ABSTRACT
Chapter 1 will begin by providing the reader with a Quality Function Deployment (QFD) orientation. First define QFD and then discuss how it is currently structured in present-day applications by describing model components. It will then discuss that two related objectives drove the need for QFD. One, the need to convert users’ needs (or customers’ demands) for product benefits into substitute quality characteristics (SQCs) at the design stage. And two, to deploy the SQCs identified at the design stage to the production activities, thereby establishing the necessary control and checkpoints “prior” to production startup. It then addresses that concept of quality deployment was first proposed by Yoji Akao in 1966 and expanded in his article published in 1969, “Quality Featuring Characteristics of Quality Control.” It will then guide the reader through QFD’s introduction to the United States in 1983 by Yasushi Furukawa, Masao Kogore, and Yoji Akao. The chapter will then introduce the reader to the fact that only one’s imagination limits the application of QFD. By holding to its original intent of providing product developers with a systematic method for “deploying” the voice of the customer into product design, it is now being used increasingly for applications that do not fit the exact “model” of product development. The chapter will conclude with a discussion on what QFD is being used for today and some honorable mentions of initiatives of how QFD use is being expanded. A notional Model-Based Support Analysis Life-Cycle Framework, which serves as the bases for the book, will also be presented.
