An Apple a day, keeps competitors away!

Late Steve Jobs embodied intuitive grasp of QFD thinking. Reflecting his April 1989 interview with Inc. magazine, here we highlight his brilliant insights on product, process, and customer that is uniquely his. Good news is, by using modern QFD tools, you can emulate and systematize his intuitive approach beyond a single individual, improving communication, training of new-hires, and long-term integration and adoption in the organization.

VOC Issues for High Impact Projects

Following the catastrophic aftermath of the 2011 Japan earthquake that led to the nuclear power explosions, we discuss what lessons we the QFD and Quality community could learn. Notably, how to handle the voice of customer of all stakeholders in preparation for high impact projects.

Redecorate your House of Quality (HoQ)

Unfortunately there are many bad examples of House of Quality matrix and QFD that are still being taught. Before you put your project in peril by following those bad steps, educate yourself with sound QFD knowledge. This newsletter explains the correct way to execute a House of Quality and when to use or not use this matrix. Better yet, contact QFD Institute for advice.

QFD Security Deployment for Predicting Future Risks

This newsletter discusses how QFD Security Deployment works and how it offers an upper hand to product development teams by offering ways to anticipate future technology, yet. including the issue of future modification of an IT product, and the risk from it.

Trusting Front Line Employees To Be Customer Advocates

Companies spends money/time to collect customer data through surveys, focus groups, and interviews. Yet when customers actually share their thoughts with front line workers, he/she is often ignored or given run around. Trust your front line workers more because they are your direct line of customer data. Train them with QFD's Gemba study skills, let them become an effective advocate of your customers that delivers unfiltered customer voices to the management, marketers, and decision makers.

QFD Turns Diversity into Corporate Innovation

Diverse organizations are more productive, resilient, and adaptive, mathematical modeling in recent years points out. Here we share an example of "Reverse QFD" application by a major health insurance company in their efforts to do a better job in listening to the voies of already diverse employees and turning them into new products and strategy.

QFD by the book? What should you do when your boss demands a House of Quality?

What should you do when your boss demands a House of Quality matrix? — when all you know about QFD is from stories and diagrams that you and your boss had seen in some books. This is how to respond, before risking your valuable project in an mature House of Quality quandary.

Customer satisfaction at lower cost

According to Glenn Mazur, “.. in tough economic times, Blitz QFD® can help assure that the feature and technology costs of the product are things that satisfy the customer. The customer will not pay $100 to solve a $10 problem, but they might pay $99 to solve a $100 problem. Until we know the priority of the need based on the magnitude of the customer's problem, we cannot know what features to offer or delete.”

A Castle Made of Mountains

Oda Nobunaga, a Japanese fuedal lord in the 16th century, demanded architects to build a castle that would be both a military fortification and his residence complete with light filled cathedral ceiling. Eager to please him, all architects, except one, presented a castle design strictly based on Nobunaga’s stated wants, missing a critical unspoken need: fire safety. Use Blitz QFD® tools, and you would be able to address critical hidden and unspoken needs.

Capturing Knowledge of Retiring Boomers

QFD can be a database to store, share, and transfer knowledge from one generation of works to another as well as across all divisions and responsibilities. QFD information of one project could serve as a template for a next project. Should a claim occur, the QFD records offer traceability. This would save time and allows teams to fix issues and concentrate on new projects.

How customers adapt to unsatisfying products

A case of unsatisfying high tech products is discussed, with an example of Electronic Medical/Health Records (EMR/EHR), where customers are forced to adapt by manual labor in order to enable the technology. To truly integrating new technology, a focused, sound analysis of the gemba is essential. QFD can help.