QFD — End-user interface across all functions of modern business

"Time was when a man could order a pair of shoes directly from the cobbler…By measuring the foot himself and personally handling all aspects of manufacturing, the cobbler could assure the customer would be satisfied…," lamented Dr. Yoji Akao, one of the founders of QFD, in his private lectures.

QFD was developed in Japan to bring this personal interface to modern manufacturing and business. In today's industrial society, where the growing distance between producers and users is a concern, QFD links the needs of the customer (target quality) with design, development, engineering, marketing, manufacturing, service and other organizational functions through its systematic deployment.

  • QFD seeks out spoken and unspoken customer needs from fuzzy Voice of the Customer verbatims;

  • QFD uncovers the "true" customer needs and "positive" quality that wows the customer;

  • QFD translates these into designs characteristics, functional and non-functional requirements, and deliverable actions; and

  • QFD builds and delivers a quality product or service by focusing the various business functions toward achieving a common goal—customer satisfaction.

QFD is a Quality System

As a Quality System that implements elements of Systems Thinking with elements of Psychology and Epistemology (knowledge), QFD provides a system of comprehensive development process for:

  • Understanding 'true' customer needs from the customer's perspective

  • What 'value' means to the customer, from the customer's perspective

  • Understanding how customers or end users become interested, choose, and are satisfied

  • Analyzing how do we know the needs of the customer

  • Deciding what features to include

  • Determining what level of performance to deliver

  • Intelligently linking the needs of the customer with design, development, engineering, manufacturing, and service functions

  • Intelligently linking Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) with the front end Voice of Customer analysis and the entire design system

There are many approaches to QFD, depending on the strategic purpose of the project.

What you should know about QFD

Learn the best QFD practices, the first time

Your project is too important to gamble on uncertified trainers, books, someone else's examples or even matrix-making software. So are your time and company resources.

As the leading international body of knowledge for QFD and ISO 16355, the QFD Institute maintains the highest possible standards in QFD training and research. The only QFD curriculum authorized by Dr. Yoji Akao (QFD co-founder) outside Japan, our training programs are taught by Akao-certified QFD Red Belts® and their certified QFD Black Belts®, and are compatible with ISO 16355, ISO-9001, Six Sigma, DFSS, Stage Gate®, EFQM, TQM, Baldrige, and other quality initiatives.

Begin your QFD journey right the first time, using the most optimized tool set and efficient deployments for your particular project—whether it is a multi-million dollar product development or academic research.

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