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6.3.2 QFD focused on Customer's Objectives

The middle part of Figure 4 is now taken as customer requirements (Table 6) - we have to adapt the quality characteristics. Some quality characteristics from the previous QFD might still be useful, like "printer speed". The directions of improvement now give non-product related proposals, which may be hard to perform by the printer itself (Table 7)

Table 6: QFD focused on Customer's Objectives

A1	Printer speed	Average project time	Review frequency	Other Characteristics	Customer's Importance Rating
Reviewing source code					5
Start more complex projects					3
Weighted importance:	45	27	45

Table 7: Directions to improve Accomplishment of Customer's Objectives

As manufacturer, consider entering the completely different market of software engineering! Or supply your printer-model with additional benefits. For example, provide a booklet with the printer, 'how to avoid bugs'. The booklet might help the customer reducing the need to print out frequently for checking purposes.

6.3.3 QFD focused on Customer's Value

Finally, the supplier might even decide to take a completely different route and support the customer to achieve its ultimate values (Table 8).

Table 8: QFD focused on Customer's Values

Table 9: Directions to improve Value Creation for the Customer

Why not providing software engineering services and a printer?

6.4 In Reality ...

In reality the author made a decision, which matches the last QFD: he switched from a Windows-based environment for software development to a Linux based one. The Windows environment requested using an inconvenient, complex and hard-to-understand library. Linux offered Perl and Perl/Tk. His development rate of complex programs increased considerably, demanding for less individual printouts.

7 Conclusions

The proposed TRIZ-model can help understanding the customer. It structures the available information into different levels of requirements. This allows doing QFD's on different levels, opening new opportunities for manufacturers. It creates customer-focused ideas, which can be used in many ways - e.g. for concept selection.

Acknowledgement

The author likes to thank Svetlana Visnepolschi, Ideation International, for her comments on the previous version of this paper (5).

References

1. Mazur, G., 'Voice of Customer Analysis: A Modern System of Front-End QFD Tools, With Case Studies', http://www.personal.engin.umich.edu/~gmazur/works/voice_of_customer.pdf, 1996
2. Cohen, L., 'Quality Function Deployment. How to make QFD work for you', Addison-Wesley Longman, Inc. 1995
3. 'Innovative WorkBench IWB2000', Ideation International
4. King, B., 'Better Designs in Half the Time', 1989
5. Schlueter, M., 'QFD by TRIZ', Proceedings, TRIZCon2001, http://www.triz-journal.com/archives/2001/05/index.htm

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