House of Quality
House of Quality is a process commonly used in Six Sigma for product development. HOQ takes the customer’s needs and wants into consideration when also thinking about the resources that are available to use for the new product. This is to ultimately put a reasonable plan on paper in the familiar house shape that House of Quality is known for.
The primary purpose of HOQ is to understand customer priorities and desires to then transform them into goals for the new product. This comes with the need for every department to be on the same page about design. Then, they must define how and why they are making the product this way to allocate the correct resources. The customer desires translated into those goals for the product plan are seen in the HOQ matrix.
House of Quality Matrix
The HOQ matrix is a nifty grid that is laid out to where it’s easy to evaluate options when considering the customer’s needs and wants. The matrix allows users to find weaknesses and competitive strengths during the planning process. 
There are all kinds of advantages when using the House of Quality matrix:
- There is less time needed for planning
- It focuses entirely on customer needs
- There is less need for change in design
- The quality of the product improves
- The customers are satisfied
- There are less manufacturing costs
- There is less time before the product is released
- It prioritizes the design parameters
- It helps with benchmarks
House of Quality is actually critical part of QFD (Quality, Function, Deployment). This bigger ideology focuses on quality-monitoring to then focus on the new product’s functionality. These steps lead up to the application of those resources to then have a solid deployment plan for the new product that the customers will be happy with.
