Research Topics: Quality Function Deployment

Quality Function Deployment (FAD)

> > Dear Ivy, > > > > I have submitted my apply for assignment in your website 2 times, but can not > > success, Can you allow me to give you my assignment question, please help me > > to finished this assignment , about 3,000 words, need time on/before 15 > > April, 08. I have write the question as following , as well as attached > > useful information which is provide to me from my school ( hope it can help). > > Please confirm receive my this e-mail, and let me know how to pay money to > > you. > > > > Question : > > > > – Quality Function Deployment (FAD) is a tool that has been successfully > > employed by many well-known organizations in the development of new products > > and services. > > > > A). Apply the FAD model to a product or service within your organisation. > > (60%) > > > > B). Reflecting on your own application of the FAD model, comment on the > > utility of the model and highlight the > > problems that you encountered in its application. (20%) > > > > C). One of often cited benefits of FAD is that it facilities communication, > > coordination, and team working, between the various functions within the > > organisation during the product / service development process. Reflecting > > upon the prevailing culture, structure, and management style, within your > > organisation, discuss the ease with which FAD could be implemented within > > your organisation. (20%) > > > > > > Best regards, > > Jonnie Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Quality Function Deployment (FAD)

> > Dear Ivy, > > > > I have submitted my apply for assignment in your website 2 times, but can not > > success,...

Project Management_QFD

Abstract In the earlier days, civil and construction engineering projects were perceived to be purely technical. That is, engineers were focused on the technicalities like the specifications, the design, the materials, the strength of the construction materials, the equipments needed and the processes involved. However, as technologies improved and the demand of clients increased, projects, even it is technical in nature, have required business skills, thus project management emerged. Project management basically involves the business side of a project as well as the legal, ethical, and social aspects. Engineers today are required to hone not only technical skills but also business skills such as having an understanding of the market, good leadership in handling team members, and management skills to ensure that the projects do not only meet technical requirements but equally important, satisfied customers and are competitive enough to have the advantage against the competitors in the industry.             Due to these requirements, the construction industry has learned to integrate what is called Quality Function Deployment (QFD) with every construction projects it engages. QFD was first conceived in the 1960s for automobile manufacturing industry in Japan, by as a method or concept for new product development ( 1997). After that many manufacturing industry in America and Europe adopted the concept to improve project management in their companies, focusing on the design quality and customer satisfaction.             For this study, how and why QFD was adopted in the construction industry is determined since it was initially created for the manufacturing industry. The paper focuses on how QFD is implemented in construction projects and its importance in the success of a project. The primary objective of the paper is to demonstrate how QFD is being implemented by Project Managers in construction projects. The paper is organized as follows: the first part is an overview of QFD, its origin, definition, concept and application, while the second part is the background on construction project management which includes the practices in construction projects especially the practices involves in assuring that the project is at the best quality possible, that is there is time management and proper budgeting. The third section focuses on how QFD helped in improving the practices in project management in construction, exploring the advantages of QFD and its downsides if there was any. At the end of the study, a strong conclusion is established.             The paper uses secondary sources such as published articles and earlier studies as well as case studies of different construction projects where implementation of QFD has been successful.    1. Introduction             Companies have been seeking and adopting different practices to address the increasing demands of consumers today. These demands have become more complex due to the rapid development of technology, globalization and improved lifestyle. Different practices have emerged since the time of industrialization. These practices were adopted for cost reduction, improved processes, improved quality, increased customer satisfaction and to address fierce competition in the global market.               Before, companies can only compete if they have enough financial and physical resources to support the needs of a company as well as human resources to develop innovative products that can attract customers. But today, it is not enough that you have these resources. It is also important and necessary that companies adopt strategies and practices to maximize and take advantage on the available resources. This has been the reason why some small companies have expanded and developed into larger companies. These small companies have learned to deploy strategies and practices needed for the improvement of the company, in developing new products, in finding ways on how to maximize available technologies for the advantage of the company and to attract customers that make the business profitable.               Manufacturing companies are the first to developed practices in search for strategies on how to improve the products and services they provide the customers and to improve the processes to be able to save resources. The Six Sigma, Lean Manufacturing, Total Quality Management (TQM), Keiretsu, outsourcing, custom-built manufacturing, direct marketing and other are just some of the popular practices and strategies today. These practices are applied on different processes and business aspects where they are applicable and when aligned with the vision and mission of the company.             Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is one of the practices that were adopted by manufacturing companies today not only in Japan where it was originated but also in the United States and other countries. It has been proven to be effective in achieving customer satisfaction and improved quality in products and in processes. QFD is not only effective in the manufacturing industries but also in the service industry such as business consultancy, telecommunication and engineering and construction services.             This study is focused on the application of Quality Function Deployment in the engineering and construction services more specifically in project management. The paper investigates on the views and perception of project managers on QFD as well as its advantages on a project in construction and engineering.   2. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) 2.1 Origin of QFD There were already manufacturing companies in Japan even after the World War II. This was the time when statistical quality control (SQC), was the central quality activity of companies especially in manufacturing (1997). SQC was used extensively in the chemical industry in Japan (Ofuji et al, 1990), which in that case, quality control focused more on production, on how to improve the products and ensure quality on the products they produce using statistical data, whereas, statistical data were only obtained after all the products are produced. Manufacturing industries in Japan grew rapidly especially the automotive sector thus new practices were introduced and SQC was changed to Total Quality Management (TQM) in the years between 1960 to 1965 (2005). This change was driven by the effort of Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa who promoted the Company Wide Quality Control movement by convincing the top management of companies that employee participation is important in achieving quality control ( 1997).   During this time, Yoji Akao presented the concept and method of QFD just in time for the rapid growth of the Japanese mobile industry, which was undergoing extensive change, from product imitation to new product development and model changes ( 1997).   The concept of QFD was conceived to address the following issues: (1) people started to recognize the importance of design quality, but there are no available books about the importance of design quality during that time; and (2) companies were already using quality control (QC) process charts which was conceived from SQC, but theses charts were produced at the manufacturing site after the new products were released (1997).  wanted to address these issues due to the realization that there should be predetermined control points during the design process before the production activity. That is there should be quality assurance even before the production processes.  of Bridgestone tire Corporation presented a process assurance items table in 1966[1], which showed the links form substitute quality characteristic which were converted from true qualities, to the process factors ( 1997). From this, he added a field called Design Viewpoints to create a new table that can be used in new product development (1997).             Akao’s idea was introduced to different companies followed by the publication of his article entitled “New Product Development and Quality Assurance- Quality Deployment System”[2] where his concept and ideas were described. He used the term hinshitsu tenkai, which means quality deployment, to describe the method to deploy important quality assurance points before the production to ensure the design quality throughout the production process (1997). His idea of quality deployment (QD), however, was still not enough to set up design quality.             The Kobe Shipyards of Mitsubishi Heavy Industry, with the guidance of Dr.  and Dr.  (1972), created a quality chart that resolved the inadequacy of  QD. Their table, which was made public, was considered to be a table that systematized the true quality and satisfied customers’ needs, in terms of functions (1997). The table also showed the relationship between the functions that satisfy customers and the quality characteristics ( 1997).             This meant that QFD technically was not only  idea but also that of  who each had their contributions to the development of QFD. These integrated ideas were called Quality Deployment (QD), which became Quality Function Deployment overtime.  himself defined QD as a methodology that converts user demands into substitute quality characteristics, determines the design quality of the finished good, and systematically deploys this quality into component quality, individual quality and process elements and their relationships (1990).  Dr. also correlated QFD from Value Engineering to link QFD on business processes. Mizuno described QFD as a step-by-step deployment of a job function or operation that embodies quality into their details through systematization of targets and means ( 1978).             In 1983, QF was adopted by America and Europe when an Akao’s article was published in the journal of the American Society of Quality Control called Quality Progress (1997) followed by a seminar in Chicago[3] and some other lectures not only in America but also in Europe. The American automotive industry had begun adopting QFD after knowing its significance in the manufacturing industry. It was even translated as Quality Function Evolution in 1978 (1978) by a researcher at an American university the term Quality Function Deployment was the most appropriate term according to  ( 1997). 2.2 Quality Function Deployment Defined             Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is defined as a technique to deploy customer requirements into design characteristics and deploy them into subsystems, components, materials, and production processes (1998). This implies that the requirements of the customer will be the bases of the product design as well as the materials and components of the products a company provides. QFD is basically considered as part of strategic management, in which it is a strategy of addressing customer satisfaction.             QFD requires that before a product or service is manufactured or processed and presented to the customers, the requirements of the customers are known beforehand and have integrated with the technical aspects of the product or service. Traditionally, the company or the engineers in particular are the ones who design the product because they have the knowledge enough to create products and services. But today, the trend is that the knowledge of engineers or the product designers are aligned with the customer requirements. For example, a personal computer (PC) manufacturer knows the technicalities of making a computer, the design and the processes that a PC must undergo to function properly, but customers required that their PCs can be brought anywhere, so it should be small and compact, thus PC manufacturers created laptops and palmtops. Another example is with automobile; there are customers who want their cars big and tough while others want elegant and small cars, thus car manufacturers developed ways and methods on how to determine and assess these requirements, integrate these to the designs and development while ensuring quality. The qualities we are referring to are the qualities that can satisfy the end-user. These are the reasons behind the development of QFD: the correlation and integration of customer requirements in the design and processes of products and services to ensure that customers are satisfied because one of the objectives of a business must be customer satisfaction. These requirements must be translated into design values, or the needs of the customers must be translated into technical characteristics. It was also a tradition that quality assurance is done by inspecting the products after it has been made. In QFD, from the design stage up to the sales, quality is assured, that is company shifted from inspecting the product’s quality to designing quality into the product ( 1993). According to  (1986) every company’s operation including marketing, planning, design and engineering, prototype evaluation, production process development, production, sales and others should be driven by the “voice of the customer”. The definition of QFD to   (1988) gives more emphasis on organizational communication; that is “quality function deployment focuses and coordinates skills within an organization, first to design, then to manufacture and market goods that customers want to purchase and will continue to purchase.   2.3.The Four-Phase Model of QFD             QFD has a four-phase model also known as Clausing Four Phase Model (2006) or the ASI (American Supplier Institute) Model ( 1994). It involves four phases: the House of Quality or Product Planning, Parts Deployment, Process Planning, and Production Planning. The first phase involves collection of customer needs, customer requirements or customer attributes. This is also called the WHAT’s which is transformed into techin9ical measures, technical requirements, product design specifications, engineering characteristics, performance measures, or/and substitute quality characteristics called HOW’s (2002). This phase is the very important that it was called the House of Quality which links customer needs to the development team’s technical responses to meet these needs (1995).             The second phase called Parts Deployment is the stage where the technical measures or the HOWs are transformed into part characteristics. These part characteristics are then transformed into process parameters or production operations in the third phase called Process Planning. The fourth phase, which is called Production Planning, transforms operations into production requirements or production operations (2002).             The figure below illustrates the concept of the Four Phase Model. The model shows the basic product development steps when utilizing Quality Function Deployment. Source: Chan & Wu, 2002 The House of Quality (HOQ)             This phase is said to be the most difficult phase of QFD because it involves various steps first of which is to gather customer requirements to satisfy the objective of QFD, which is to provide quality that addresses the “voice of the customer”. There are various ways in which companies can gather customer requirements including interviews, market research, case studies, focus group and others.             HOQ basically has six parts: (1) the Customer Needs or the WHATs; (2) the Planning Matrix; (3) Technical Measures or the HOWs; (4) the Relationship Matrix Between WHATs and HOWs; (5) Technical Correlation Matrix; and (6) Technical Matrix. The figure below shows the details of the House of Quality:   Fig. 2: The House of Quality Source: 2002   A. Customer Needs (WHATs)             Customer Needs (WHATs) is subdivided into three steps. A1, the first step, is to identify the customer depending on the products or services a company provides. For example, if a company manufacture automobile, their customers will depend on the model and pricing of their cars. Products such as Jaguars and Limousine will attract upper-individuals while sports car attracts upper to middle-class customers. If a company is a PC manufacturer, itsprobable customer swill vary from private and public institutions, private individuals, students and businesses, while when a company is an appliance manufacturer, households are the most common customers. Customers can be identified through marketing research and previous data.             A2, the second step in the WHATs, involves determination of the needs of the customers identified. Their needs and requirements can be determined from the customers themselves. The American Supplier Institute (1) and Bicknell and Bicknell (1995) list methods for gathering customer needs. These are: survey through mail, telephone, comment/suggestion cards, or questionnaires; Focus groups wherein a facilitator guides a small group of randomly selected customers for a free-flowing discussion of the product; individual interviews; product in use: displays, clinics; Listening and observing by managers, engineers or mystery shoppers at trade shows and retail outlets where customers can make comments and conversation about the product; through sales meetings, service calls, or trade shows; customer complaints and feedbacks about the company’s own products and the competitors products; sales records; and publications, product reviews and consumer magazines.             These needs are then analyze and weigh depending on its importance. According to (3), customer needs can be structured into hierarchy of primary, secondary, and tertiary needs. The primary needs are also the strategic needs which is use to set the strategic directions for the product, secondary needs are also the tactical needs which indicate what must be done to fulfill the strategic directions implied by the primary needs, and the tertiary needs or the operational needs provide details that are needed to set engineering solutions to satisfy the secondary needs (2002). An example of hierarchical structure of customer needs is shown in the figure below: Primary Needs Secondary Needs Tertiary Needs Affordability Appropriate Materials Use of Low maintenance battery Use low-cost engine Safety Protection, Back –Up Protection from collision Back-up for loose brake Fig.3: Example of a hierarchical structure of customer needs in a car             A3, the third step in WHATs, involves prioritizing of the identified customer needs depending on its relative importance. Usually when customers are asked about their needs, they rate these needs according to their relative importance. It would be necessary to survey appropriate number of customers since the importance of the needs identified will vary from customer to customer. Common way of finding the importance of these needs is to rank them in the scale of 1-10. For example, affordability may rank higher than safety while good appearance usually rank higher than safety because customers might give more importance to appearance and affordability than safety.     B. Planning Matrix Planning matrix is basically customer competitive evaluations of the company’s product compared with its main competitors si8milar products in terms of the products’ performance on customer needs (2002).  A company’s product may satisfy a customer need in one aspect like for example, affordability but it may be outperformed by its competitors in terms of satisfying the need of good appearance. From these, comparative analysis the company may set strategic goals for its product to better satisfy the customer needs through evaluation of the company itself, by finding its own strength and weaknesses and comparing it with the competitors’. This will help determine why should a company work on some customers’ needs.             Planning Matrix consists of 4 steps, (B1) Customer Competitive Evaluation; (B2) Strategic Goals for WHATs; (B3) Sales Points of WHATs; and (B4) Strategic Importance of WHATs ( 2002).             B1: Customer Competitive Evaluation involves having awareness on the competitors who produced the same products and determining how customers perceive competitors’ products against a company’s own products. The perception of customers will show the strength and weaknesses of a company. This can be done by asking the customers to rate each WHATs in relation to your product and to that of the competitor. For example, the identified WHATs of Toyota Motors are Affordability, Safety and Good Appearance. The customers may ask to rate Toyota against Ford and GM in a scale of 1-10. The results may be as follows: WHATs Toyota Ford GM Affordability 9 6 5 Good Appearance 6 8 9 Safety 7 8 9 Scale: 1 to 10; 1= worst, 10 = excellent                 Fig.4: Sample Customer Competitive Evaluation The statistics shown in Figure 3 is best significant when the sampled number of customers is many and is familiar with products being rated. B2: Strategic Goals for WHATs is about setting numerical goals for each WHAT and must be realistic depending on the program timing, resources, cost objectives and available technology in a company (2002). The set goals will reflect the activities that a company will pursue in order to satisfy customer needs better (1). These activities may include adoption of strategies to improve or upgrade or improve product or service, or copy a competitor’s strategy.               B3: Sales Points of WHATs involves determination of the company’s ability to sell the product based on how well each customer need is met (11). A sales point indicates the possibility that will give the company a unique selling proposition (1). For example, the need for affordability may give Toyota a unique selling proposition in Asia where Ford can not outperformed Toyota in terms of sale. This is may be because Asian customers give more importance to affordability than good appearance.             Moreover, when a company and its competitors are all doing poorly at a WHAT, one can assume the reason for this is a bottleneck in technology and the company needs a technical breakthrough to improve its product (1).  A strong sales point or the strong ability of a company to sell is reserved for the most important WHAT. For example in Asia the most important WHAT is affordability so the decisions of Toyota in this particular region will be centered on how to be more price competitive. In the US, the most important WHAT might be good appearance, then the decisions of Toyota will be focused on how to improve its products’ appearance. In other words, sales point helps a company realize the WHATs that need to be prioritized.             B4: Strategic Importance of WHATs is the determination of the final or strategic importance rating or planning weight. This can be obtained using the formula ( 2002):     Final Importance = (goal – current position) x relative importance x sales point  Customer needs or the WHAT with high final importance ratings indicate high potential benefit to the company and therefore the ones that should be prioritized ( 2002). For example, Toyota became the number two among the automobile manufacturers in the world and more percentage of its sales came from the Asia-Pacific region where affordability is the most important customer need followed by safety. Therefore, Toyota should prioritize affordability and safety more than good appearance. C. Technical Measures (HOWs)             This is the section of the House of Quality where the WHATs identified are analyzed to determine the technical measures needed to transform the needs into products that can be used to address the needs. The first step C1 is to identify the technical measures or the HOWs followed by C2 which is the determination of the applicable and proper units of HOWs while C3 involves the Directions of Goodness of HOWs.             C1: Technical Measures (HOWs) involves the transformation of the customer needs into technical measures which are the methods, company measures, design requirements, substitute quality characteristics, and engineering characteristics which can be related to and measure the customer needs or the WHATs (2002). For example, affordability of a car can be transformed into design where materials needed can be bought locally and can be mass-produced so that the company can save costs. Affordability to customers may also means that they need a car that uses low-cost fuel thus the company should design a car that uses diesel engine because diesel fuel is more affordable than gasoline.  The need for safety can be transformed in a design where air bag and anti-lock brake can be integrated and requires method on how to incorporate these features in a particular design. Good appearance requires high-quality materials, improved design and different manufacturing process to ensure the aesthetic characteristics of a car. Proper HOWs may be selected by creating a cause-and –effect analysis that the HOWs are the first order causes for the WHATs (1). It is also important to organize the selected HOWs into appropriate hierarchy structure to facilitate analysis and implementation (11).             C2: Units of HOWs involves identification of the proper units. For example, it is important to describe the unit of an engine in horsepower, or to indicate the number of persons to describe the seating capacity of a car or how many liters of gasoline to make the gasoline tank full.              C3: Directions of Goodness of HOWs or improvement directions, three possible definitions may be adopted for different HOWs according to (11). These are the more the better (to increase), the less the better (to decrease), and target is best (to close to) (11). D. Relationship Matrix Between WHATs and HOWs            This part is a systematic means for identifying the degree of relationship or linkage between each WHAT and each HOW (Chan & Wu, 2002). It uses relationship symbols or numbers at the intersections of this matrix of WHATs vs. HOWs. There are usually four relationship levels: no relationship, weak/possible relationship, medium/moderate relationship, and strong relationship (2002). A blank may represent no relationship, may represent weak relationship, ● may represent moderate relationship, and ▲ may represent strong relationship. E. The Technical Correlation Matrix             This section is the development team’s assessments of which HOWs are interrelated and how strong these relationships are ( 2002). These relationships are obtained through engineering analysis and experience, thus it is called technical.  After the HOWs are determined, the technical correlation matrix will help development team will be able to see the influence of change of one HOW to another.  That is the effects of change of methods, company measures, design requirements, substitute quality characteristics, and engineering characteristics to each other can be obtained via this matrix. For example, a change in the design of personal computers will have a corresponding change in the materials used: the design of laptops is different from the design of the traditional PCs because laptops require smaller integrated circuits, smaller components and slightly different materials from the traditional PCs, as well as the production process it will undergo could be different from the processes of making ordinary PC.  Technical Correlation Matrix helps engineers, designers, and developers see these changes and their relationship with each technical measure. These changes have corresponding impacts and can be identified as: strong positive impact, moderate impact, no impact, moderate negative impact, and strong negative impact (2002). These impacts are usually represented by symbols such as check or cross. F. Technical Matrix             Technical Matrix involves: F1: Identification of Relative Importance of HOWs; F2: Competitive Technical Assessments; F3: Set Strategic Targets of HOWs; F4: Identification of Technical Points of HOWs; F5: Identification of Probability/Difficulty Factors; and F6: Identification of Strategic Importance of HOWs.             F1: Identification of Relative Importance of HOWs. The relative importance of each HOW is a comprehensive measure indicating the degree to which the HOW is related to all the WHATs ( 2002). This means that a HOW can be related to more than one WHAT and its importance can be attributed to how many WHATs a particular HOW is related. Relative importance of a HOW can be computed using the formula: Relative Importance of a HOW = å (Final importance rating of WHAT x relationship value between WHAT and the HOW)             There are also other performance measurement that can be used to compute the HOWs relative importance ratings (14). F2: Competitive Technical Assessment is conducted to compare the technical performance of a company’s product and the competitors’ similar products on the HOWs ( 2002). It is usually difficult to obtain precise technical information about the competitors’ products and marketing research is not enough so it would be necessary to purchase and test the competitors’ products for comparative analysis ( 2002). This can also be done through customer competitive evaluation representing the technical performance of competitors’ products on particular HOWs ( 2002). F3: Set Strategic Targets of HOWs. After the importance of HOWs are determined and the competitive technical performance of products are assessed, it is necessary to set the level of performance being targeted. This level of performance is the required level for a product to be competitive and to meet the customer requirements. Relatively, the HOW with high relative importance is targeted at high level of performance as well as those HOWs which relative importance are not good compared to that of the competitors. It is also important that the company considered its resources to make the targets reachable 9(2002). F4: Identification of Technical Points of HOWs. Technical Points are the counterpart of sales point of the WHATs. In other words, this is the ability of the technical measures to sell. For example, a PC usually sell when because of its technical specification e.g. Intel Inside, Pentium 4, while a car sell depending on its engine specification. These points are considered in the determination of the HOWs final strategic importance ( 2002). F5: Identification of Probability/Difficulty Factors. As in every target set, there can be hindrances or difficulties in reaching the targets as well as the factors that contribute to the probability of reaching the target.  Commonly, the more aggressive a target is, the more the difficulty factors that can be identified and the lesser the probability factors. F6: Identification of Strategic Importance of HOWs. This is abscially the identification of the HOWs with the higher final importance as suggested by  (2002). According to them (), Final Importance of HOWs can be computed as follows:   Final importance = [(target – current position) x relative importance             x technical point] /probability factor.  Those HOWs of higher final importance are moved to the Phase II of QFD as new WHATs and translated into parts characteristics or new HOWs (Chan & Wu, 2002). After the Hpuse of Requirements have been [   2.4 Benefits from QFD Since its formulation, QFD has been a significant method that has been adopted by companies in different industry. QFD transforms the language of the customer into the language of the engineer (2000); its successive application drives design to level of detail required to support customer expectations; it emphasizes early participation of all disciplines and functional representatives in all phases of system life cycle; and it facilitates cross-functional communications within the development process (1993). According to (1997), QFD has change what was known as quality control in manufacturing processes, and established quality control for the development and design. This means that QFD has established quality management in product development and design, and played significantly role in the shift from process-oriented quality assurance to design-oriented quality assurance, and on the creation of a new product development system (1997). QFD also provided a communication tool to designers and engineers. Engineers play a role of a mediator between the market and production thus they have to lead new product development (Yoshizawa, 1997). QFD serves as an effective tool for engineers in building a new system for product development. QFD can improve efficiency to companies because misinterpretation of product objectives, marketing strategies, and important product control points, and need for changes are minimized (1986). According to  (1991), over 80% get strategic benefits as increased understanding of the customer, increased communication, and faster decision-making. QFD also resulted to superior product design, the potential for breakthrough innovations, shorter design cycles with fewer engineering changes, lower project and product costs, and satisfied customers (1991). (1991) classified QFD benefits into: customer orientation, reduction of implementation time, promotion of teamwork, and provision of documents. (1994) lists benefits from QFD which include customer oriented companies and market driven products, fewer design changes, reduction in start-up costs, shorter design cycles, and multifunctional teamwork while the  (1995) list benefits which include better systematic documentation of engineering knowledge and business operations procedures; more competitive pricing due to lower development and start-up costs; and more satisfied customers. A good example of company that has benefited from its implementation of QFD is the Toyota Autobody, an automobile manufacturer who was one of the first companies who applied QFD in 1977. Between 1977 and 1984, Toyota had introduced four new van-type vehicles including the Light-Ace van and experienced a 20% reduction in start-up costs as compared to its record in 1977 on the launch of the new van in 1979; and a 38% reduction in November 1982; and 61% in 1984 while the product development cycle was reduced by one-third with a corresponding improvement in quality due to the reduction in the number of engineering changes (1986). It is noticeable that the QFD benefits are mostly the objectives of project management. Enhanced customer satisfaction, effective product or service development, and improved communications and teamwork (2002) are what effective project management wants to achieve. 3. Project Management in Engineering and Construction             Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Project Management_QFD

Abstract In the earlier days, civil and construction engineering projects were perceived to be purely technical. That is, engineers were...

Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Introduction Clients or customers have expectations and desires concerning the performance and appearance of the product or the content of a service activity which they believe they should, or could, obtain under given circumstances. Probably the most important of these is price, though time performance and consistency, product life and safety may also be important. In addition, some customers may have special expectations related to their personal needs or how the product or service links with some other product or service in which they have an interest. The negotiation of quality in the above sense may be straightforward. Suppliers and customers may be in regular contact with each other, both knowledgeable, have no great imbalance of power or bargaining between them and be keen to achieve a settled, stable deal the negotiation of quality is much more variable and unstable than is sometimes thought (Blackburn, Curran, & North 1998).       The widespread existence of customer complaint departments, consumer protection legislation and inter-firm disputes, are evidence that conflicts can occur (Blackburn, Curran, & North 1998).  Quality is an important capability that businesses should have. It is needed to maintain the good relationship between a company and its clients. Based from the need to provide quality to clients, the idea of quality function deployment was developed. The paper will apply the QFD model to a product or service within a certain organization.  The paper will discuss the ease with which QFD could be implemented within the organization. Part A. Quality function deployment The new economic era where customers have much more choice than in the past, and where they are far more likely to exercise it, has made it an imperative for organizations to become much more customer focused. Many tools, techniques and philosophies have been developed to support this shift in focus from internal to external. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is the most complete technique available for supporting this highly desirable cultural change. QFD theory was first defined by Yoji Akao in 1966 The system has developed from this simple basis to encompass the broad range of activities within most manufacturing and service organizations (Antony & Preece 2002).   QFD is a system for translating customer requirements into appropriate company requirements at every stage, from research through product design and development, to manufacture, distribution, installation and marketing, sales and service. The core principle of QFD is that the design and development process, be it product or service, should be driven by the needs of the customer. QFD is a methodology for adding structure to this process; for clearly specifying the customer’s wants and needs and for systematically evaluating company capabilities in terms of meeting those needs (Antony & Preece 2002). Quality function development was made to help planners focus on characteristics of a new product from the viewpoints market segments or technology development needs. It provided a different way for businesses and their clients to work together for a better product. Rationale behind QFD QFD requires a multifunctional team of experts to participate simultaneously in a complex analytic exercise, bringing diverse perspectives to bear on key issues of design. In localized uses, QFD serves both technical and organizational functions. Primary expected outcomes of QFD includes an increased awareness of the customers’ desires; improved product with focus on actual customer wants; improved product specification setting; and, in general, more successful and effective products(Susman 1992). It also results in synergistic gains result from integration of, and increased effective communication between, individuals from different functional groups, such gains include understanding each other’s functional constraints and capabilities and transfer of information earlier than normal (Susman 1992).   Moreover QFD results in effective definition and prioritization of new product development activities leads to increased understanding of trade-offs, clear understanding of product objectives and customer needs, improved decision making, a better end-product and reduced product development time. QFD serves to remove non-value-added activities by avoiding redesigns, by streamlining communication, and by reducing errors.  (Susman 1992).QFD is a good process for business because it has the capability to transform customer wants and needs into engineering characteristics for a certain product. QFD helps the company fully understand their clients and this leads them to create products that meet the clients taste and wants. QFD in developing of new products/service FD has different features that make it different from traditional design techniques. The first feature is the way the design team is organized. QFD ensures that the firm delivers a product or service to meet what marketing has determined the customers’ requirements to be. From a philosophical point of view, the concept is not new. Marketing supposedly developed over the years as a discipline to identify customer requirements, and then see that the product offered by a firm was what that customer required. But this was not always the case. Marketing has not always had the technical expertise required to design products or services, and did not speak the language of the design engineer. A major feature of QFD is the manner in which it takes the customer’s requirements in the customer’s own words and from these words designs a product or service and the process to fulfill those needs (Bounds & Stahl 1991).     As part of QFD’s design process, it also specifies the measurements that will be used in the control process. Translating the voice of the customer is not as easy to understand as it may sound. QFD is not easy to do. Many companies that have tried it have expressed a great deal of frustration in applying it. Others have successfully done so, however, and have demonstrated significant product or service improvements (Bounds & Stahl 1991). Increasingly QFD is used to break down customer needs into specific targets and identify the specifications critical to establishing the customer’s perception of quality products and services. Once these specifications are identified, organizational quality goals, targets, and objectives must be defined as customer and environment or market driven (Madu 1993). The House of Quality makes the interrelationship and inherent design choices explicit. It gives precision to the conversations and discussions that go on in identifying design objectives and critical design parameters. By clarifying a very complex and ambiguous situation, the House of Quality facilitates early consideration of difficult issues and helps to identify gaps in engineering and marketing knowledge. QFD and the House of Quality is a tool to be used with focus and flexibility; it needs to be used where it will have the most value (Oden 1997).   If an evolutionary type of product is being developed, the use of QFD is questionable. For these types of product developments, the customers and their needs are fairly well known, since they are developing similar products for essentially the same customers. QFD is considerably more appropriate for a revolutionary type of product. For these types of product ventures, both the product and market are new, and QFD could be very useful in matching the new customers’ wants with the new product’s capabilities (Oden1997). QFD proves to be of much better use when it is developing revolutionary product. This product is not only new but it is something that has the potential to change the industry. For instance QFD was used by fast food companies in making its various products as something different yet enjoyed by the clients. QFD assisted the company in determining the ideas of the clients in terms of how they want their food to be prepared and served. How QFD fit in company strategy QFD fits in the company’s strategy by such concept providing assistance in determining how a firm will go on its production of a certain product.  QFD is the bases for what strategy will a company use. Any studies or ideas that come out from the use of QFD will lead to a change in strategy or an improvement in the strategy.   How QFD fit in costing control             QFD fits in costing control through it serving as a way for the company to determine the specific manufacturing actions that needs finances. QFD can determine which manufacturing and production aspects should be given importance and needs more financing. This will make sure that expenses and additional costs will not be incurred because only the important aspects will be prioritized.    How QFD fits in competitive advantage and quality control QFD fits in giving competitive advantage because through it the relationship between the company and the client can be preserved. No other company can have a stronger bond with the clients unless they also make use of QFD processes. QFD fits in quality control since the basis for product design is the ideas of the clients. The clients have an experience on how products can be made with good quality thus their ideas will assist the company in making products that  not only fits their need but also fits their standards of quality. Part B. Utility of the model Problems encountered The globalization of markets, manufacturing and techno-industrial innovation therefore gives particular importance to the different kinds of networking. In contrast to previous forms of the international division of lab our, location participation is less denned by contributing products than by contributing to the various processes of production. These highly globalize processes are decisive for both different types and different opportunities for industrial development that can be identified at different industrial locations (Hilpert 2003). Global tendencies in industrial development are leading to a more complex form of the international division of labor. While the relocation of mature and old industries has induced regional crisis in the traditional industrial centers, now the transfer of such industrial capabilities provides the basis for advanced industries to keep costs under control and to gain competitiveness based on low production costs at locations where suppliers for these parts are based. This kind of hierarchical integration is based on different production costs and demands successful networking between locations that are on different levels of industrial development. Depending upon the competitive situation and the opportunities to gain benefits from relocating manufacturing, there is a tendency towards the integration of new industrial locations (Hilpert 2003).   Even though there is a new pattern of integration due to both international production networks and processes of globalization, this does not relate to a complete change in industrial development. The continuation of key strategic centre or of the manufacturing of key elements at established locations, competing against relocated advanced production units in new locations, is sharpening the regional expression of the international division of labor that can be understood only if the underlying processes of organizing global manufacturing are analyzed National strategies for techno-industrial innovation are inevitably picking particularly appropriate cases for success (Hilpert 2003).  The pre-existing regional structure, the very specific requirements for these new technologies and new forms of industrial development, and the need for immediate realization of these processes consequently do not take into regard attempts at regional development (Hilpert 2003).      The change into much better systems leads sometimes to conflicts within some aspects of the organization. The addition of QFD into the organization’s system leads to problems regarding the suppliers support. Suppliers may not be too keen of QFD and how it creates changes in the organization thus some suppliers may lose their drive to provide resources to the company. The addition of QFD into the organization’s system leads to human factor issues wherein some members of the organization may have doubts on whether the company will still use them. The personnel of the organization may think that the QFD system will replace them in doing various tasks for the firm. Moreover the addition of QFD into the organization’s system will change the management structure. The management structure will change because certain tasks and responsibilities will be reassigned to adjust to the new system. Pact C. the ease of implementing QFD in the organization The McDonald’s Corporation is the largest food service operation in the world in terms of system-wide sales. At the beginning of 2000 it was operating more than 25,000 restaurants in 116 countries. A modest estimate of its current world-wide workforce would be around 1.5 million people, and 10 million people are estimated to have worked for the corporation since it was formed. More than one in ten Americans are reckoned to have got their first job at McDonald’s. It is an incredibly successful multinational and is expanding at a breath-taking rate. It plans to open between 2,500 and 3,200 new restaurants every year, the equivalent of one restaurant every 3 hours. If this rate of expansion is achieved, the corporation will have more than doubled in size to well over 50,000 restaurants by 2010. Part of this rapid expansion may also be aided by developments in technology (Royle 2000).   Advertising has undoubtedly played a big part in establishing McDonald’s as a global product. Sometimes, McDonald’s is picked out merely because it is seen as symbolic of broader issues in society. McDonald’s has become a symbol of the modern globalized economy and of the cheap lowest-common denominator culture it fosters (Royle 2000). The first overseas restaurants were opened as franchises in the Caribbean and parts of South America in 1965 and in Canada in 1967. By the mid-1980s, McDonald’s was establishing its presence around the globe, becoming the number one food service chain in Japan, Germany, the UK, Canada and Australia. McDonald’s International became the fastest growing segment of the McDonald’s Corporation (Royle 2000). The continuing expansion abroad appears to be the logical answer to an increasingly competitive market in the USA, where McDonald’s is no longer trying to expand but is instead trying to increase the sales of existing restaurants. Opportunities for further international expansion still appear to be considerable; besides the expected increases in numbers of restaurants in the Western and industrialized economies; the corporation has wasted little time moving into the old Eastern bloc (Royle 2000).   McDonald’s Corporation is one of the most successful fast food businesses not only in its native country but in most parts of the world. The company has been successful in going international and reaching newer markets in different parts of the world. The company belongs to the service/fast food industry.  The company caters to people of all ages who needs food sustenance and are most of the time need a place where they can get their food in the fastest time possible.  Introducing the QFD into the organization will not be difficult since the company is open to any change that they know will bring benefits to them. QFD will be perfect for the company’s goal of making sure that the needs and wants of the clients are met. Introducing QFD into the organization would generate less problems as long as it would be introduced gradually so that there will be no conflicts between sectors in the company.  The prevailing culture, structure, and management style will not be a hindrance in the introduction QFD into the organization.   References Antony, J & Preece, D (eds.) 2002, Understanding, managing and implementing quality: Frameworks, techniques and cases, London.   Blackburn, RA, Curran, J & North, J 1998, The quality business: quality issues and smaller firms, Routledge, London.   Bounds, GM & Stahl, MJ (eds.) 1991, Competing globally through customer value: The management of strategic suprasystems, Quorum Books, New York.   Hilpert, U (ed.) 2003, Regionalization of globalized innovation: locations for advanced industrial development and disparities in participation, Routledge, New York.   Madu, CN 1993 Management of new technologies for global competitiveness, Quorum Books, Westport, CT.   Oden, HW 1997, Managing corporate culture, innovation and intrapreneurship, Quorum Books, Westport, CT.   Robson, P 1998, The economics of international integration, Routledge, London.   Royle, T 2000, Working for McDonald’s in Europe: The unequal struggle, Routledge, New York.   Royle, T & Towers, B 2002, Labor relations in the global fast food industry, Routledge, New York.   Susman, GI (ed.) 1992, Integrating design and manufacturing for competitive advantage, Oxford US, New York.   Credit:ivythesis.typepad.com

Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Introduction Clients or customers have expectations and desires concerning the performance and appearance of the product or the content ...