A Design-Knowledge Capture Tool:
Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

Terry Bahill
Systems and Industrial Engineering
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721-0020, USA
terry@sie.arizona.edu
© 1998-2004 Bahill

Over the past 40 years the Japanese have developed many quality improvement techniques for manufacturing processes. One of these is, Quality Function Deployment (QFD), is becoming very popular with the practitioners in both Japan and the US.

QFD strives to get the idea of quality introduced into early phases of the design cycle. In most implementations, QFD uses many matrix like charts to discover interrelationships in manufacturing processes. For example, one of the first charts compares the customer's demands (What the customer wants) to technical characteristics (How can you measure something to ensure that you are satisfying the customer). Another chart then investigates the relationships between the technical characteristics and the engineering requirements. This process of studying interrelationships continues for several charts. I may demonstrate a software package that automates this knowledge-capture process. This discussion of QFD is a simple minded overview.

Reference [55, 62, 82]. This lecture is suitable for all engineers and scientists. It requires an IBM compatible personal computer with a large projection screen, a chalk board and an overhead projector. This talk takes one hour.