Pfad: Startseite
> Veranstaltungen > QFD Symposium 1996
QFD Symposium: "Der Kunde hilft sparen"
A symposion organized by BIFOA
(Betriebswirtschaftliches Institut für Organisation und Automation an der Universität Köln)
General
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a technique used in Japan and USA for decades now to establish
communication channels and establish a level of common
understanding between customers and technicians.
QFD is of the method of choice for
companies such as Hewlett-Packard and Anderson Consulting, among
many others from various areas, to define appropriate levels of
functionalities for their products and services. For reasons that
are difficult to assess, it is not yet commonly used in Germany (and
possibly other countries of Europe). Yet its proven benefits
include the ability to distinguish between features that are
technically feasible and those that are needed by the customer.
Figure 1 Features without QFD
Figure 2: Features with QFD
This was demonstrated in several studies presented at the symposium,
and is common practice within several industries in Japnn and USA.
The Situation in Europe
Despite the apparant advantages of
the approach, this practice still isnt widely adopted in
Europe. Several isolated spots exist, such as with Hewlett-Packard
and Boehninger Mannheim, but certainly not (yet?) as a mainstream
technique. The reasons why Europe is late, and what makes it more
difficult for Europeans than for other folks to adopt that
technique, has been widely discussed.
QFD is a technique that creates
common understanding between different views. Its most
common application is to reconciliate the standpoints of the
customer with those of the design engineer ("1st
House Of Quality", see also Figure 1 and Figure 2). This
requires a cultural change that replaces authority by
responsibility, command by cooperation, belief by inquiry, and
this seems in European industries less developed than in some
oversea countries. Also, QFD is related to process management and
process control, and again, here Europes is not on the forefront
of innovation.
Is QFD applicable in the
services industry?
QFD has been very successfully
applied for software product development, but no examples have
been cited at the symposium that illustrate its usefulness for
service definitions. The author knows among other of an example
conducted for DECs Multivendor Customer Service that proved
to be helpful in defining the service portfolio, but its real
power is deployed only if firmly connected to the project
management methodology used wihin the company, such as
demonstrated by Boehninger Mannheim and Hewlett Packard.
Recommendation
For the UNISYS Proposal Centre,
QFD offers very interesting potential benefits: If time is scarce,
and not everything is known about a customer that we plan to
offer a project proposal, and a feasibility study is needed (as
mandated per the world wide ISG BID process), the QFD approach
could save
- Time for designing the proposal
- Effort for conducting a feasibility study
- Reduce costly features elsewise included in the offer
- Thus also reduce the costs of the proposed solution
- Enhance the quality of the offer by focusing it to the customers need
- Thus finally increase our chances to win
All this looks promising enough to
justify serious trials.
In order to support such trials,
the Proposal Centre will offer moderated QFD sessions, either by
our own quality consultants, or by experienced moderators from
outside UNISYS.
Bericht von Dr. Fehlmann, Euro Project Office AG
© 2001-2002 QFD Institut Deutschland e.V.
Nutzungshinweise für QFD-ID.DE.
|