Like any good system, QFD has evolved over the years.
Modern QFD now incorporates many advancements that were not in traditional QFD. For example, traditional QFD, originating from the build-to-spec practice in the 1960s, centered around what is called
4-House approach.
Companies that do their own design work have found that the 4-House approach does not integrate well into their new product development process, it is too time-consuming and resource-intensive for the levels of analytic outcome. They also found the House of Quality, the main tool in the 4-House model, is extremely prone to
mis-applications, and thus it is not sustaibale. (See
Best vs Worst Practices)
Modern QFD is custom-tailored to identify the minimum QFD effort required with the optimum tools and sequence, making QFD more efficient and sustainable in today’s lean business environment. Large, complex tools such as the House of Quality (HOQ) are now often replaced with smaller, faster ones that provide a level of analysis that is faster and easier. Modern QFD also
upgraded math in the QFD matrices to meet the mathematical rigor demanded by Six Sigma precision.
Traditional QFD often did not go deep enough into the Voice of the Customer to uncover unspoken needs because it began at the time when most design work was done by the customer's engineers. Modern QFD has a set of rigorous front-end tools to refine the
Voice of the Customer into spoken and unspoken customer needs, leading to more innovative solutions.
Additionally, Modern QFD includes psychological and lifestyle needs, not just functional needs. Today, consumers are making the purchase decision more and more on emotional needs and image issues.
Lifestyle QFD connects consumers’ needs for psychological and lifestyle-enhancing solutions with your product development and branding.
Modern QFD also has components for Schedule Deployment and Project Deployment based on Critical Chain Project Management to improve allocation of constrained resources and finish more projects on time.
Overall, Modern QFD today provides a much better framework for integration of various innovative methods into your product development process.