QFD-ID: QFD-Forum Ausgabe 23

QFD standards of the automotive industry in Germany mostly show the concept of the house of quality (HOQ) and 4 stages of QFD (e. g. VDA 4.1 chapter 6).
Especially when introducing QFD as a new process into a company, it will be an extra effort for the team, in addition to the traditional workflow. Very often, the new application of QFD fails because of lack of resources, especially time, as the traditional systems are to be run as well at the same time. Furthermore, teams might loose track, the QFD charts grow into unbelievable dimensions.
In an environment where very concrete actions are the normal results of analytic work, the rather fuzzy results of QFD, which need a more systematic approach and translation, sometimes fail to be accepted by management. As a consequence, organizations often refuse to change their whole product and process planning routines "just to produce HOQs on wallpapers". This is especially true in companies, which are generally rather successful on their main markets with the results of their traditional workflow. And it would really be a high risk to change all the grown procedures, documents and computer systems and to train hundreds of people in the application of the new method and software, when the outcome is not certain. "Copy the spirit, not the form!" Prof. Akao said.
To introduce the QFD spirit at Volkswagen, specific quality tables (QT) are used in the quality planning process. The dimensions of these QTs are easy to control and their application is rather simple. It is not necessary to buy special software and to train people in using it.
By applying very focussed QTs, specialists and managers learn to work with the QFD spirit, and to translate the fuzzy results into concrete decisions. Step by step it becomes obvious to relate QFD activities and other quality methods. A more natural process of a growing QFD application can be started. The traditional workflow of a company needed time to grow, and it always took its time to adjust for new tools, for example CAD, which usually started in some areas, driven by some enthusiasts. Let us give it a chance to incorporate the QFD spirit in the same way!

The author will shortly mention obstacles to the introduction of QFD in his daily work and then show examples of the QT application and QFD training concepts at Volkswagen. He will be happy to discuss this manner to introduce QFD with the other participants of the symposium

Author

Dietmar Zander
Formal apprenticeship in the wholesales branch
PC Trainer
SalesTrainer
Since ten years quality methods specialist, Quality Strategy Dept, VOLKSWAGEN AG., Wolfsburg, Germany

Application of Quality Tables in the quality planning process - A pragmatic approach to introduce QFD into a company

Abstract

Author