Quality Function Deployment (2)

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history

While originally developed for manufacturing industries, interest in the use of QFD-based ideas in software development commenced with work by R. J. Thackeray and G. Van Treeck,^[5] for example in Object-oriented programming^[6] and use case driven software development.^[7]

Since its early use in the United States, QFD met with initial enthusiasm then plummeting popularity when it was discovered that much time could be wasted if poor group decision making techniques were employed. Organizational/corporate culture has an effect on the ability to change organizational human processes and on the sustainability of the changes. In particular, in organizations exhibiting strong cultural norms and rich sets of tacit assumptions that prevent objective discussion of historical courses of action, QFD may be resisted due to its ability to expose tacit assumptions and unspoken rules. It has been suggested that a learning organization can more easily overcome these issues due to the more transparent nature of the organizational culture and to the readiness of the membership to discuss relevant cultural norms.

QFD House of Quality for Enterprise Product Development Processes

Techniques and tools based on QFD

House of Quality

House of Quality appeared in 1972 in the design of an oil tanker by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.^{[8][citation needed]} Akao has reiterated numerous times that a House of Quality is not QFD, it is just an example of one tool.^[9]

A Flash tutorial exists showing the build process of the traditional QFD "House of Quality" (HOQ).^[10] (Although this example may violate QFD principles, the basic sequence of HOQ building are illustrative.) There are also free QFD templates available that walk users through the process of creating a House of Quality.^[11]

Other tools extend the analysis beyond quality to cost, technology, reliability, function, parts, technology, manufacturing, and service deployments.

In addition, the same technique can extend the method into the constituent product subsystems, configuration items, assemblies, and parts. From these detail level components, fabrication and assembly process QFD charts can be developed to support statistical process control techniques.

Pugh concept selection

Pugh Concept Selection can be used in coordination with QFD to select a promising product or service configuration from among listed alternatives.

Modular Function Deployment

Modular Function Deployment uses QFD to establish customer requirements and to identify important design requirements with a special emphasis on modularity.

Relationship to other techniques

The QFD-associated "Hoshin Kanri" process somewhat resembles Management by objectives (MBO), but adds a significant element in the goal setting process, called "catchball". Use of these Hoshin techniques by U.S. companies such as Hewlett Packard have been successful in focusing and aligning company resources to follow stated strategic goals throughout an organizational hierarchy.

Since the early introduction of QFD, the technique has been developed to shorten the time span and reduce the required group efforts (such as Richard Zultner's Blitz QFD).

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