Quality Function Deployment is an information system producing structured data for quality managers and practitioners. This is a practical guide to implementing such a system for readers assumed to be familiar with it. Annotation copyright Book News, Inc. Portland, Or.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a method for satisfying customers by translating their demands into design targets and quality assurance points. For a thorough "how-to" on the implementation of QFD, we went directly to the source -- Yoji Akao, the creator of QFD and one of the foremost leaders of the Japanese Total Quality Control movement. In this unprecedented book he explains the concepts and methods of this remarkable systems engineering approach. Filled with case studies, detailed charts, and over 100 diagrams, this book is a complete reference tool for QFD implementation. It includes— Use of the demanded quality deployment chart. Using and promoting quality charts. Using quality control process charts: QFD at the pre-production. Quality deployment and reliability deployment. Quality development in the construction industry. QFD for the service industry. QFD for software development.

This book not only explains QFD fundamentals clearly and concisely, it takes you well beyond the basics to provide the advanced techniques, specific information, and concrete examples you need to implement QFD successfully and derive its full benefits.

This book introduces into the practical application of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) beyond the famous House of Quality Matrix by presenting a fully developed example of a clear and comprehensive QFD framework. The QFD workflow is described step by step, encompassing strategic planning, customer surveys, product and service characteristics, mechanisms, parts and cost deployment, technologies, process phases and faults analysis. The model, as presented with practical suggestions, can be used in firms with low resources and/or need for speed. In addition, a chapter is dedicated to the most common “fuzzy” algorithms, explained for professionals and the book closes by describing in detail some QFD case studies. This book will be of interest to all who wish to use QFD to respond to and satisfy customer requirements effectively.

A versatile manual that can be used to stimulate product innovation, benchmarking analysis, and engineering design, this book goes beyond theory to provide relevant advanced methods and techniques that readers can apply in their work for both short- and long-term results. The author links Quality Function Deployment (QFD) with other quality design techniques and discusses processes for improving its effectiveness. He also highlights methods for selecting a product's technical features. Real implementation case studies and numerous examples illustrate the concepts, including the Qualitometro method for designing and measuring quality in the service sector.

BACKGROUND There is an increasing awareness that 'time to market' is the key competitive issue in the manufacturing industry today. The global markets are demanding products that are well designed, are of high quality and are at low prices with ever decreasing lead times. Hence manufacturers are forced to utilize the best methods of technology with efficient control and management accompanied by suitably enabling organizational structures. Concurrent engineering (CE) is widely seen to be the methodology that can help satisfy these strenuous demands and keep the profitability and viability of product developers, manufacturers and suppliers high. There have been many reported successes of CE in practice. Rover were able to launch Land Rover Discovery in 18 months as compared with 48-63 months for similar products in Europe. Because of its early introduction to the market it became the best selling product in its class. AT&T report part counts down to one ninth of their previous levels and quality one hundred times (in surface defects) for VLSI (very improvements of large scale integration) circuits as a result of using the CE approach. WHO SHOULD READ THIS TEXT? This book will aim to provide a sound basis for the very diverse subject known as concurrent engineering. Concurrent engineering is recognized by an increasingly large proportion of the manufacturing industry as a necessity in order to compete in today's markets. This recognition has created the demand for information, awareness and training in good concurrent engineering practice.

Quality function deployment (QFD) is an effective tool to help organizations to become more competitive by designing their products and services to satisfy customers’ requirements. This book is precise and direct and focuses on the key issues in building the House of Quality otherwise known as Quality Function Deployment (QFD). By reading this book, the manager understands how to solicit customer requirement information, how design requirements are matched to customer requirements, how priorities of customer needs are established, and how activities are benchmarked. Furthermore, this new edition expands the topic to include process change initiatives on the premise that QFD cannot be achieved if the organization itself is not transformed to achieve customer satisfaction. The manager is guided on how to solve critical problems to achieve customer satisfaction. The book guides the reader to understand how companywide quality activities are related to QFD. This association is often lacking in other presentations that treat QFD as if it is independent of other quality efforts, such as process change initiative. The book will therefore include information on related quality initiatives such as: • Identification of customer needs • Benchmarking & re-engineering • Strategic planning • Quality assurance • Stakeholder teams • Cost control & productivity improvement • Six sigma • Process change initiative