QFD has many approaches.
Which one to use depends on the strategic purpose of your project.
Here are a few of the most common ones. Please contact us if you have questions.
Technology-driven QFD
You have a new capability, solution, or technology to implement. This QFD approach helps you find markets and perfect your solution to the unique needs of those markets.
Cost-driven QFD
You have a good product, but new markets or competitors are forcing cost/price reduction. This QFD approach helps you identify what can you do more cheaply, what is over-engineered and can be simplified or removed without negatively affecting customer satisfaction.
Competitor-driven QFD
Other companies have added features and functions to their products and your sales force is screaming that you must offer the same. This approach to QFD confirms if the competitive offerings address critical customer needs or are just gimmicky. If critical customer needs are being addressed, how can you do better than copying the competition? If gimmicks, how do you encourage the competition to continue to waste more money on solutions to problems customers do not have?
Regulatory-driven QFD
Governmental or industry standards and regulations have changed, or you wish to enter a market where they are different than what you follow today. This QFD approach helps identify what customers' needs are most affected by the regulatory change and must be protected in any redesign.
Manufacturing-driven QFD
New production equipment, facilities, locations, or workers are to be utilized. This QFD approach helps us identify the impact of operational changes and assure that critical customer needs are not negatively impacted.
Reliaiblity-driven QFD
Your products are experiencing significant market or process failure modes, safety claims, or security vulnerabilities. Improvement processes such as six sigma, kaizen, quality improvement stories, 7D/8D reports, etc. are not delivering significant enough improvement. This approach to QFD examines the environmental and situational sources of these problems, which often involve customer and user behaviors in order to help design more robust products.
Knowledge-driven QFD
Your company's products and processes have been in place for decades; those who created them have long retired. You're no longer sure why things are done the way they are done as the handwritten notes and drawings are no longer available. Or, your senior technical staff are approaching retirement and their knowledge must be documented before they leave. This approach to QFD uses the matrices and other charts to capture information about technical and process decisions, and make them available to future staff in an easy-to-follow format.There are many approaches to QFD, depending on the strategic purpose of your project. Here are a few of the most common ones.