Quality Function Deployment: ¦ To provide customer input at the product design stage ¦ The process results in a matrix, referred to as a “house of quality” for a particular product that relates customer attributes to engineering characteristics. ¦ The central idea of QFD is the belief that products should be designed to reflect the customers’ desires and tastes ¦ The house of quality provides a framework for translating customer satisfaction into identifiable and measurable conformance specifications for product or service design
House of Quality : Quality Function Deployment (Village Volvo): Village Volvo is an independent auto service garage that specializes in volvo auto maintenance and competes with volvo dealers for customers. Village Volvo has decided to assess its service delivery system in comparison with that of the volvo dealer to determine areas for improving its competitive position 1. Establish the aim of the project: in this case, the objective of the project is to assess Village Volvo’s competitive position 2.
Determine customer expectations: reliability, responsiveness, assurance, empathy and tangibles 3. Describe the elements of the service: for Village Volvo we have selected training, attitude, capacity, information, and equipment 4. Note the strength of relationship between the service elements: three level of strength of relationship: *= strong, . =medium, and O= weak. E. g. , note a strong relationship between training and attitudes. These relationships may provide useful points of leverage to improve service quality. . Note the association between customer expectations and service elements: the body of the matrix contains numbers between 0 and 9 (9 indicating a very strong link) to indicate the strength of the link between a service element and corresponding customer expectation 6. Weighting the service elements: this step is taken to measure the importance of a customer’s perception. The chimney of the house of quality contains a listing of the relative importance of each customer expectation.
The relative importance will be multiplied by the strength of the link number in the body of the matrix under each service element to arrive at a weighted score for the element. For example, the training element would have a weighted score calculated as (9)(8) + (7)(3) + (4)(0) + (2)(2) = 127 7. Service element improvement difficulty rank : in the basement of the house is a ranking for the difficulty of improving each service element, with a rank of 1 being the most difficult. Capacity and equipment have a high rank because of their capital requirements 8. Assessment of competition.
A study of the Volvo dealer is made to assess customers perceptions of service at the dealer compared with that at Village Volvo. The result of a customer survey using a five point scale is plotted to the right of the matrix. Based on knowledge of the dealer, a relative comparison of the level (plus or minus) of each service elements is plotted at the bottom of the matrix. This information will be used to assess the competitive strengths and weaknesses of Village Volvo. 9. Strategic assessment and goal setting. – Except for responsiveness, it is viewed favorably by its customers. – The comparison of service elements, he Volvo dealer and weighted scores yields some possible directions for improvement in service. – In the area of attitudes and information, Village Volvo, is in a superior position, but there appears to be a problem with capacity, training and equipment – The high weighted score given to training suggests that a first priority goal of an investment in training might be in order. In addition, leverage would be achieved because training has relationships from strong to weak, with attitudes, capacity and equipment. – Finally, the improvement difficulty rank for training is fourth out of five. ———————– [pic]
