................................................................................................................................................................. 5

Six steps................................................................................................................................................................................ 6

Main and supporting processes.............................................................................................................................................7

Transformation......................................................................................................................................................................8

Quality management techniques............................................................................................................................................8

Pareto diagram.................................................................................................................................................................. 8

NP-Chart...........................................................................................................................................................................9

Cause and Effect.............................................................................................................................................................10

Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................................................... 10

References...........................................................................................................................................................................13

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Introduction
Laptop, since its first appearance in 1970, has become indispensable tool in study, work, creation and

entertainment. Contribution of the laptop in those spheres is very significant. And the further we develop this

industry; the better it becomes. However, two issues haunt us for the last half a century. According to Bou-

Rabee (2015), the major problems are overheating, that leads to low performance or even in severe cases to

laptop’s crush, and noisiness that comes from ventilation systems, that tries to cool down a laptop. How these

issues and the biggest complaints can be addressed and corrected will be discussed in the report.

QFD
In order to understand your customers or target audience one thing that you can do is talking to them, listening

to their needs and wants, their struggles and achievements. One of the applicable tools to achieve that clear

communication is QFD (Quality function deployment). The advantage of using QFD is that this tool gives you

opportunity to both describe your customer’s voice and at the same time making you to find a way to fulfill

those needs. Moreover, the analysis of rival companies is also included in the method mentioned above. QFD

can be applied to any sphere and business, where certain improvements should be made.

With a help of primary and secondary research, we found out our target audience preferences. The first step to

conduct quality function deployment methodology, is to insert customer requirements data collected by surveys.

Our target customers are business people, who travels, aged from 25 to 35, males and females. Their

preferences differ from tastes of ordinary laptop users. We indicated eleven requirements, that they consciously

and unconsciously want to see in the laptops. Further, we calculated relative weight of each parameter, and at

the most priority were three requirements: silent, does not heat up and high performance.

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 Screen resolution & diagonal
Technical Requirements

Keyboard & mousepad

Operational System
Laptop material
Cooling system

Processor

Battery

Design

RAM
 
 
Customer Requirements    
Silent     3         3    

Does not heat up   9           3    

Light           9 3      

Affordable price                    

Nice design       3       9    

High performance   3 9           9 3

13-inch diagonal       9            

Full HD resolution     3 9            

Big and convenient mousepad         9     3    

Comfortable keyboard         9     3    

High battery capacity             9      

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The next step was to translate those customer requirements into technical requirements, by finding the way to

satisfy them. For example, cooling system will address the issue with overheating, processor and RAM memory

will provide high performance, by designing nice and convenient design we will satisfy the need in nice design.

After that we should find relationships between tech and customer requirements, and give the level of strength

1, 3 or 9. By doing so, we then can calculate relative importance of each technical requirements, and reduce or

even get rid of unnecessary parameters that not needed by buyers. The relationship matrix indicated that we

should prioritize processor, screen and design of the laptop. It also showed that operational system does not play

a crucial role, we rather can just sell it without one.

One more thing that QFD helps to determine, is correlation between technical requirements. In correlation

matrix of a laptop, we can observe that cooling system, designed to satisfy “does not heat up” requirement, has

three negative correlations with processor, battery and RAM. These three technical requirements get hot during

the operations, thus loads the colling system. Moreover, the battery has three negative correlations, one

mentioned above, and two others with the processor and screen. As the bigger the screen and more powerful the

processor is, the more energy consumption by a laptop will be observed.

Through the secondary research we also made competitors evaluation. We choose Apple MacBook and Asus

ZenBook, to evaluate them according to our customer requirements. Evaluation showed that MacBook fully

satisfies customers, but the only issue with it is the price. In comparison ZenBook is as twice as cheaper than

MacBook. But nonetheless, customers prefer second choice over the first one. Thus, in manufacturing of our

laptops we will not save on component, but rather make the perfect laptop.

Laptop that we are designing will have following characteristics. The core of the laptop, processor, will be

acquired from Intel, we decided to install Core i5 8th Gen. This is not only a powerful cheap, that will provide

high performance, but also not energy consuming, and the price is reasonable. The diagonal will be 13 inches as

customers required along with a full HD screen matrix. The mousepad will be covered with glass, and windows

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precision trackpad drivers will be installed for a better tracking. The keyboard will be made using butterfly

technology, so keystrokes will be smooth and responsive. Battery capacity will be 4,500 milliamp hours, this

allows 12 hours of straight work without a charger. Design of laptop, color spectrum and raw materials used for

laptop’s body decisions will be further made by design department.

Creation of just another laptop will not lead us to success. The unique feature added in the laptop, however, can

do it. We identified, that majority of laptops has the issues with processor overheating. Then we designed new

noise free ventilation system, that will have mini fridges from where ventilators will take the cold air. This will

vastly reduce the temperature of laptop during the resource-intensive processes.

Six Sigma
Now when the design of the product is ready, its turn to the operations management. According to Tallyfy

(2020), operations management is the administration of corporate processes aimed at achieving optimum

productivity within a business, which in turn aims to increase profitability. By simple saying, operations

management is getting the most out of company’s resources (people, material, technology, machinery). One of

the operational management approaches that is widely used called Six Sigma. This approach suggests that in

order to achieve 3.4 defective product per million opportunities, company should keep their production process

within six standard deviations from mean (Wong, 2006). This method was first introduced in 1986 at Motorola.

Six sigma has two strategies, and both of them are aimed to improve the quality of output. This is achieved by

determining the causes of low quality and afterwards deliverance from them. According to Montgomery (2008),

any Six Sigma initiative in an enterprise takes a series of actions and has well established targets. There are two

types of six sigma methodologies, and they differ based on project’s maturity.

DMADV or also known as DFSS, method is intended to be applied for the new projects like ours. DMADV has

five stages:

 Define – defining the goals of the new project, that are consistent with customer requirements

 Measure – finding the critical quality characteristics, measuring manufacturing capabilities and risks

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  Analyze – development of alternative designs

 Design – designing the most suited alternative from analyze stage

 Verify – checking the product, does it really match the customer specifications

The total 'professionalization' of quality control functions is a central advancement, that implementation of Six

Sigma in our production process will be achieved.

Six steps
Six steps that lead to the conformance to specifications, is a process of achieving perfect quality of products.

Compliance with the specification means the production of a product or the provision of a service to the

specification of its design. It is usually considered to be the most important contribution to customer quality

perception by operational management (Slack, 2010).

First Step – to identify quality characteristics of the laptop by six different parameters: functionality,

appearance, reliability, durability, recovery and contact.

Second Step – to determine the way to measure quality characteristics.

Third Step – set standards

Fourth Step – Control quality according to those standards

Fifth Step – Find and fix causes of defects

Sixth Step – Continue to make improvements

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 Quality characteristics Laptop Measurment Standard Sample Time
Functionality Speed, Checked with passed the in the end of
performance laptop test manufacturing
performance test process
program -

Appearance Aesthetic, checked by quality no any during the

shape control staff visible
flaws
- production
process
Reliability Mean time to Checked under 300 hours in the end of
crushes high load test without manufacturing
performance any crush process
+

Durability Product's useful Is useful life as yes in the end of

life stated + manufacturing
process
Recovery Ease of repair is the breakage yes after the sale
subject to repair +
Contact Knowledge and Did customers feel yes after the sale
courtesy of well served
sales staff
+

Main and supporting processes

The production process always includes main and supporting processes, which is in our product looks like as

given in a chart below. Main processes are activities that are concerned with the core attributes of a product,

while supporting processes are the helpers that are concerned with providing even greater value for a user.

Packaging
Supporting processes

Customer service

Fast repairing policy

Finance

HR department, training staff

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 Melding Assembling Assemblin Operational Delivering to retailers
laptop body body parts of g inside of system or directly to
parts a laptop laptop installation customers.

Main Processes

Transformation

Process Input Transformation Output

Melding laptop Raw materials (transformed) material body parts
body parts transformation
Machinery (transforming)
Assembling body parts (transformed) physical laptop body
body parts of a transformation
laptop Labor (transforming)
Assembling laptop body, processor, RAM, ventilation system, physical laptop
inside of laptop transformation
motherboard (transformed)

Labor (transforming)

Operational laptop, OS (transformed) intellectual laptop with OS

system processing
installation Labor, computer (transforming)
Delivering to Laptop with OS (transformed) location happy
retailers or transformation customer
directly to Labor, car (transforming)
customers.

Quality management techniques

Pareto diagram
Always producing a good quality product is the best scenario, however in a real life it is hardly ever the case.

Because, there are different situations, both outside and inside of the manufacturing process that influences the

process. Because of that it is natural that sometimes there are defective products produced. One of the ways to

identify the most impactful error is Pareto diagram which helps to find errors, and how they influence on the

overall progress (Six-Sigma-Material.com, 2020). This chart’s benefits are that, it helps to see errors
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immediately, which means the business can find a solution fast too. In our case the defect that is having the

most serious impact is “Broken keyboard”, by making almost 50 % negative impact on the situation. Other

defects are overheating, missing bolt and, slow performance, which come after “Broken keyboard”.

Defects Quantity Frequency Cumulative

Broken key 45 53% 53%
Missing bolt 20 24% 76%
Overheating 12 14% 91%
Slow performance 8 9% 100%

NP-Chart
As it was discussed above, errors made during manufacturing can be either micro defects, that are avoidable and

under control, while they may be other impact coming from outside which are not under our control like Covid-

19. One way to make sure, which is the scenario for us is NP-chart, which helps us to see which problem is

under our control, which is not. In our case, all dots which are defects are between upper and lower limits,

meaning those are errors which somehow can be solved. Why do we need to know that? Cause if the error is

under our control, we can put our effort into it and get it solved, rather than concentrating on what cannot be

solved with our capacity.

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 NP chart
12

10

0
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
-2

-4

p_bar CL UCL LCL

Cause and Effect

Ishikawa diagram is a quality management tool, that is widely used for determining the possible causes of

defects. There is a disparity between each cause or explanation for imperfection (Clary, 2010). These causes of

difference are generally divided into major groups to define and classify.

There are many variations of fishbone diagram, we will use the 4M fishbone diagram: material, machine,

method and manpower. We did not include any causes in machine part, because all the assembling processes

are done by labor. The diagram indicated that broken key defect has five potential causes.

Conclusion
Laptop’s market is very competitive, as this industry is on its maturity stage of life. We tried to create a laptop

that will satisfy the needs of our target audience. The laptop with a great cooling system, which will be as silent

as the fish in the ocean. Nice and refined design. Great quality achieved thanks to Six Sigma. And of course,

conformance to the customer characteristics. All this is made to make our customers happy.

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 Metho Materia
d l
cause 1 cause 1
Unsuitable fastening Weak plastic
cause 2 cause 2

Decrepit rubber

cause 3 Effect
Broken
Key

cause 1 cause 1
experience

cause 2 cause 2
knowledge

cause 3

Manpowe Machine
r

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 QF D: Hou se of Qu a lit y
P r oject :
Revision :
Dat e:

Corre lat io n s (R oo f)
Posit ive +
Ne gat ive −
N o Cor r elat ion

R e latio n s h ips
St r ong ●
▽ 9
Mod er at e ○ 3 − +
Weak 1 +
D ire cti on of Im prove◇
men t
−
− +
Maximize ▲
Tar get
− +
+ −
Min imize ▼
−
Colu mn # 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 Do NOT DO YOUR produ c ts e va lu at i on , be c au s e yo
Cust omer Com pet it ive Assesmen t
Technica l Requ ir em en t s

Scr een r esolu t ion & d ia ga n a l

Cust om er Im por t a n ce

Keyboa r d & m ou sepa d

Oper a t iona l Syst em

Cu st om er
Rela t ive Weight

La p t op m a t er ia l
Weigh t Cha r t

Requ ir em en t s
Cooling syst em

Se llin g P oin ts
Ma cbook
Zen book
Pr ocessor

Ba t t er y
Row #

Row #
Design

RAM

0 1 2 3 4 5

1 ||||| 12% 9 S ilen t 3 3 5 4 1 *

2 ||||| 12% 9 Does n ot h ea t up 9 3 4 4 2 *

3 ||| 8% 6 Ligh t 9 3 4 5 3

4 |||| 9% 7 Affor dable pr ice 3 4 4

5 |||| 9% 7 Nice design 3 9 5 4 5

6 ||||| 10% 8 H igh per for m a nce 3 9 9 3 5 4 6 *

7 |||| 9% 7 13-in ch diagan a l 9 5 5 7

8 ||| 8% 6 F ull H D r esolu t ion 3 9 5 5 8

9 ||| 8% 6 Big an d conven ien t m ousepad 9 3 5 4 9

10 ||| 8% 6 Com for t able k eyboa r d 9 3 5 4 10

11 |||| 9% 7 H igh ba tt er y capacit y 9 4 4 11

12 78 12

13 13

14 Our Product 14
Competitor #1
15 Competitor #2 15
Competitor #3
16 Competitor #4 16

Te ch n ic al Im po rtan ce : Abs olu te 852 105 117 138 108 54 81 153 72 24

Te ch n ical Impo rt an ce : R e la tive 100% 12% 14% 16% 13% 6% 10% 18% 8% 3%

Weight Char t
||||||||
||||||||
||||||

||||||

||||||

||||

||||
|||

Ta r get
▲

▼
◇

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References
1. Bou-Rabee A., Shaharin A. and Wan M (2015). Enhanced Cooling of Laptop Computer for

Improvement of Processing Performance. Global Journal of Computer Science and Technology: H

Information & Technology. Volume 15 Issue 5 Version 1.0. Available from

https://globaljournals.org/GJCST_Volume15/1-Enhanced-Cooling-of-Laptop.pdf [Accessed 7

November 2020].

2. Tallyfy. (2020). What Is Operations Management [Theory & Practice]. Available from

<https://tallyfy.com/guides/operations-management/> [Accessed 7 November 2020].

3. Wong, E. (2006). Six-Sigma & Simulation: A Yin-Yang Approach to Better. Phalanx, 39(3), 12-14.

Available from http://www.jstor.org/stable/24909543 [Accessed 7 November 2020].

4. Montgomery D., and Woodall W. (2008). An Overview of Six Sigma. International Statistical Review /

Revue Internationale De Statistique, 76(3), 329-346. Available from

http://www.jstor.org/stable/27919650 [Accessed 5 November 2020].

5. Slack, N., Chambers, S. and Johnston, R., (2010). Operations Management. 6th ed.

6. Clary R., and Wandersee J. (2010). Fishbone Diagrams: Organize Reading Content With a "Bare Bones"

Strategy. Science Scope, 33(9), 31-37. Available from http://www.jstor.org/stable/43184028 [Accessed

7 November 2020].

7. Six-Sigma-Material.com. (2020). Pareto Diagram. Six-Sigma-Material Available from https://www.six-

sigma-material.com/Pareto-Diagram.html [Accessed 6 November 2020].

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