The Methodology of a New Product to Be Brought into the Market - Coursework Example

Quality Function Deployment Supervisor Study Program Introduction This paper utilizes QFD (Quality Function Deployment) methodology to translate customer needs into characteristics of a new product to be brought into the market or to develop the nature of an existing product. The traditional QFD procedure involved six steps each one designed for a specific purpose. The first procedure is identifying the customer needs or demands by use of questionnaires and sometimes face-to-face interview of a number of customers sufficient to make informed decision. To some extent, this was done to verify the impact of products from other firms on the product in question to assists in construction of a competitive evaluation of the clients’ views. Expert knowledge is involved determination technical needs by brainstorming and quality control measures to come up with a proper relationship between the product characteristics and the customers’ claims. In this paper, two approaches will be used to verify the impact of QFD on new product intended for the market, the first approach would be crisp approach where traditional QFD procedure will be utilized and the second approach will be fuzzy approach. Literature review Given the increasing local and international competition among industries due to globalization, each one of them is seeking to discover competitive advantages that can keep them on top of the game. To effectively counter this problem, they need to base their strength on their ability to satisfy its clients by identifying the customer needs and developing new products or improving the existing ones. Chances of failure of a new product is as high as two out of six products introduced, therefore it is upon the company to translate the market research into a production language that fits all that a client requires. As a precaution, they need to consider the shortcomings of the current product before bringing another into the market. QFD have been an important facet in product development and improvement, it is an investment in human personnel and information sourcing. The data obtained is used systematically and analytically to meet customer requirements in planning and production of a particular product, it comprehensively takes care of the consumer voice. The QFD is normally applied in two sections, product quality deployment and quality function deployment, product quality deployment ensures that consumer needs are catered for in the product’s quality parameters while quality function deployment ensures that the aim of producing the product is achieved1. Yoji Akao introduced the concept of QFD in Japan in 1966; he referred to it as a methodology of designing a product to meet all the consumers’ needs after carefully considering their voices. It is used as a template during the production process. The concept have a number of benefits including: 1. Ensuring focus on consumer needs 2. Utilization of information on competition 3. Developing a course of action 4. Limit product failure after introduction 5. Identifying the market trend 6. Reduced time wastage for implementation 7. Promotes teamwork and proper communication 8. Provides for proper documentation of the processes 9. Provides for a good analysis framework QFD is a multidisciplinary activity that involves different distinction with the organization including the designers, manufacturing engineers, marketing representatives and other departments involved in the production and marketing of the product. It provides a common way in which all these groups can present their views on the production process and call for changes, in addition, the production process becomes more harmonized with the help of QFD. Issues involved in QFD starts from description of the solution in general terms, different viewpoint from all departments are incorporated, the issue is then discussed in details and terms that are more specific are used. Problem that arise during the analysis are solved using complex method such as the fuzzy and neural model. Approach 1: Traditional Quality Function Traditional QFD is utilized to determine and translate consumer needs into the design of a new product. For instance, a body lotion. The method employs matrix method to relate different factors that affect the performance of a product in the market. The process entails six steps applied to document consumer suggestion and the line of progress. It starts by development a list detailing consumer demand, the second stage is evaluation of the data based on competition. The third stage involves determination of measurable and controllable characteristics that affects performance of the product, the next stage is development of interrelationship matrix involving the quality parameters of the product. The fifth stage is marching the consumer needs and technological requirements of the product and finally technical assessment of the procedure. The output of the six steps is a visual representation of what needs to be produced2. The illustration below shows the relationship, figures represent the steps. 1 The voice of the customer 5 An evaluation of the strength of the relationship between the voices and the technical requirements 2 Customer competitive evaluations 6 Competitive technical assessment Step 1: Determination of Consumer Demands This is the most essential part of QFD methodology; consumer needs, complaints and expectation are identified in this stage. This can be done by employing a number of methods including customer interviews, panels, discussion and considering customer reviews. Questionnaires, complaint database, service enquiries and consumer feedback system can be used to accomplish this task, it answers the “what” question. Consumer views can be grouped in terms of: 1. Price 2. Brand 3. Fragrance 4. Content/ingredients 5. Naturalness 6. Additional importance 7. Effectiveness 8. Visual appeal 9. Risk factor 10. Ease of use 11. Packaging 12. Ergonomic 13. Volume 14. Appropriate It is impractical for the firm to satisfy all the consumer needs at any one instance. Therefore, there is need to prioritize what affect a majority of the population at first and other requirements should be incorporated through systematic planning. Step 2: Competitive Evaluation of the Consumer This stage is important since it prepares the firm for any form of competition that may result. It shows the firms current weaknesses and strengths as well as narrowing down to areas that need improvements. This is done by considering the firms records and what consumer say about their products in relation to products from another company. Step 3: Establishment of Technical Requirements In this stage, all the customer demands are converted into technical needs. The technical requirements should be global in nature and address a customer’s voice adequately. It answers the “how” question by defining and measuring design features based on step two Step 4: Relating the Technical Requirements Most of the technical requirements are related in either a negative or a positive way. Improving one requirement may therefore have a deteriorative effect on the other in case they relate negatively, on the other hand, complimentary requirements may improve based on the improvement of another. The fourth stage is done to identify conflicting and complimentary behaviors of the technical requirements. Step 5: Relating customer needs and technical requirements After answering the “how” and “what” question, the technical requirements should be related to the consumer suggestions in order to ensure that they are in harmony. A relationship matrix is handy in establishing this kind of relationship. Step 6: technical assessment of the procedure Here, the overall impact of the five stages is evaluated and a decision is made on whether to proceed with the procedure as it is or to make some adjustments. It the result is satisfactory, the production process initiates. Approach 2: Fuzzy Approach After collecting data from consumers through various method, Fuzzy logic is essential in correcting all the uncertainties that may result. The concept of fuzzy logic was introduced in 1965 to employ understanding of human linguistics in expressing a system of knowledge. It consist of theories, concepts and facts to correct the ambiguity in linguistic variables. For instance, a person may be old and yet not too old or young and not too young. As a result, a linguistic variable may belong to two distinct groups; this can be represented as shown in the diagram below3. Membership Function Young Not so young Old Very old 1.0 Age 0 20 27 40 60 80 (years) Fuzzy logic provides valuable data to QFD process in terms of: 1. Application of human linguistics in understanding knowledge of the system 2. Allow for decision making while taking care of the uncertainty 3. It is simple to understand 4. Can handle multiple input and output Integrating fuzzy method with QFD The probability distribution of data in fuzzy method verifies the mathematical coefficients to come up with a realistic information. This can be represented mathematically: λ[α1,α2 ]= [λ⋅α1,λ⋅α2 ] [α1,α2][β1,β2]=[α1 ×β1,α2 ×β2] Where λ - the scalar quantity [α1, α2] and [β1, β2] - the intervals of the two symmetrical triangular fuzzy numbers (TFN) respectively. Individual rating can be represented as: n Individual rating =∑Aij X j j Aij =[α1ij ,α 2ij ] Where Aij and Xj denote the relative importance of the ith characteristic with respect to the jth customer need in the relationship matrix and importance of the jth customer need perceived by the customer, which are customer rating respectively. The normalized individual rating for each characteristic can be determined as4: Individual Rating i Normalized Individual Rating i = Maximum Individual Rating The relative importance and the customer rating can be linguistic or crisp variable. As mentioned, linguistic variables such as strong relation,(s) moderate relation,(m) and weak relation,(w) are used to describe the relative importance. These linguistic variables translates into TFNs numbers5. Reference:  Khoo L.P. and Ho N.C. (1996). “Framework of a fuzzy quality function deployment system”. International Journal of Production Research, vol. 34, No.2, pp. 299-311 (it has detailed information on fuzzy and QFD) 2 Zimmermann, H. J., 1986, Fuzzy Sets Theory and its Applications (Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publisher (Explicitly examines Fuzzy method) 3Vonderembse A. mark and Raghunathan T.S. (1997). “Quality function deployment’s impact on product development”. International Journal of Quality Science, Vol.2, No.4, pp.253-271. (have detailed explanation of QFD) 4 Tan K.C.; Xie M.; Chia E. (1998). “Quality Function Deployment and Its Use in Designing Information Technology Systems”. International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, Vol.15, No.6, pp.634-645. (Summarizes QFD concepts) 5 Sullivan L.P. (1986). “Quality Function Deployment”, Quality Progress, June, pp.39-50. (Easy to understand and detailed) Read More