A VALUE-CENTRIC QFD FOR ESTABLISHING REQUIREMENTS SPECIFICATION

DS 68-10: Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Engineering Design (ICED 11), Impacting Society through Engineering Design, Vol. 10: Design Methods and Tools pt. 2, Lyngby/Copenhagen, Denmark, 15.-19.08.2011

Year: 2011
Editor: Culley, S.J.; Hicks, B.J.; McAloone, T.C.; Howard, T.J. & Dong, A.
Author: Zhang, Xinwei; Auriol, Guillaume; Monceaux, Anne; Baron, Claude
Section: Design Methods and Tools Part 2
Page(s): 228-237

Abstract

Quality function deployment (QFD) is commonly recognized as a tool or methodology for developing customer-focused products. There is, however, no explicit clarification about customer values in QFD. In the paper a value-centric QFD with qualitative and quantitative thinking of value is proposed for understanding customer needs and establishing requirements specification. The techniques of fundamental objectives hierarchy and means-ends objectives networks are utilized to structure reasonably the initially identified customer statements, which are possibly of different levels and granularities, and to uncover the implicit customer needs. Then quantitative analysis on value, e.g. value model and weight importance, is made possible by incorporating multi-attributes preference theory. It is believed that some underlying methodological problems in QFD can be interpreted and resolved in the value-centric framework. The business benefit of the value-centric QFD is that customer needs can be understood in terms of value and the design of alternatives is driven by their contribution to customer values.

Keywords: VALUE MODEL; VALUE; REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING; QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT; PREFERENCE THEORY

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