Quality Function Deployment

Market globalization has brought us not only new opportunities, but also new challenges. The theme of innovation has become a mandatory topic for all industries -it has become a focal point for the enterprise, society and the world. The goal of innovation is to create business value by developing worthwhile ideas into a customer-centric marketable reality. This, for most companies, is difficult to achieve due to the lack of a methodology and tools for systematic innovative thinking. This paper introduces the concept and strategies for product-service innovation based on a Dominant Innovation Design approach. An innovation toolset that effectively combines an Innovation Matrix, Application Space Map, and QFD tools is explained. This methodology enables the identification of hidden customer needs and gaps as they relate to product-service requirements. This paper also shares two case studies of how this tool-set can be utilized for real product-service innovation. The case study includes an overall IT-enabled service solution for a traditional product, which encompasses service thinking, blueprint planning, technical solution evaluation, service platform implementation, and service operation. Combining these elements can lead manufacturing industries into new service business model based on their core product while creating more value to their customers.

In recent times, globalization has brought us not only new opportunities but also new challenges. The theme of innovation has become a mandatory topic for all industries—it has become a focal point for the enterprise, society, and the world. The goal of innovation is to create business value by developing worthwhile ideas into a customer-centric marketable reality. This, for most

Today, it can be maintained that the customer is a ‘king’ as he will buy only the products that satisfy his needs and wants. The companies of today are facing new challenges: global business and local operation, standardization, and individualization of products, demanding customers and fierce competition. The company wants to achieve shorter product development time, lower costs, high quality of the product, and finally, customer satisfaction. In order to achieve the set goals, the company has to take into account the customers wants and needs during the new-product-development process. This article presents the mode of description of processes that allow recognition of suitable natural systems and their transformation into technical systems and a model for management of development process. The phases of quality functions deployment (QFD) during the new product development process along with the location for collecting customer needs and wants are presented. A detailed description...

The aim of the study is to evaluate the effect of corporate governance in alternative distribution channels for Turkish banking sector. For this purpose, an integrated fuzzy MCDM model is structured to analyze the multi-dimensional effects of corporate governance for ranking the performance of alternative distribution channels by using the phases of quality function deployment. The method is constructed with the hybrid model by considering the fuzzy DEMATEL and fuzzy TOPSIS. Initially, the consumer needs and other internal and external factors that present the dimensions of the corporate governance are defined to analyze the results using the quality function deployment approach and then, the fuzzy DEMATEL method is used for the weights of dimensions for each perspective of house of quality. The fuzzy TOPSIS is used for ranking the alternative distribution channels in Turkish banking sector.  It is concluded that in Turkish banking sector, branch is most preferred alternative distribution channel whereas the importance of ATM and social media is very low in comparison with the others. Hence, it is believed that using other channels, such as social media and ATM, has an increasing effect in order to increase the effectiveness of the banking sector. Therefore, it can be said that necessary infrastructure should be provided to attract the attention of the parties to make banking transactions through social media and ATMs.

Selection of an optimal non-traditional machining (NTM) process for generating a desired feature on a given material requires the consideration of several factors among which the type of the workpiece material and shape to be machined are the most significant ones. This paper presents a quality function deployment (QFD) based methodology to ease out the optimal NTM process selection procedure. It includes the design of a QFD-based expert system that can automate the decision making process with the help of graphical user interfaces and visual aids. The developed expert system employs the use of a house of quality (HOQ) matrix for comparison of the relevant product and process characteristics. The weights obtained for various process characteristics are utilized to estimate an overall score for each of the NTM processes. Finally, if some of the NTM processes satisfy certain critical criteria, they are again compared with each other on the basis of their overall scores and the process having the maximum score is selected as the optimal choice.

The selection of an appropriate software project management tool, as in the selection of many other tools, is often approached using an ad hoc process. Such non-rigorous approaches often based on personal preference, intuition, or marketing hype, can lead to an erroneous result. In this paper a rigorous model for selecting a software project management tool using the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) is presented. The AHP provides a flexible, systematic, and repeatable evaluation procedure that can easily be understood by the decision maker in selecting the appropriate software project management tool. Several relevant factors based on the most common features offered by commercial off-the-shelf solutions (COTS) are used as the selection criteria in ranking the software project management tools. The contribution of this work is to apply a well-known decision making procedure in a novel way to help decision makers better identify an appropriate software project management tool without having to go through a more extensive evaluation process. In addition, this work establishes a framework for comparing individual product decisions across projects, project managers, organizational groups, and organizations.

The paper provides a comprehensive insight into current trends and developments in Concurrent Engineering for integrated development of products and processes with the goal of completing the entire cycle in a shorter time, at lower overall cost and with fewer engineering design changes after product launch. The evolution and definition of Concurrent Engineering are addressed first, followed by a concise review of the elements of the concurrent engineering approach to product development and the economics of the same. Discussion of teamwork for successful concurrent engineering, with deployment strategies is included.

A new category of tools known as CAI (computer-aided innovation) is an emerging domain in the array of computer-aided technologies. CAI has been growing as a response to greater industry demands for reliability in new products. Some initial CAI ideas and concepts focused on assisting product designers in the early stage of the design process, but now a more comprehensive vision conceives CAI systems as beginning at the fuzzy front end of perceiving business opportunities and customer demands, then continuing during the creative stage in developing inventions and, further on, providing help up to the point of turning inventions into successful innovations in the marketplace. CAI methods and tools are partially inspired by Innovation Theories, such as TRIZ, QFD (Quality Function Development), Axiomatic Design, Synectics, General Theory of Innovation, Mind Mapping, Brain Storming, Lateral Thinking, and Kansei Engineering, among others. The goal of these new CAI tools under development is to assist innovators, inventors, designers, process developers and managers in their creative performance, with the expectation of changes in paradigms through the use of this new category of software tools. CAI, therefore, stands out as a departure from the usual trends. The latest approaches are presented and analyzed to derive conclusions regarding the present status and the future of these emerging tools.

The focus of market research is to capture systematically product information, such as, market competitive analysis data, competitors' product data, etc. The paper describes an integrated template for product improvement by tactically combining real-time market research data with quality function deployment (QFD), value engineering, and a value graph. The focus of integrating market research data with QFD previously had been to develop analysis results -customer importance ratings (CIRs) and technical importance ratings (TIRs). The focus of integrating the QFD analysis (TIRs and CIRs vectors) with value engineering and value graphs, proposed in this paper, is to prioritize these ratings, to synthesize market research data, and thereby predict a better set of improvement characteristics. This process template gives the product development teams (PDTs) a synthesis tool to predict what product offerings customers would be interested in -which the company can build and market to make a fair profit.

Viability of a product or service in the market depends upon the satisfaction that it can extend to its customers through quality. Quality function deployment (QFD) is a tool that gathers voice of customer (VoC) and inducting the expected features in the final product. It is also desirable that the practitioners of QFD must extend due importance to latent expectations of the customers, which in turn may fulfill overall customer satisfaction for a product or service.

Prototyping of embedded hardware/software systems is important, because it shortens the path from specification to the final product. Prototypes play a major role in decision making, concept and design validation, feature and limit exploration, as well as design verification in every phase of the product development cycle, including product planning, requirement engineering, and product development. This overview discusses the motivation for building prototypes, provides the key areas for research and explains how prototypes can assist in product planning and throughout all steps of the engineering process. Special attention is given to prototyping in the industry to support the design and testing of multimodal and multifunctional embedded systems.

Besides the benefits are there possible challenges government agencies are likely to encounter should they
decide to adopt cloud computing? What strategies should be deployed to overcome the inhibitors of cloud computing? These are but few questions this paper aims to investigate. Studies have shown that, cloud computing has become a strategic direction for many government agencies and is already being deployed in many critical areas of the government's cyber infrastructure. The benefits and the challenges of cloud adoption have heightened interest of academic research in recent times. We are however uncertain, per literature factors that hinder successful cloud adoption especially in the Ghanaian context. We posit that,
understanding the challenges of cloud adoption and overcoming them must accompany the use of the technology in order to prevent unwanted technical consequences, and even greater problems from government information management. This study is based on unstructured interviews from selected government agencies in Ghana. The study is grounded on the theory of technology, organization and
environment (TOE) framework. Major inhibiting factors identified include lack of basic infrastructure for cloud take-off, data security, unreliable internet connectivity, and general lack of institutional readiness

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to argue that the quality function deployment (QFD) matrix that has been successfully used for developing products from customer needs can also be applied to improve the service quality of telecommunication companies. Design/methodology/approach -The paper presents a case study of the two big telecom companies (Ufone and Mobilink) of Pakistan. Data have been collected by a cross-sectional field study of users, frontline employees and management of telecom companies. The QFD matrix has been applied to identify customer needs, to do comparative analysis of the prepaid services of these companies and to recommend the suitable measure for incorporating these requirements into their services.

The aim of this study is to build a structured approach to food development through the House of Quality model with application to chocolate couverture. The ®nal concept relates to ®lled (composite) chocolate that, according to de®nition, is a chocolate with ®lling (pralineÂ) covered by chocolate couverture of not less than 15%. The research procedure that consists of the ®ve steps, was developed in association with the House of Quality model. First, the market research was conducted to determine the segment of ®lled-chocolate consumers. As a result, a target group of people between 20 and 29 years old was found. Second, the behavioural motives of the consumers in the target segment were analysed. Then product objective speci®cations were established through physico-chemical and instrumental methods. Finally, sensory analyses were performed involving both consumer and trained panels. A few signi®cant correlations between instrumental and sensory scores were established. The last step of research relates to analysis of the mutual relations between technical and sensory measurements and integration of results in the House of Quality matrix. Methodology introduced in this experiment corresponds to the quality function deployment approach; data evaluationÐby ANOVA and factor analysisÐis implemented.

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a management tool that provides a visual connective process to help teams focus on the needs of the customers throughout the total development cycle of a product or process. It provides the means for translating customer needs into appropriate technical requirements for each stage of a product/process-development life-cycle. It helps to develop more customer-oriented, higher-quality products. While the structure provided by QFD can be significantly beneficial, it is not a simple tool to use. This article outlines how techniques such as fuzzy logic, artificial neural networks, and the Taguchi method can be combined with QFD to resolve some of its drawbacks, and proposes a synergy between QFD and the three methods and techniques reviewed.

owadays, organizations work based on network of relationships. From perspective of organizations, relationships provide a continual flow of profit and earnings in a long time, which lead to creating new business opportunities and increasing efficiency. Therefore, it is profitable to build a strong, positive and mutual relationship. The purpose of this paper is to develop an integrated model of Quality Function Deployment and Customer Relationship Management for service delivery in banking industry. The results of research show that the integration of Customer Relationship Management and Quality Function Deployment lead to an increase in their capability, as well as empowering Customer Relationship Management. The results show that, personnel monitoring and human resource management as the process parameters and the process control characteristics have the first priorities, respectively.

Competition among the industries has become more intense in the global market nowadays. Given the trend of business globalization, companies face challenges from both national and international competitors. In order to pledge this threat, many of them focus on searching for sustainable advantages. The survival of a company is heavily dependent on its capacity to identify new customer requirements and to develop a new product (Shen, 2000). In 1966, Yoji Akao introduced the concept of QFD in Japan. According to Akao, QFD is a method to translate customer needs and requirements into the quality characteristics in order to improve quality for an existing product to develop a new product that satisfy the customers. Hence, this project describes how a quality plan can be determined for a shampoo product by using Quality Function Deployment (QFD) technique.

In modern business environments, agility is advocated as the fundamental characteristics for competitiveness. Little research, however, exists which provides integrated methodologies suitable to be practically adopted to enhance agility of companies. This paper presents an original approach, which, by linking competitive bases, agile attributes and agile enablers, aims at identifying the most appropriate enablers to be implemented by companies starting from competitive characteristics of the related market. The approach is based on the quality function deployment (QFD) methodology, and, in particular, on the house of quality (HOQ), which has been successfully adopted in the new product development field. The whole scaffold exploits fuzzy logic, to translate linguistics judgements required for relationships and correlations matrixes into numerical values. An illustrative example, grounded on data available in literature, is proposed and discussed to show the application of the tool developed.

Companies in either manufacturing or servicing have to be restructured or re-organised in order to overcome challenges of the 21st century in which customers are not only satisfied but also delighted. In this competitive environment, organisations should use a flexible, adaptive and responsive paradigm. Concurrent Engineering (CE) is a management philosophy and is not restricted to manufacturing companies only. It involves systematic and simultaneous approach in developing a product or process while bringing up all the people who need to be involved in the first place. Global competitive pressure has motivated many companies to change to a more rapid form of product development such as concurrent engineering (CE). By executing design in parallel, improvements occur in many areas such as communication, quality, production processes, cash flows, and profitability. Manufacturing enterprise today has become a matter of effective and efficient application of information technology and knowledge-based engineering. On the one hand, this will increase the competitiveness of a firm in terms of quickly meeting dynamic changes in the market. Concurrent engineering (CE) is undertaken to improve the product design process with the intention of improving organisation performance.

The application of the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method to develop food products has been reported in a number of studies. Nevertheless, QFD was originally designed for other industrial sectors, and as such, certain adjustments are necessary for an effective application in the food sector. In this context, this study aims at demonstrating an application of QFD in the development of an organic product. There has been growing global demand for this type of product in recent years. This type of QFD application is not empirically consolidated in the literature. Thus, this study might be considered a pilot work. A QFD conceptual model consisting of four matrices was constructed to develop an organic fruit jelly. The main adaptation is in the first matrix, which includes the key players in the supply chain. As food's ingredients have natural variations in composition, the interactions among the ingredients are to be considered. In addition, the influence of the production processes on the product's functional properties and the effects of the supply chain on the ingredients ensure that this type of product development has different variables compared to other QFD applications for non-food products. Therefore, the conceptual model used in this study may serve in the development of other food products. This study asserts that the element of socio-environmental responsibility is essential for developing an organic product because this dimension comprised one-third of the relative weight of the planned quality.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) di pelayanan kesehatan dapat digunakan untuk melihat apa yang sesuai dan dibutuhkan pasien di rumah sakit serta untuk melihat kesenjangan antara apa yang diinginkan dengan apa yang telah diterima oleh pasien. Hal tersebut berguna untuk mengetahui mutu pelayanan dan prioritas upaya peningkatan kinerja di Rumah Sakit. Selain itu, Quality Function Deployment (QFD) juga dapat digunakan untuk meningkatkan kualitas pelayanan, karena dapat membantu dalam mencari startegi terbaik dimana metode ini merupakan pendekatan terstruktur untuk mendefinisikan kebutuhan atau tuntutan konsumen dan menterjemahkannya menjadi rencana spesifik untuk menghasilkan produk maupun jasa yang mempertemukan kebutuhan-kebutuhan pasien. Berdasarkan latar belakang tersebut, kelompok ingin membahas lebih lanjut mengenai Quality Function Deployment (QFD) terkait dengan manajemen mutu pelayanan jasa bidang kesehatan untuk dapat diterapkan sehingga terjadi peningkatan kualitas pelayanan kesehatan.

Purpose -The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a survey of customer satisfaction with regard to the strategy of total quality management (TQM) adopted in a wheat flour milling company. Design/methodology/approach -A survey was conducted to learn more about customer expectations and satisfaction. The respondents were all customers of a flour-based food processor. Quality function deployment (QFD) was applied to improve customer service performance by focusing on customer satisfaction, value and retention. Findings -The results show that customer satisfaction has increased steadily over a period of three years. The QFD approach helped to design a competitive product by aligning the company resources to customers' needs.

Maintenance is an important part of any organization and it has a significant impact over management operations. After over years of research and practical implications, maintenance has been recognized as a strategic problem of a company. In order to solve the strategic problem, researchers have identified the key performance indicators to measure the effectiveness of maintenance management for better output of an organization. However, there are still more to find when it comes to performance measures, this study is analysing the new variable of Quality Function Deployment as a key performance indicator along with other variables.

The primary objective of this study to analyse inventory management, planning & scheduling, preventive maintenance and the moderating role of quality function deployment as a key performance indicator for the effectiveness of maintenance management. To achieve the objective, a purposive based descriptive cross-sectional study was selected to collect the primary data through structured questionnaires from professionals of maintenance background and experience within Pakistan.

Results of this study suggest that there is a positive relationship of inventory management, planning & scheduling, preventive maintenance on the effectiveness of maintenance management while quality function deployment moderates the relationship in the positive direction between
preventive maintenance and effectiveness of maintenance management. Although the relationship is positive within the research philosophy, in-depth analysis, and further research is required in this domain. A practical approach is important to understand Quality Function Deployment as a key performance indicator.

During the past 20 years, numerous studies have explored the R&D-marketing interface and its role in the new product development (NPD) process. Academics and practitioners (including a PDMA task force) have examined commonly used measures of success, the underlying reasons for the success or failure of NPD projects, and the effects of R&D-marketing integration on both project- and company-level success. Does this mean we have all the answers when it comes to ensuring the necessary level of cooperation and interaction between R&D and marketing? Of course not.Abbie Griffin and John R. Hauser note that prior research on R&D-marketing integration is being reassessed in light of the movement toward flatter organizational structures and cross-functional teams. To facilitate that reassessment, and to help guide future research in this area, they review recent research on the methods employed for integrating R&D and marketing, and they propose several hypotheses regarding those methods. They present their review and hypotheses within the framework of a causal map they have developed for studying functional integration.The causal map links cooperation to NPD success along situational dimensions, structural and process dimensions, and outcome dimensions. The desired outcome in any NPD effort is the timely commercialization of a profitable product. The situational dimensions address the amount and types of integration needed in a project, which depend on such factors as the project phase and the level of project uncertainty. The structural and process dimensions focus on the actions taken to achieve functional integration. These include relocation and physical facilities design, personnel movement, informal social systems, orgnizational structures, incentives and rewards, and formal integrative management processes.The proposed hypotheses focus on the methods for achieving functional integration—that is, the structural and process dimensions of the causal map. At first glance, these hypotheses seem to state the obvious. For example, few would challenge the notion that quality function deployment eliminates barriers to functional integration and improves information sharing between functions. However, achieving those benefits requires the presence of other factors such as senior management involvement. Rather than examine these hypotheses separately, researchers should explore the relative merits of the methods for achieving functional integratin. In other words, future research must consider both the situational and the structural and process dimensions of this framework.

In the face of increasingly aggressive competition in the health care industry, administrator are required to be able to build up strategies, policies or new breakthroughs related to improving the quality of their services, through improving the characteristics of hospital services, which focus on needs of patient, so that the risk of errors or discrepancies between service characteristics that are enhanced by what the patient wants can be avoided or minimized. The health care system had been receiving several customer complaints, thereby pulling the overall satisfaction index low. Since most visitors were asymptomatic, their needs were quite different from patients who visited to hospital for specific treatments. Though, the organisation had taken a few measures, it had not resulted in any significant improvement. The primary areas of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) application are product planning, process planning, production planning and services planning. Since its origin, many organisations have adopted QFD and have reaped benefits from it. In this paper author has reviewed researches pertaining to application of QFD in improving health care services..

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) technique as a TQM tool, has found wide applications in manufacturing as well as service industries. However its application and practice in educational institutes is still not popular. This paper based on the study in an engineering college is an attempt to demonstrate and encourage the application of QFD for planning and improvement of quality to gain competitive edge by satisfying student needs. The responses of 329 students and 35 faculties were obtained through a questionnaire. Importance ratings for student needs were calculated using AHP and pair wise comparison. These ratings were used for construction of relationship and correlation ship matrices and construction of HOQ. Goals for each customer requirements (CR) and technical requirements (TR) were set after competitive assessment of four other local colleges. All the four phases of QFD from planning to design, delivery and control were constructed. The outcomes of each HOQ suggest "How's" for each "What" and the importance rating for each of them, which can be used for reforming the quality of engineering education in the college under study.

The balanced scorecard (BSC) is a strategic management method that links performance measurement to vision and strategies using a multidimensional set of financial and non-financial performance metrics. Although several studies have combined the BSC method with multi-criteria decision analysis methodologies, most of the research efforts do not consider the essentials of strategic and performance management in a systematic and holistic framework capable of handling imprecision and vagueness. The purpose of this study is to present a novel approach for structuring and prioritising the performance measures in the BSC method. The contribution of the proposed approach is fivefold: 1) we use the quality function deployment (QFD) technique to create a linkage between the BSC perspectives; 2) we use the analytic network process (ANP) technique to consider the interactions between the performance measures in each BSC perspective; 3) we integrate the QFD and the ANP techniques to help decision makers understand the relations between the performance measures in different  perspectives and the correlations among the performance measures in the same perspective; 4) we handle the vagueness and ambiguity in decision makers’ judgements with the fuzzy set theory; 5) we present a case study to demonstrate the applicability of the proposed approach and exhibit the efficacy of the procedures.

The changing paradigms in manufacturing in the global market since the late 1990's have seen the emergence of more collaborative manufacturing ventures, an increase in outsourcing and a review of the relationship between manufacturing, operations management and logistics and their place in the overall supply chain. Building effective supply chains has become a way to develop a firm's competitiveness and profitability requiring firms to make the shift from a functionally based organisation to one focused on business processes, first internally and then across the supply chain members. Consequently supply chain members must have measurable outcomes that reflect bottom line improvement in supply chain processes and research is required to understand how to identify appropriate supply chain metrics, implement them and measure results. Generic supply chain frameworks such as the Supply Chain Operations Reference (SCOR) model aim to develop a common supply chain approach for firms with an emphasis on benchmarking but there is some criticism that broader frameworks are required so that managers can link supply chain improvement to strategic plans, key performance indicators and improvement goals. This paper presents Design for Six Sigma (DFSS) as a versatile methodology for approaching supply chain design and performance measurement. The Demand Management process is described as a critical to customer requirements (CCRs) and its importance to business performance elaborated.

This paper attempts to develop a medical tourism service quality construct that will be used for evaluation of the medical tourism service providers in India. Cross-sectional survey of medical tourists at seven hospitals including Joint Commission International (JCI) accredited and non-accredited hospitals across India is carried out and 332 responses are collected from seven hospitals. The data were collected between March 2010 and June 2010. Analysis of data helps to propose a 36-item scale. Ten dimensions of perceived medical tourism service quality are identified viz., accessibility/convenience, treatment satisfaction, courtesy, physical environment features, technical quality of care competency, promptness, facility premises, alternative therapy, finance factors for medical services and pharmaceutical services. Reliability, validity, and factor structure of the construct are evaluated. The interrelationship between medical tourism design requirements is identified using interpretative structural modelling (ISM). These aforesaid dimensions are treated as voice of customers (VoC) and 11 design requirements (medical tourism design requirements) from extensive literature review are treated as design requirement for employing quality function deployment (QFD) in order to prioritise the design requirements.

Logistics and Supply Chain Management literature indicates that customer service management has become a strategic issue for companies in the new millennium. By improving logistics performances, companies increase customer satisfaction and gain market shares.

Kalite Fonksiyon Göçerimi
ve
Bankacılık Sektöründe Bir Uygulama
Yrd. Doç. Dr. Talha Ustasüleyman* - Semra Abanoz**
Rekabetin şiddetli olduğu günümüz piyasalarında işletmelerin varlıklarını sürdürebilmesi için
müşteri beklentilerine önem vermesi gerekmektedir. Kalite Fonksiyon Göçerimi (KFG) metodu müşteri
beklentilerini ölçmeyi, bu beklentileri teknik gerekliliklere dönüştürmeyi ve rakiplerle karşılaştırma
yapmayı sağlayan kalite tekniğidir. Bu çalışmada, bankacılık faaliyetlerindeki müşteri beklentilerinin
önem düzeyinin belirlenmesi, özel bir banka için müşteri beklentilerinin karşılanmasını sağlayan teknik
gereksinimlerin belirlenmesi ve rakip bir banka ile karşılaştırılması amaçlanmıştır. Bu amaçla özel bir
bankanın ve rakibinin müşterilerinden anket çalışması ile elde edilen veriler KFG metodu ile değerlendirilmiştir.
Çalışmanın sonucunda en önemli müşteri beklentisi Güvenlik ve Kişisel Bilgilerin Saklanması,
en önemli teknik gereksinim ise Bilgi İşlem Sistemi olarak belirlenmiştir.
Anahtar Kelimeler: Kalite Fonksiyon Göçerimi, Kalite Evi, Analitik Hiyerarşi Süreci.

This paper proposes a novel methodology, QFD based 3D morphological charts, to support variant design of simple and technically mature products. Customer's requirements are incorporated in developing the morphological charts through a holistic approach, One-Step QFD. In contrast to the traditional cascading deployment, members from marketing, design, and manufacturing teams concurrently derive the requirements from three different aspects. The charts driven by the deployment results produce design concepts of high feasibility through query by function, specification, and module of a product. They are presented in 3D assembly for better visual stimuli rather than clutter of 2D sketches. A computer-aided conceptual design system is implemented to realize the proposed ideas with computer mice as an example product. A design experiment is conducted to compare the quantity and quality of the concepts generated with and without the aid of the system. The results show that it promotes quick generation of innovative concepts while maintaining their manufacturability.

With the development of technology in the field of electronic communications groups have started to form a new way of interaction. Electronic collaborations have been used to enable teams to collaborate dispersed or virtually using the web.Virtual collaboration and facilitation are widespread in organizations. However, delivering appropriate electronic or virtual facilitation is a complicated task to achieve and hence the evaluation of these services is a challenge. The paper delivers an assessment framework to address the evaluation of virtual facilitation services and describes the use of the framework in the field. The framework is structured in a way to map the facilitation service goals into evaluation objectives, metrics and measurements. The framework consists of a structure and a process which facilitators use to apply the framework to alternative scenarios. Finally, the framework is evaluated by experts in the field.

Sustainability has become an important element in today's world. It is important thathumans utilize the available resources intelligently and responsibly in a way that the environment will not be affected such that future generations of humans will enjoy the same quality of life that we are currently having. Unfortunately manufacturing being a very resource consuming activity, it is important to consider sustainability at all levels of the life cycle of the products that are manufactured. Life cycle analysis is an accepted method to identify the environmental impact of the manufacturing activity. Sustainable manufacturing is now a realizable goal and a number of areas within manufacturing are benefitted by it. The research involves in reducing the energy requirement for manufacturing processes and practices, as well as using materials that are more environmentally friendly. Already very promising results have been achieved in a number of areas.

Many varieties of techniques and tools are currently applied in effort to monitor and to improve the reliability of a product such as field failure data analysis, Quality Function Deployment (QFD), Failure Mode and Effect Analysis (FMEA) and Failure Tree Analysis (FTA). This case study demonstrates the significant of utilizing above tools and techniques in determining the current performance in term of reliability of the brake pads. This information is useful for the manufacturer to convince potential customers in this case which are international car makers to acquire the brake pads based on the reliability monitoring and improvement activities that have been practiced recently. The transition process of implementing these tools and techniques is considered new challenge for the manufacturer to promote their product's marketability to international level.

The purpose of this paper is to propose an integrated approach of simulation, fuzzy analytic hierarchy process and Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) for facility layout design improvement and optimization. Computer simulation has been used to determine quantitative measures. Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) has also been used to determine the weight of qualitative measures for layout alternatives. Non equal weights have been derived with respect to the quantitative and qualitative criteria. QFD has been used to determine weights of criteria and the importance of the alternatives in relation to quantitative and qualitative measures. Finally, Topsis approach has been used for ranking the alternatives and identifying the best alternative. The results imply that the proposed methodology is more reliable compared to existing approaches. In addition, the methodology requires managers' concentration on Facility Layout Problem (FLP). This paper provides organizations a way to devise and refine adequate criteria and alleviate the risk of selecting optimal solutions.

This article suggests a new method that transfers the house of quality (HOQ) approach typical of quality function deployment (QFD) problems to the supplier selection process. To test its efficacy, the method is applied to a supplier selection process for a medium-to-large industry that manufactures complete clutch couplings.

Through a case study showing the development of a new mug of draft beer, this work presents a method for integration of Kano model in the Quality Function Deployment-QFD. Traditionally, QFD uses data about importance and customer satisfaction with different requirements to identify the attributes that should be incorporated or improved in a product. As customers tend to rate basic requirements with high importance, the traditional QFD method tends to give higher priority to these requirements in detriment of innovative ones. Kano model allows the identification of exciting requirements, usually associated with innovations. Then, the integration of the Kano model in the QFD can allow innovative requirements to receive the necessary attention in the product's development process. Two methods, proposed in the literature for this integration, are presented and their limitations analyzed. Finally, through data collected with 289 potential consumers of draft beer mugs, the case study illustrates the proposed method.

A concurrent engineering approach integrating analytic hierarchy process (AHP) with quality function deployment (QFD) in combination with cost factor measure (CFM) has been delineated to rank and subsequently select candidate-suppliers under multiple, conflicting-in-nature criteria environment within a value-chain framework. Engineering requirements and customer requirements governing the selection decision have been identified. The hierarchical QFD methodology allows the decision maker (DM) to rank the candidate-suppliers considering both CFM and the subjective factors. The sensitivity of the proposed methodology is elucidated considering a parameter called objective factor decision weight. The devised methodology has been tested with the dataset adopted from Yahya and Kingsman . Liu and Hai [51] tested their model with the same dataset. A comparative analysis using design of experiment has been elucidated so as to demonstrate the efficacy of the devised hierarchical concurrent engineering approach.

This report analyses Quality Function Deployment (QFD) on a car dash board. One of the business strategies is to know what basically wants from this product and helping them to achieve customer satisfaction. QFD is the best method to convert the customer requirements and needs into quality characteristic and develop a design quality product. In this report, the specification for choosing a dash board unit is analysed with customer's preference and converted into engineering characteristics. The voice of customer is taken as an initial step and rated on importance and the house of quality diagram is figured out by considering all the real time aspects. This report is defined to Quality Function Deployment of car dash board and the objectives are:  Customer view  Technical specification  Technological limit  Money saving analysis by using House of Quality Diagram 1. INTRODUCTION Car industry plays an important role as the back bone for the economy of any country. Dash board is one of the main parts of the car interior component and plays a very Praveen Padagannavar