Quality Function Deployment (QFD): Example & Template – Video & Lesson Transcript | Study.com
This is where Quality Function Deployment (QFD) comes into play. QFD is known by several names, such as matrix product planning, customer-driven engineering, and decision matrices. Regardless of the name, the point is the same: to take data from the customer and turn it into actionable steps in product development to satisfy needs and wants.
The QFD methodology was first used in the 1960s in Japan, and made its way to the United States in the 1980s, most successfully used at the time in the automotive field. QFD can be used for a variety of tangible and non-tangible products and services including consumer goods and business processes. The design, pictured here, is sometimes referred to as a house of quality, for the house-like shape it takes.
A QFD table can help sort customer requirements.
The various components, numbered in the illustration, represent different categories of the QFD template. Let’s take a look at how a QFD template could be used in a fictional example of a laptop computer.
1. Customer needs
What is it that customers want out of a product?
Example: Customer needs for a laptop may be identified as:
- Long battery life
- Lightweight
- Extra storage
- Low price
- Easy to use
Each of these would occupy a line on the chart under the No. 1 category.
2. Importance of each need listed (numbered scale)
How important is each need they’ve listed?
Example: The importance of each need might be:
