The relative importance of each of the customer requirements is assessed by the customer and entered into the "Importance rating" column on the chart.
The first step in any QFD exercise is to identify the "customers" or "influencers". Any individual who will buy, use or work with the product should be considered a customer. Thus the purchaser, the user (if different from the purchaser), the retailer, the service engineer, and the manufacturing plant where the product is made are all customers for the design.
If you supply an international market place remember that customers from different geographic locations or from different ethnic or cultural backgrounds may have differing requirements for your product.
There are many possible sources for data relating to customer requirements. These include:
Perhaps the commonest mistake in applying QFD is for the design team or marketing organisation to substitute for the customer. There may appear to be many good reasons for this. Whatever the excuse, the result will only confirm the team's preconceptions. Very little will be learnt from it.
|
For a product or system of more than trivial complexity, the customer requirements collected during the initial phase may amount to several hundred separate "wants" and "needs". To make these comparable and to keep the matrix a manageable size, they must be grouped into related topics, and combined to give requirements at the same level of detail. TeamSET allows you to structure the requirements with as many levels of headings and sub-headings as you need. Notes may be added to the requirements to hold more detailed "wants" that have been grouped into a single customer requirement.
The relative importance of each of the customer requirements is assessed by the customer and entered into the "Importance rating" column on the chart. |
|
