Designing Products
and Processes
with a Future
What does it take?

Involve the customer

Meet with the customer

Listen to customer

Educate the customer

Incorporate quality
function deployment
(QFD)

Design for robustness
What is a customer?







The person who buys the product?
The federal regulator?
The consumer reporter?
The marketing and sales department?
Engineering?
Manufacturing?
Suppliers?
How do you hear the customer?
Features
Needs
 Wants
 Satisfaction
 Perception
Quality

ABOUT
Value
Importance
Competitors
Detractors
Product Design
What the Customer
wanted
What Marketing described
What Engineering designed
What Manufacturing buit
What is Design?
A Decision Making Process
– Idea generation
Flexibility
– Assessment of firm’s ability to
carry out
– Customer Requirements
– Functional Specification
– Product Specifications
– Concept Generation
– Concept Selection
– Engineering Design
– Engineering Evaluation
– Prototype and Testing
 Manufacturing
Design
Cost
Few Successes
Number
2000
1500
1000
Ideas
1750 Market
requirement
1000
Design review,
Testing, Introduction
Functional
specifications
500
500
0
Product
specification
100 25
Development Stage
One
success!
QUALITY FUNCTION
DEPLOYMENT

Quality Function Deployment
– Uses the voice of the customer to build a
design tool:
» House of quality
QFD: An approach that integrates the “voice of the
customer” into the product and service
development process.
Quality Function Deployment
 Identify
customer wants
 Identify how the good/service will
satisfy customer wants
 Relate customer wants to product hows
 Identify relationships between the
firm’s hows
 Develop importance ratings
 Evaluate competing products
House Of
Quality
Tradeoff
Matrix
Importance
Product
characteristics
Customer
requirements
Relationship
matrix
Technical assessment and
target values
Competitive
assessment
House of Quality Example
Correlation:
X
X
X
*
Competitive evaluation
Water
resistance
Accoust. Trans.
Window
Force needed
to open door
Force on level
ground
Door seal
resistance
Customer
Requirements
Force needed
to close door
Engineering
Characteristics
X
X
X
Strong positive
Positive
Negative
Strong negative
X = Us
A = Comp. A
B = Comp. B
(5 is best)
1 2 3 4
Easy to close
7
X
Stays open on a hill
5
X AB
Easy to open
3
Doesn’t leak in rain
3
No road noise
Evaluation
2
AB
XAB
A XB
X A
5
4
3
2
1
B
A
BA
X
X
An Automotive Door
B
A
X
B
X
A
BXA
27
Maintain
current level
6
Maintain
current level
27
Reduce energy
to 7.5 ft/lb.
45
Reduce force
to 9 lb.
63
Maintain
current level
Reduce energy
level to 7.5 ft/lb
63
Target values
Technical evaluation
(5 is best)
5
BA
X
Relationships:
Strong = 9
Medium = 3
Small = 1
B
Idea Generation Stage
Provides basis for entry into market
 Sources of ideas

– Market need (60-80%); engineering & operations
(20%); technology; competitors; inventions;
employees

Follows from marketing strategy
– Identifies, defines, & selects best market
opportunities
Customer Requirements Stage
Identifies & positions key product
benefits
– Stated in core benefits proposition
(CBP)
– Example: Long lasting with more
power
(Sears’ Die Hard Battery)
House of Quality
Identifies detailed list of
product attributes desired
Product
by customer
Characteristics
– Focus groups or
Customer
1-on-1 interviews
Requirements


Functional Specification Stage


Defines product in terms of
how the product would meet
desired attributes
Identifies product’s
engineering characteristics
– Example: printer noise (dB)


Prioritizes engineering
characteristics
May rate product compared
to competitors’
House of Quality
Product
Characteristics
Customer
Requirements
Product Specification Stage




Determines how product will be made
Gives product’s physical specifications
– Example: Dimensions, material etc.
Defined by engineering
House of Quality
drawing
Done often on computer
Component
– Computer-Aided
Design (CAD)
Specifications
Product
Characteristics
Quality Function Deployment

Product design process using
cross-functional teams
– Marketing, engineering, manufacturing
Translates customer preferences into
specific product characteristics
 Involves creating 4 tabular ‘Matrices’ or
‘Houses’

– Breakdown product design into increasing
levels of detail
To Build House of Quality
 Identify
customer wants
 Identify how the good/service will
satisfy customer wants.
 Relate the customer’s wants to the
product’s hows.
 Develop importance ratings
 Evaluate competing ideas and concepts
Ultimately you choose the design
Not the customer!
House of Quality Example
You’ve been assigned
temporarily to a QFD
team. The goal of the
team is to develop a
new camera design.
Build a House of
Quality.
© 1984-1994 T/Maker Co.
House of Quality Example
What the customer desires
(‘wall’)
Customer Customer
Requirements Importance
Light weight
Easy to use
Reliable
Target Values
House of Quality Example
Average customer
importance rating
Customer
Requirements
Light weight
Easy to use
Reliable
Target Values
Customer
Importance
3
2
1
House of Quality Example
Choose engineering
characteristics to satisfy the
customer requirements
Customer
Requirements
Light weight
Easy to use
Reliable
Target Values
Customer
Importance
3
2
1
Aluminum
Parts
Steel
Parts
Auto
Focus
Auto
Exposure
House of Quality Example
Relationship between
customer attributes &
engineering characteristics
(‘rooms’)
Customer
Requirements
Light weight
Easy to use
Reliable
Target Values
Customer
Importance
Aluminum
Parts
Steel
Parts
3
2
1
5
2
4
19
8
14
Auto
Focus
Auto
Exposure
8
5
21
7
3
17
QFD Cascades
ROBUST DESIGN
Design that results in products or
services that can function over a
broad range of conditions
What does Robust Design mean?






Plan for variability
Assess your capabilities
Design for Manufacturing
Reduce Costs
Practice!
Improve RAM-D
Variability: The Taguchi
Approach to ROBUST DESIGN
 Design a robust product
− Insensitive to environmental factors either
in manufacturing or in use.
 Central feature is Parameter
Design
 Determines
− factors that are controllable and those not
controllable
− their optimal levels relative to major
product advances
ASSESS CAPABILITIES

Identify Core Strengths

Match Products To
Processing Capabilities
– Design for Manufacturing
(DFM)
DESIGN FOR
MANUFACTURING
The designers’ consideration of the
organization’s manufacturing capabilities
when designing a product.
Materials
Processes
Assembly
REDUCE COSTS

Focus on simplification & standardization
− Design for Assembly (DFA)
− Increase emphasis on component
commonality

Study how products are designed & built

Eliminate duplicate design & processes

Strategically control capital spending
INVOLVE OPERATIONS

Practice concurrent
engineering

Establish technical
exchange programs

Use collaborative styles

Look for continual
improvement
IMPROVE DURABILITY,
RELIABILITY, & SAFETY
1) Improve component design
2) Use redundancy
3) Improve production and/or
4)
5)
6)
7)
8)
assembly techniques
Improve testing
Use robust design
Use modular design
Improve preventive maintenance
Educate customers
Good Luck
with your designs!