ABSTRACT
The customer's needs and expectations are the primary source of information when defining a device. The needs of the company are important in defining the device. The competencies of potential vendors or other companies in alliance or partnership with the original company must be considered. Quality Function Deployment (QFD) should be viewed from a very global perspective as a methodology that will link a company with its customers and assist the organization in its planning processes. QFD is a process in which the "voice of the customer" is first heard and then deployed through an orderly, four-phase process in which a product is planned, designed, made and then made consistently. The voice of the customer is the basic input required to begin a QFD project. The customer's competitive evaluation of the company's products or services permits a company to observe how its customers rate its products or services on a numerical scale.
