Understanding Customer

Requirements

Principles of Design

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 Need to focus
Moving in the wrong direction at a fast pace
is still moving in the wrong direction.

Ri
g
ng

ht
Wro

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 Information on QFD….
 Developed in Japan in the mid 1970s
 Introduced in USA in the late 1980s
 Toyota was able to reduce 60% of cost to
bring a new car model to market
 Toyota decreased 1/3 of its development
time
 Used in cross functional teams
 Companies feel it increased customer
satisfaction
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 Why….?
 Product should be designed to reflect
customers’ desires and tastes.
 House of Quality is a kind of a conceptual map
that provides the means for interfunctional
planning and communications
 To understand what customers mean by quality
and how to achieve it from an engineering
perspective.
 HQ is a tool to focus the product development
process
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 QFD Target

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 Important points
 Should be employed at the beginning of every
project (original or redesign)
 Customer requirements should be translated into
measurable design targets
 It can be applied to the entire problem or any
subproblem
 First worry about what needs to be designed then
how
 It takes time to complete

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 Components of
House of Quality Hows vs
Hows
Customer
Evaluation

Who
Hows

This Product
Now

Who vs.
Whats
Whats

Now vs
Whats vs

What
Hows

Units
This Product
Hows vs
How Muches How
Muches
Targets
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 Extensions to House
of Quality

Ratio of Improvement
Customer
Evaluation

Useful Data
This Product

Target
Weighted Importance
Importance %
Units
This Product

Targets
Technical Difficulty
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 Step 1: Who are the
Hows vs
Hows
Customer
Evaluation

Who
Hows Now

This Product
customers?

Who vs.
Whats
Whats

Now vs
Whats vs

What
Hows

Units
This Product
Hows vs
How Muches How
Muches
Targets

 To “Listen to the voice of the customer”

first need to identify the customer
 In most cases there are more than one
customer
 consumer
Customers drive the
 regulatory agencies
development of the product,
 manufacturing not the designer
 marketing/Sales

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 Step 2: Determine the
customers’ requirements
Hows vs
 Need to determine what is to Hows
Customer

be designed
Evaluation

Who
Hows

This Product
Now

 Consumer

Who vs.
Whats
Whats

Now vs
Whats vs

What
product works as it should
Hows

Units
Hows vs
lasts a long time
This Product
 How Muches How
Muches

is easy to maintain
Targets


 looks attractive List all the

 incorporated latest technology demanded qualities
at the same level of
 has many features
abstraction
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 Step 2: cont...
 Manufacturing
 easy to produce
 uses available resources
 uses standard components and methods
 minimum waste
 Marketing/Sales
 Meets customer requirements
 Easy to package, store, and transport
 is suitable for display

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 Kano Model
Customer Satisfaction
+
Delighted
Basic Quality: These requirements are not

ce
usually mentioned by customers. These

an
rm
rfo
are mentioned only when they are absent Fully

Pe
Excitement implemented
from the product. Absent
Basic
Satisfiers
Performance Quality: provides an
increase in satisfaction as performance
improves -
Disgusted

Excitement Quality or “wow requirements”: are often

unspoken, possibly because we are seldom asked to
express our dreams. Creation of some excitement features
in a design differentiates the product from competition.
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 Types of customer
requirements
 Functional requirements describe the product’s
desired behavior
 Human factors
 Physical requirements
 Reliability
 Life-cycle concerns
 Resource concerns
 Manufacturing requirements

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 How to determine the
Whats?
 Customer survey (have to formulate the
questions very carefully)
 If redesign, observe customers using existing
products
 Combine both or one of the approaches with
designer knowledge/experience to determine
“the customers’ voice”

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 Affinity Diagram
 Provides structure for verbal data by
creating natural clusters or groups
 Ensures that the list of demanded
qualities are complete and expressed at
the same level of detail

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 Constructing Affinity Diagram
 Set a brainstorming session to list all possible requirements
 Record each element of the list on small cards
 Place all cards on a table randomly
Silent mode
 Spend time reading all demanded qualities
 Start at the same time, once everyone is ready - everyone quickly
and without thought find two demanded qualities that have
something in common
 If you find a demanded quality is not where you think it belongs,
move it. If it is moved again, make a duplicate and talk about it
later.
 The process continues until all demanded qualities are in a group.

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 Constructing Affinity Diagram
Discussion Mode
 Begin discussion after group composition for the demanded
qualities becomes stable
 First review the demanded qualities that seemed to have more
than one home
 Select a descriptive name for the groups. Group names must also
be demanded qualities, but at a higher level of abstraction
 Look at each group and judge if all elements are at the same level
of abstraction
 Check each group by asking “If this is the name of the group,
what elements should be included but are missing?”
 Next test for missing groups.
 Check with the types of customer requirements list
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 Step 3: Determine Relative Importance
of the Requirements: Who vs. What
 Need to evaluate the importance of
each of the customer’s requirements.
 Generate weighing factor for each
requirement by rank ordering or other
methods
Hows vs
Hows
Customer

Who
Evaluation

Hows

This Product
Now

Who vs.
Whats
Whats

Now vs
Whats vs

What
Hows

Units
This Product
Hows vs
How Muches How
Muches
Targets
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 Rank Ordering
 Order the identified customer requirements
 Assign “1” to the requirement with the lowest priority
and then increase as the requirements have higher
priority.
 Sum all the numbers
 The normalized weight
Rank/Sum
 The percent weight is: Rank*100/Sum

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 Step 4: Identify and Evaluate the Competition:
How satisfied is the customer now?
 The goal is to determine how the customer perceives the
competition’s ability to meet each of the requirements
 it creates an awareness of what already exists
 it reveals opportunities to improve on what already exists

Hows vs
The design: Hows
Customer

1. does not meet the requirement at all

Who
Evaluation

Hows

This Product
Now
2. meets the requirement slightly
3. meets the requirement somewhat

Who vs.
Whats
Whats

Now vs
Whats vs

What
4. meets the requirement mostly Hows

5. fulfills the requirement completely Units

Hows vs
This Product
How Muches How
Muches
Targets
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 Step 5: Generate Engineering
Specifications: How will the customers’
requirements be met?

 The goal is to develop a set of engineering

specifications from the customers’ requirements.
Restatement of the design problem and customer requirements in
terms of parameters that can be measured.

Hows vs
Hows
Customer

Who
Evaluation

Hows

This Product
Now
Each customer requirement
should have at least one

Who vs.
Whats
Whats

Now vs
Whats vs

What
engineering parameter. Hows

Units
This Product
Hows vs
How Muches How
Muches
Targets
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 Step 6: Relate Customers’ requirements
to Engineering Specifications: Hows
measure Whats?
 This is the center portion of the house. Each cell
represents how an engineering parameter relates to
a customers’ requirements.

Hows vs
Hows
9 = Strong Relationship Customer

Who
Evaluation

3 = Medium Relationship Hows

This Product
Now

1 = Weak Relationship

Who vs.
Whats
Blank = No Relationship at all Whats

Now vs
Whats vs

What
Hows

Units
This Product
Hows vs
How Muches How
Muches
Targets
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 Step 7: Identify Relationships Between
Engineering Requirements: How are the
Hows Dependent on each other?

 Engineering specifications maybe

dependent on each other.

9 = Strong Relationship
3 = Medium Relationship Hows vs
Hows
1 = Weak Relationship Customer

Who
Evaluation

-1 = Weak Negative Relationship Hows

This Product
Now

-3 = Medium Negative Relationship

Who vs.
-9 = Strong Negative Relationship

Whats
Whats

Now vs
Whats vs

What
Hows
Blank = No Relationship at all
Units
This Product
Hows vs
How Muches How
Muches
Targets
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 Step 8: Set Engineering Targets:
How much is good enough?
 Determine target value for each
engineering requirement.
 Evaluate competition products to
engineering requirements
 Look at set customer targets Hows vs
Hows
 Use the above two information to Customer

Who
Evaluation

set targets Hows

This Product
Now

Who vs.
Whats
Whats

Now vs
Whats vs

What
Hows

Units
This Product
Hows vs
How Muches How
Muches
Targets
Targets
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 Relationships Among Customer
Engineering Characteristics Evaluation
Identifying
Engineering performance measure conflicts
Characteristics Customer
Evaluation

Record Performance
Relative Importancemeasures for each customer
demanded
Record customer quality ratings for your
performance
Customer Attributes
Similar product and competitors’ products
Importance for each demanded quality needs
Relationship
The first step is tobetween
list alltothe
Technical demanded
bedemanded customer
determinedqualitiesqualities
benchmarking and
at the same
Engineering Performance
level of abstraction

Units Units
ObjectiveTechnical Difficulty associated with achieving
Engineering
Measures Targets/improvements and importance of Influence
Setting Technical
technical Targets
characteristics Customer
Determining Targets Qualities
Important Technical Difficulty Targets
Characteristics Importance
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 Components of Hows vs

House of Quality
Hows
Customer
Evaluation

Who
Hows

This Product
Now

Who vs.

Now vs
Whats
Whats vs

What
Whats Hows

Weighted Importance
Importance %

Addition to the Units

Hows vs
This Product
House of Quality How Muches How
Muches
presented in text Targets
book Rank
Technical Difficulty
Selected

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 Creating the
Requirement List
 Contents of Requirement List
 Specify if the individual items are demands or wishes in the

clearest possible terms

 Tabulate Quantitative and Qualitative aspects

 Collect further information

 If possible rank wishes as being of major, medium or minor

importance
 Living document

 Arrange the requirements in clear order

 Define the main objective and the main characteristics

 Split into identifiable groups

 Enter the Requirement list on standard forms and circulate

 Examine Objections
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 Requirement List
Requirements list Identification
Classification
User for Project, product Page
D
Changes Requirements Responsible
W
Specify wether item is D or W

Design Group Resposible

Date of Change

Objective or property with qualitative and quantitative data

Replaces Issues of:

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 Requirement
Name 1
Name 2
Name 3

List Example
Use information from House
of Quality as an starting point
for creating the requirement
list.

Need to identify requirements

for the product that are basic
and necessary but are not
specified by the customers.

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 Example House of Quality

Design a device to toast breads

and other similar types of food

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