House Of Quality

House of Quality

House of Quality is a diagram resembling a house used for defining the relationship between customer desires and the firm/product capabilities. It is a part of the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and it utilizes a planning matrix to relate what the customer wants to how a firm (that produces the products) is going to meet those wants. It looks like a House with a "correlation matrix" as its roof, customer wants versus product features as the main part, competitor evaluation as the porch etc. It is based on "the belief that products should be designed to reflect customers' desires and tastes".It also is reported to increase cross functional integration within organizations using it, especially between marketing, engineering and manufacturing.

The basic structure is a table with "Whats" as the labels on the left and "Hows" across the top. The roof is a diagonal matrix of "Hows vs. Hows" and the body of the house is a matrix of "Whats vs. Hows". Both of these matrices are filled with indicators of whether the interaction of the specific item is a strong positive, a strong negative, or somewhere in between. Additional annexes on the right side and bottom hold the "Whys" (market research, etc.) and the "How Muches". Rankings based on the Whys and the correlations can be used to calculate priorities for the Hows.

House of Quality analysis can also be cascaded, with "Hows" from one level becoming the "Whats" of a lower level; as this progresses the decisions get closer to the engineering manufacturing details.

Diagram House Of Quality

Steps in Understanding the House of Quality

Introduction

Every successful company has always used data and information to help in its planning processes. In planning a new product, engineers have always examined the manufacturing and performance history of the current product. They look at field test data, comparing their product to that of their competitor’s product.They examine any customer satisfaction information that might happen to be available. Unfortunately, much of this information is often incomplete. It is frequently examined as individual data, without comparison to other data that may support or contradict it. By contrast, Quality Function Deployment (QFD) uses a matrix format to capture a number of issues that mare vital to the planning process.

 The House of Quality Matrix is the most recognized and widely used form of this method. It translates customer requirements, based on marketing research and benchmarking data, into an appropriate number of engineering targets to be met by a new product design. Basically, it is the nerve center and the engine that drives the entire QFD process. According to Hauser and Clausing, it is“a kind of conceptual map that provides the means for interfunctional planning and communication.”There are many different forms of the House of Quality, but its ability to be adapted to the requirements of a particular problem make it a very strong and reliable system to use. Its general format is made up of six major components. These include customer requirements, technical requirements, a planning matrix, an interrelationship matrix, a technical correlation matrix, and a technical priorities/benchmarks and targets section.

The Voice of the Customer

The initial steps in forming the House of Quality include determining, clarifying, and specifying the customers’ needs. These steps lay the foundation for a clearly defined venture and will ensure a project or process is well thought out prior to any further development.

Clarifying Customer Needs Customers buy benefits and producers offer features. This seems like a relatively simple notion, however, unless customers and producers are perfectly in tune with one another, it may be very difficult to anticipate these features, or each underlying benefit from each producer. It is of utter importance to translate the wishes of each and every customer into some tangible values that can be turned into engineering specifications. Some of theses features include but are not limited to:

· Parts

· Costs

· Functions

· Quality Character& Reliability

· Processes

· Tasks

· Figure 1: Examples of Customer Needs

Specifying the Customer Needs

After determining what items are most important to the customer, organizations must translate them into particulate specifications. Nothing can be produced, serviced or maintained without detailed specifications or some set of given standards. Each aspect of the desired item must be clearly defined: Measurements must be defined, heights specified , torques stated, and weights targeted. These values can be derived from several locations. Organizations can use known data from market research, or conduct new studies to gather necessary information. In any event, the needs, which were clarified and then explicitly stated, should be satisfied to the best of that organization’s ability.

Technical Requirements

The next step of the QFD process is identifying what the customer wants and what must be achieved to satisfy these wants. In addition, regulatory standards and requirements dictated by management must be identified. Once all requirements are identified it is important to answer what must be done to the product design to fulfill the necessary requirements.What a list of requirements from customers, management and regulatory standards an expanded list of what needs to be done to the product to fulfill the requirements.Figure 2 explains how to use a requirement chart to help the design process.

Planning Matrix

The next step in the QFD process is forming a planning matrix. The main purpose of the planning matrix is to compare how well the team met the customer requirements compared to its competitors. The planning matrix shows the weighted importance of each requirement that the team and its competitors are attempting to fulfill. Customer ratings, typically ranging from 1 to 5, are given to each company under each requirement. The customer ratings are combined with the weighted performance of each demand to produce an overall performance measure for the companies.

The planning matrix is a part of the “House of Quality” matrix.Interrelationship Matrix.The main function of the interrelationship matrix is to establish a connection between the customer’s product requirements and the performance measures designed to improve the product. The first step in constructing this matrix involves obtaining the opinions of the consumers as far as what they need and require from a specific product. These views are drawn from the planning matrix and placed on the left side of the interrelationship matrix.With this customer overview, the company can begin to formulate a strategy to improve their product. In doing this, the strengths and weaknesses of the company are weighted against the customer priorities to determine what aspects need to be changed to surpass the competition, what aspects need to change to equal the competition, and what aspects will be left unchanged.The optimal combination is desired.Knowing what improvements need to be made allows the list of performance measures to be generated and displayed across the top of the interrelationship matrix. By definition, a performance measure is a technical measure evaluating the product’s performance of a demanded quality (Terninco). In other words, the company must take the voice of the customer and translate it into engineering terms. The matrix will have at least one performance measure for each demanded quality.

After setting up the basic matrix, it is necessary to assign relationships between the customer requirements and the performance measures. These relationships are portrayed by symbols indicating a strong relationship, a medium relationship, or a weak relationship.The interrelationship matrix should follow the Pareto Principle keeping in mind that designing to the critical 20% will satisfy 80% of the customer desires (Terninco). Therefore, there should not be a significant number of strong relationships between pairs.

Technical Correlation Matrix

Performance measures in existing designs often conflict with each other.The technical correlation matrix,which is more often referred to as the Roof, is used to aid in developing relationships between customer requirements and product requirements and identifies where these units must work together otherwise they will be in a design conflict.The following symbols are used to represent what type of impact each requirement has on the other.

These symbols are then entered into the cells where a correlation has been identified. The objective is to highlight any requirements that might be in conflict with each other.Any cell identified with a high correlation is a strong signal to the team, and especially to the engineers, that significant communication and coordination are a must if any changes are going to be made. If there is a negative or strongly negative impact between requirements, the design must be compromised unless the negative impact can be designed out. Some conflicts can’t be resolved because they are an issue of physics.Others can be design-related, which leaves it up to the team to decide how to resolve them. Negative impacts can also represent constraints, which may be bi-directional. As a result, improving one of them may actually cause a negative impact to the other. Sometimes an identified change impairs so many others that it is just simply better to leave it alone.

According to Step-By-Step QFD by John Terninko, asking the following question when working with this part of the House of Quality helps to clarify the relationships among requirements: “If technical requirement X is improved, will it help or hinder technical requirement.

Many technical requirements are related to each other so working to improve one may help a related requirement and a positive or beneficial effect can result. On the other hand, working to improve one requirement may negatively affect a related requirement as mentioned above. One of the principal benefits of the Roof is that it flags these negative relationships so they can be resolved. If these issues aren’t settled satisfactorily, some aspects of the final product will dissatisfy the customer.

Technical Properties & Targets

The technical properties matrix uses specific items to record the priorities assigned to technical requirements. It also provides a technical performance achieved by competitive products and the degree of difficulty in developing each requirement. The final output of the matrix is a set of target values for each technical requirement to be met by the new design. In some cases, organizations are not able to create the most optimum design because of constraints related to cost, technology, or other related items.

Setting Design Targets & Benchmarks

The customer requirements are distributed across the relationships to the quality characteristics. This gives an organization prioritized quality characteristics. High priority quality characteristics usually indicate that working on this technical issue will deliver great value to the customer. A high quality characteristic weight indicates strong relationships with high priority demanded quality items.

An organization’s current products can be benchmarked technically with competitors' products on the high priority quality characteristics. In many cases, organizations should not be surprised to learn that competitors are better at a given task or characteristic. QFD assists organizations to identify technical areas and to develop areas where they can achieve the most cost effective customer satisfaction.Organizations can then examine the Customer Context for usage concerns that must be accounted for, and set design target specifications for our quality characteristics. At a minimum, current performance standards should be maintained.

Conclusion

The House of Quality functions as a living document and a source of ready reference for related products and future upgrades. While it is a great communication tool at each step in the process, the matrices are the means and not the end. Its purpose is to serve as a vehicle for dialogue to strengthen vertical and horizontal communications.Through customer needs and competitive analysis, the House of Quality helps to identify the critical technical components that require change. Issues are addressed that may never have surfaced before.

These critical issues are then driven through the other matrices to identify the critical parts, manufacturing operations, and quality control measures needed to produce a product that fulfills both customer needs and producer needs within a shorter development cycle time.

The net effect of all of this is that the items that drive the company’s actions are driven by the customer’s requirements. There is an increased focus on the customer and an increased awareness of their wants.Because of this focus, the process leads to improved customer understanding and the ultimate outcome.

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Assignment 1 - Concurrent Engineering

CONCURRENT ENGINEERING (CE)

INTRODUCTION

Many people consider concurrent engineering as an academic phrase difficult to follow in reality. Concurrent engineering (CE) has emerged as discipline to help achieve the objectives of reduced cost, better quality, and improved delivery performance. CE is perceived as a vehicle for change in the way the products and processes are designed, manufactured, and distributed.

Concurrent engineering is a management and engineering philosophy for improving quality and reducing costs and lead time from product conception to product development for new products and product modifications. CE means that the design and development of the product, the associated manufacturing equipment and processes, and the repair tools and processes are handled concurrently. The concurrent engineering idea contrasts sharply with current industry sequential practices, where the product is first designed and developed, the manufacturing approach is then established. And finally the approach to repair is determined.

Figure 1 : Traditional “Waterfall” or Sequential Development Method vs. Iterative Development Method in concurrent engineering.

WHAT IS CONCURRENT ENGINEERING?

Concurrent engineering is a systematic approach to the integrated, concurrent design of products and their related processes, including manufacture and support. This approach is intended to cause the developers from the outset, to consider all elements of the product life cycle from conception to disposal, including quality, cost, schedule, and user requirements.

The application of tools, techniques, methodologies, and behavioral initiatives used to minimise product development timescales by maximising the degree of overlap of design activities.

Concurrent engineering is a business strategy which replaces the traditional product development process with one in which tasks are done in parallel and there is an early consideration for every aspect of a product's development process. This strategy focuses on the optimization and distribution of a firm's resources in t he design and development process to ensure effective and efficient product development process.

COMPARISON BETWEEN TRADITIONAL PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT PROCESS AND CONCURRENT ENGINEERING

TRADITIONAL	CONCURRENT ENGINEERING

BASIC PRINCIPLES IN  CE.

v  Get a strong commitment to from senior management.

v  Establish unified project goals and a clear business mission.

v  Develop a detailed plan early in the process.

v  Continually review your progress and revise your plan.

v  Develop project leaders that have an overall vision of the project and goals.

v  Analyze your market and know your customers.

v  Suppress individualism and foster a team concept.

v  Establish and cultivate cross-functional integration and collaboration.

v  Transfer technology between individuals and departments.

v  Break project into its natural phases.

v  Develop metrics.

v  Set milestones throughout the development process.

v  Collectively work on all parts of project.

v  Reduce costs and time to market.

v  Complete tasks in parallel.

WHY CONCURRENT ENGINEERING?

a)      Competitive Advantage

The reasons that companies choose to use concurrent engineering is for the clear cut benefits and competitive advantage that concurrent engineering can give them. Concurrent engineering can benefit companies of any size, large or small. While there are several obstacles to initially implementing concurrent engineering, these obstacles are minimal when compared to the long term benefits that concurrent engineering offers.

b)     Increased Performance

Companies recognize that concurrent engineering is a key factor in improving the quality, development cycle, production cost, and delivery time of their products. It enables the early discovery of design problems, thereby enabling them to be addressed up front rather than later in the development process. Concurrent engineering can eliminate multiple design revisions, prototypes, and re-engineering efforts and create an environment for designing right the first time.

c)      Reduced Design and Development Times

Companies that use concurrent engineering are able to transfer technology to their markets and customers more effectively, rapidly and predictably. They will be able to respond to customers needs and desires, to produce quality products that meet or exceeds the consumer's expectations. They will also be able to introduce more products and bring quicker upgrades to their existing products through concurrent engineering practices. Therefore companies use concurrent engineering to produce better quality products, developed in less time, at lower cost, that meets the customer's needs.

1.      Increasing product variety and technical complexity that prolong the product development process and make it more difficult to predict the impact of design decisions on the functionality and performance of the final product.

2.       Increasing global competitive pressure that results from the emerging concept of reengineering.

3.       The need for rapid response to fast-changing consumer demand.

4.      The need for shorter product life cycle.

5.      Large organizations with several departments working on developing numerous products at the same time.

6.      New and innovative technologies emerging at a very high rate, thus causing the new product to be technological obsolete within a short period.

PRODUCT LIFE CYCLE

Figure 2 : Cost incurred and committed during the product life cycle

Summarized the results of a survey that include the following improvements to specific product lines by the applications of concurrent engineering.

1.      Development and production lead times

·         Product development time reduced up to 60%.

·          Production spans reduced 10%.

·         AT&T reduced the total process time for the ESS programmed digital switch by 46% in 3

·         years.

·         Deere reduced product development time for construction equipment by60%

·          ITT reduced the design cycle for an electronic countermeasures system by33% and its

·         transition-to-production time by 22%.

2.      Measurable quality improvements

·         Yield improvements of up to four times.

·          Field failure rates reduced up to 83%.

·          AT&T achieved a fourfold reduction in variability in a polysilicon deposition process for very large scale integrated circuits and achieved nearly two orders of magnitude reduction in surface defects.

·          AT&T reduced defects in the ESS programmed digital switch up to 87% through a coordinated quality improvement program that included product and process design.

·          Deere reduced the number of inspectors by two-thirds through emphasis on process control and linking the design and manufacturing processes

3.      Engineering process improvements

·         Engineering changes per drawing reduced up to 15 times

·          Early production engineering changes reduced by 15%.

·          Inventory items stocked reduced up to 60%.

·          Engineering prototype builds reduced up to three times.

·         Scrap and rework reduced up to 87%.

4. Cost reduction

·          McDonnell Douglas had a 60% reduction in life-cycle cost and 40% reduction in production cost on a short-range missile proposal.

·         Boeing reduced a bid on a mobile missile launcher and realized costs 30 to 40% below the bid.

·         IBM reduced direct costs in system assembly by 50%.

·          ITT saved 25% in ferrite core bonding production costs

BENEFITS OF CONCURRENT ENGINEERING

a)       Maximizes Quality

• One of the primary advantages of concurrent engineering is the quality of the end product. Since this strategy relies upon extensive product testing and utilizes known data, the overall quality of products is optimized. It also limits the amount of defective products that are created.

b)      Faster Development

• Another benefit is that products can be designed, developed and created in a timely manner, which means that products can hit stores and ultimately get into the hands of consumers as quickly as possible. In a world with so much competition, this ability to efficiently develop products is important.

1. Lower cost
2. Speed-to-market due to reduced cycle time 
3. Better understand user requirements 
4. Quality design of producible items 
5. Quicker development period 
6. Team work 
7. Customer satisfaction 
8. Integration of design and manufacturing 
9. Better chances of succeeding product in market 
10. Low scrap and wastages

DISADVANTAGES OF CONCURRENT ENGINEERING

Disadvantage of concurrent engineering is that it increases the time spent in preliminary design, when the design staff is anxious to finalize details and release drawings. However, experience has shown that additional up-front time sharply reduces changes in subsequent stages of product development, where changes incur substantially more cost and time.

Concurrent design creates its own issues, such as the implementation of early design reviews, the dependency on efficient communication between engineers and teams, software compatibility, and opening up the design process. A concurrent design process usually requires that computer models are exchanged efficiently, something that can be difficult in practice. If such issues are not addressed properly, concurrent design may not work effectively.

CONCLUSION

Concurrent engineering is recognized as a strategic weapon that businesses must use for effective and efficient product development. It is not a trivial task, but a complex strategic plan that demands full corporate commitment, therefore strong leadership and teamwork go hand and hand with successful concurrent engineering programs. The customer is consulted during the early product development process; therefore, the product can meet the expectations of the customer.