Application of a Modified Quality Function Deployment Method for MEMS

Topic modelling-based decision framework for analysing digital voice of the customer

Application of quality function deployment in the semiconductor industry: A case study

Purpose In health services, the perceived service quality plays a preponderant role in its continuous improvement. This study sought to integrate the perceived service quality as the customer’s voice in the quality function deployment (QFD) for the improvement of healthcare services in the city of Tunja, Colombia. Design/methodology/approach A study was carried out with the adaptation of the SERVQUAL and SERVPERF scales applied to a sample of 378 users of a State Social Company (SSE). An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was developed to find the factors that influence the quality of the health service under study and integrate them into a QFD matrix, whose output is the criteria for service improvement. Findings The QFD analysis allowed the formulation of twelve improvement actions for the quality of the service provided by the SSE. Consequently, the improvement in health services can be achieved through the voice of the customer and the identification of priority technical conditions to intervene in the service. Originality/value In the case of the context under study and for outpatient ambulatory care services, it is the first study on the dimensions of perceived quality that influence the outpatient service and from these results to use QFD to generate improvement alternatives to the service.

Quality function deployment (QFD) methodologies, as opposed to traditional quality approaches, are most often cited as essential for advancing the competitive advantage of an organisation. Unfortunately, little is known about the roles played by leadership in the process of QFD in the Arab world. A survey of 104 middle level managers from a wide variety of United Arab Emirates’ industries who are engaged in quality management programs was undertaken to investigate the relationship between different leadership style dimensions and a number of QFD methodologies. Results indicate that the leadership styles that involve human interaction and encourage participative decision making are supportive of open and collaborative QFD methodologies.

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a well-known planning methodology for translating customer needs into relevant design and production requirements. The intent of applying QFD is to incorporate the voice of the customer into the various phases of the product development cycle for a new product, or a new version of an existing product. The traditional QFD structure requires individuals to express their preferences in a restricted scale without exceptions. In practice, people contributing to the process tend generally to give information about their personal preferences in many different ways, numerically or linguistically, depending on their background. Moreover, collaborative decision-making is not an emphasized issue in QFD even though it requires the involvement of several people. In this study, the QFD methodology is extended by introducing a new group decision-making approach that takes into account multiple preference formats and fusing different expressions into one uniform group decision by means of fuzzy set theory. Moreover, a benchmarking procedure based on the Choquet integral is proposed to rate competing systems and find which dimensions need improvement.

Identifying passengers’ needs in cabin interiors of high-speed rails in China using quality function deployment for improving passenger satisfaction

Enhancement of web design quality through the QFD approach

Nowadays, new product development (NPD) is one of the most crucial factors for business success. The manufacturing firms cannot afford the resources in the long development cycle and the costly redesigns. Good product planning is crucial to ensure the success of NPD, while the Quality Function deployment (QFD) is an effective tool to help the decision makers to determine appropriate product specifications in the product planning stage. Traditionally, in the QFD, the product specifications are determined by a rather sujective evaluation, which is based on the knowledge and experience of the decision makers. In this paper, the traditional QFD methodology is firstly reviewed. An improved Hybrid Quality Function Deployment (HEFD) is then presented to tackle the shortcomings of traditional QFD methodologies in determining the engineering characteristics. A structured questionnaire to collect and analyze the customer requirements, a methodology to establish a QFD record based and effective case retrieval, and a model to more objectively determine the target values of engineering characteristics are also described.

In this study, a model representing military requirements as scenarios and capabilities is offered. Pair-wise comparisons of scenarios are made according to occurrence probabilities by using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP). The weights calculated from AHP are used as the starting weights in a Quality Function Deployment (QFD) matrix. QFD is used to transfer war fighter requirements into the benefit values of projects. Two levels of QFD matrices are used to evaluate new capability areas versus capabilities and capabilities versus projects. The benefit values of the projects are used in a multi-objective problem (multi-objective multiple knapsack problem) that considers the project benefit, implementation risks and environmental impact as multiple objectives. Implementation risk and environmental impact values are also calculated using the same combined AHP and QFD methodology. Finally, the results of the fuzzy multi-objective goal programming suggest a list of projects that offers optimal benefit when carried out within multiple budgets.

Nowadays customer experience is driven by software. Software development processes therefore must be orientated towards customer experience. Product Management must listen to the Voice of the Customer (VoC), extract product requirements, and guide the development team accordingly. The customer is not available for explaining experience until it is too late and the product already developed. Traditional questionnaires, customer surveys and sensing groups do not work for analyzing customer experience. However, with the arrival of social media, new sources of customer experience are available that require new methods for analyzing customer’s voice. Six Sigma transfer functions provide the methods needed. This paper presents a case study how to use Six Sigma transfer functions based on Net Promoter® Score for Voice of the Customer for product requirements gathering in a software requirement elicitation processes. Transfer functions are an advancement of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Design for Six Sigma (DfSS), based on Eigenvector search techniques.

The house of quality (HOQ) has been widely proposed as a method for capturing the voice of the customer (VOC) when developing requirements for new products. The methodology has lacked a formal mechanism for trading off customer preferences with technical feasibility and economic reality. We propose a non-linear mathematical program for determining the optimal engineering specifications during new product development as a function of elicited customer value functions, engineering development and production costs and development time constraints. The model is shown to be computationally feasible for realistic-size problems and to outperform heuristic approaches. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Given design problems today, many organizations now implement Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) initiatives. One DFSS tool is quality function deployment (QFD), which is a design approach that proactively translates customers' needs into technical design requirements. The QFD methodology has been well documented in the literature, yet few researchers have investigated how this process may be used to solve multiresponse optimization problems. Here, we demonstrate a new approach that combines aspects of QFD within the traditional robust design methodology to address this issue. The methodology is demonstrated through an illustrated example, which is compared to the traditional robust design approach.

The Bucharest public transport networks need to establish innovative strategies in order to improve their overall service quality. Therefore, in order to accomplish this objective, the current study will evaluate public transport customer demands applying the Quality Function Deployment (QFD). Furthermore, the research aims to highlight user requirements and to evaluate an appropriate strategy to improve the current public transport services. Thus, for determining the users’ satisfaction, a survey with a sample of 175 respondents was carried out, and the outcomes of the survey were used as input data for defining the QFD method. The objective of this paper is to present the public bus transport users’ demands, as well as alternatives to improve the main weakness noticed in the bus transportation system. In addition, the article will present a short review of the literature and the research methodology for the QFD. The key findings of this study will focus on presenting, based on the QFD methodology, the main projects that need to be started, in order to improve a part of the main users’ dissatisfaction regarding the public bus network.

Many companies expand a great amount of effort to increase the performance of information technology (IT) outsourcing. Yet, in IT outsourcing, contracts is critical to the outcome and developing a good outsourcing contract is problematic. Unfortunately, the area of exploitation and operation outsourcing contract is still rather immature. Many firms fall into the black hole of contracts. This paper provides insight in techniques for developing IT outsourcing contracts. The goal of drafting an outsourcing contract is to combine the revenue of IT service provider with the company's profit and establish a win-win relationship. In this article we describe and discuss quality function deployment (QFD) as a framework for managing IT outsourcing requirements. In the manufacturing sector, QFD has been successfully applied to determine customers' needs for the design at its early stages of development. In order to overcome the difficulties arising from contract oriented specification and service-oriented customer satisfaction, the outsourcing contractor would find the QFD methodology useful. The research looks into the merits of the QFD system and the problems in the application of QFD in IT outsourcing contracts. The results suggest that using QFD is better focus on customers' outsourcing requirements and contributes to the outsourcing performance. Some factors would influence the quality of IT outsourcing contracts based on QFD, including adequate describing requirements, handing relations between requirements and the technology.

Expansion of world economy brings changes in the way of thinking which can be seen in customers' demands. This directly influences the increase in demands at designing of a new or modifications of the existing products. Quality Function Deployment is a method directed towards revealing customers' wishes, which guarantees that these wishes have a positive effect on the product design and on the development of manufacturing process. Using and interpreting certain surveys of different types in the right way, additional advantages can be achieved in increasing of competitiveness in free markets. The most significant advantage is the possibility of using those specialists' expressions most often used by potential customers. Another problem of market experts and designers is translation from the "language" of customers to the "language" of quality characteristics. This problem is solved by using quality matrixes called the "house of quality" by Japanese. The "house of quality" is very appropriate and clear form of concise presenting of numerous data which refer to quality analysis, planning and decision making. Basically speaking the method of quality function deployment serves to improve customers' satisfaction with the product quality. What can this method contribute in comparison with already achieved results by using traditional methods in quality improvement? In this way the enterprise gets connected with its customers, and within the enterprise itself communication among different departments is improved so the new product has real chances to satisfy demands and needs of the customers. Taking into account that method of quality function deployment uses customers' demands as input data it means that the enterprise understands customers better and their understanding of product quality. Thus, even in the phase of planning, awareness of what should be done is raised in order to increase the degree of customers' satisfaction. Four-stage quality function deployment process in the automotive industry implemented and presented in the paper. A car represents a very complex product. A great number of parts, diversity of applicable materials, numerous and complex technology processes in manufacturing, on the one side, as well as a lot of demands from developed and less developed markets, on the other hand, make car manufacturing very complex in production, economic, and technological sense. Quality Function Deployment method can be used at designing of a new car, but also at solving of some of the existing problems. When carrying out reliability testing we came to the opening of the engine lid during driving the tested car. Taking into account that it was nonconformity which endangers traffic safety, the analysis of the stated problem was carried outimmediately.