How do you align QFD with your strategic goals and objectives?

1 What is QFD and VOC?

QFD is a structured process that uses a series of matrices, called the House of Quality (HOQ), to link the VOC to the technical specifications, performance measures, and improvement actions of your product or service. VOC is the collection of data and feedback from your current and potential customers, as well as from other stakeholders, such as competitors, regulators, and suppliers. VOC helps you understand the needs, expectations, preferences, and satisfaction of your customers.

3 How do you align QFD with your strategic goals and objectives?

To ensure alignment between QFD and your strategic goals and objectives, you should begin by defining your vision, mission, and values as an organization and communicating them to stakeholders. Additionally, you should identify target market segments and customer personas, as well as their needs, wants, and problems. A competitive analysis and benchmarking can help identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Afterward, you should define your value proposition and unique selling proposition to differentiate yourself from competitors. Then establish your strategic goals and objectives in relation to the customer value proposition and market positioning. Finally, use QFD to translate the goals and objectives into customer requirements, technical specifications, performance measures, and improvement actions. Monitor and evaluate the QFD results for consistency with the goals and objectives; make adjustments as needed.

4 What are the benefits of QFD for product quality?

QFD presents multiple advantages for product quality, including enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty, increasing market share and profitability, improving innovation and creativity, reducing time to market and cycle time, and improving quality performance and reliability. It does this by delivering products or services that meet or exceed expectations, creating a competitive advantage and reducing costs and risks, encouraging cross-functional collaboration and customer involvement, streamlining the product development process and eliminating waste and rework, and setting clear and measurable standards and targets.

6 How do you improve your QFD skills and practices?

To improve your QFD skills and practices, you can seek guidance and feedback from experts and mentors who have experience and knowledge in QFD and product quality. Alternatively, you can join professional associations and networks that offer QFD training, certification, and resources, such as the American Society for Quality (ASQ) or the International Council for Quality Function Deployment (ICQFD). Additionally, reading books, articles, case studies, and best practices on QFD and product quality is a great way to gain knowledge. Moreover, Coursera's Quality Function Deployment course or QFD Institute's QFD Podcast provide useful online courses, webinars, podcasts, and forums that cover QFD and product quality topics. Finally, applying QFD to your own projects and products can help you learn from your successes and failures.

7 Here’s what else to consider

This is a space to share examples, stories, or insights that don’t fit into any of the previous sections. What else would you like to add?