Quality Function Deployment overview

Learning objectives

• Explain the House-of-Quality logic.
• Weight relationships between needs and technical responses.
• Recognize technical trade-offs.

QFD in one sentence

QFD links customer requirements to technical characteristics, weights their relationships and exposes priorities, conflicts and competitive gaps.

Garment-factory example

Soft hand feel, dimensional stability, colour retention and cost are related to fibre, construction, wash recipe, finish and process settings; strong/medium/weak scores expose trade-offs.

Method

1. Confirm VOC and importance.
2. Define technical measures.
3. Score relationships with a cross-functional team.
4. Compare alternatives and set measurable targets.

Common mistakes

• Filling a big matrix without reliable VOC.
• Treating subjective scores as statistical proof.