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Do you know what your customer wants? Does your company use QFD to integrate your customer’s voice into product and service development or improvement?
Nowadays it’s impossible to think of offering any kind of input to the consumer without questioning what they want to receive beforehand. With a wide variety of products available, our deliveries must add some kind of value to the customer.
And beyond simply understanding their needs, we now have to translate and materialize them into products and services.
But how is this done?
With Quality Function Deployment. If your company wants to better serve its customers, increase revenue, and succeed in sales, understanding this small acronym is the way to go. Get to know QFD.
What is QFD?
QFD stands for Quality Function Deployment. The methodology consists of systematicaly developing inputs and processes so that products and services are designed based on the “Customer’s Voice.”
In other words, translating customer requirements into specifications that will be implemented in products or services.
In this sense, the method is an excellent ally for your business to offer what will provide customer satisfaction.
Originating from Japan in 1966, QFD began to popularize in 1983 when Ford and Xerox started using it. The tool emerged as a way to minimize the impacts of industrialization and ensure customization in modern manufacturing.
With mass production, achieving complete customer satisfaction is quite complex. After all, different people are to be served with the same products.
That’s why QFD emerged, to listen to the public’s voice, ensuring that requests materialize into products and services capable of making customers feel fulfilled. And this can include optimizing and automating industrial processes.
With advancements, the tool has been refined and improved. Today it is considered a management technique that assists in project management.
Some authors summarize QFD as “a method for the development of strategic planning that aims to sell what the customer wants to buy, at the moment they want, and before the competition does”.
Where to use QFD?
In any type of product or service, as well as in processes, systems, and platforms at different levels.
The method operates with internal factors such as the development of new products, expansion into new markets, management innovations, etc. And external factors, in market and consumer demands, regulatory changes, potential threats, among others.
Specifically in production processes, QFD can be used to identify and prioritize areas that need improvement. This analysis is based on the characteristics of the product or service that are most important to the customer.
In management processes, it can be applied to improve inventory or logistics management. As well as helping to identify improvement opportunities for areas.
In service delivery, QFD evaluates whether what is being offered meets customer expectations. For example, improving the check-in and boarding experience in airlines.
It is worth noting that not always when talking about customers are we talking about an external person. Employees or internal professionals can also be seen as customers.
How does it work?
A Quality Function Deployment analysis focuses on translating needs into quality characteristics that must be incorporated into products or services. That is, its development is customer-oriented.
It is based on 7 pillars, namely:
- Customer requirements: defines which requirements customers consider important for their experience to be as satisfactory as possible;
- Importance: ranking of requirements in terms of importance to customers;
- Competitive benchmarking: analyze competitors’ performance regarding customer perspective and satisfaction;
- Project requirement: what specifications and characteristics need to be included;
- Relationship matrix: evaluates the relationships between requirements that add value to the customer and the technical requirements of the product, in order to identify which ones are most relevant to the customer;
- Product requirement qualification: analyzes the intensity and importance of each product item;
- Correlation matrix: where correlations between all project requirements are made.
QFD and process and document management
QFD will define process parameters considering quality, technology, reliability, and costs.
In other words, based on everything that has been identified, QFD can establish and design processes to achieve a certain result.
Another issue is document and information management. By listening to the customer, the company has a wealth of data to make use of. In this sense, managing this knowledge requires an adequate structure to allow access and obtain good results.
One of QFD’s practices is to implement technological solutions that enable better functioning of processes, documents, and the company as a whole.
Neomind’s Fusion Platform is an Integrated Management Platform that enables the management of processes, documents, and indicators in a single place.
While QFD practices collect information about customer needs and requirements, Fusion keeps data centralized in the system, allowing access by all members of the involved teams.
Another point worth considering is that Fusion Platform allows users to register and monitor what was identified as priority requirements. Thus, it ensures that the most important resources will be addressed during product or service development or delivery.
The desired characteristics or requirements identified with QFD can be broken down into specific tasks and activities within Fusion Platform. There is the possibility of activities, and include deadlines and responsibilities so that everything is implemented effectively and timely.
In the Analytics Central, all data can be visualized in graphs that aid understanding, or in insightful and comprehensive reports.
In other words, satisfaction metrics from the QFD matrix can be integrated for a more in-depth analysis, identifying improvements or necessary adjustments.
The combination of QFD and Fusion Platform drives continuous improvement in various aspects, both inside and outside the company.
The Benefits of using Quality Function Deployment
- The QFD method, when successfully implemented, generates benefits such as:
- Higher process, product, and service quality;
- Reduction in project modifications and development time;
- Better structuring and documentation, with flexible project changes;
- Greater knowledge and understanding of the market;
- Predicting how customers will perceive value in products and services;
- Better relationship between departments and internal communication;
- Reduction of costs due to failures and customer complaints;
- Bottleneck identification;
- Resource prioritization for critical areas;
- Building a database with documentation generated by QFD;
- Higher level of customer satisfaction and competitive advantage.
Want to increase your competitiveness and take advantage of all the benefits of QFD?
Try Fusion Platform and getin collecting and processing data that will enable the creation of products or the offer of services capable of meeting the needs of your customers.
Implement the Fusion Platform and manage your processes, documents, and indicators in one place.
