The DFC stands for Quality Function Deployment or by its English name "Quality Function Deployment, QFD", also known as the house of quality for the figure that is formed during the development process.
- It is a system to translate customer requirements into the appropriate parameters of the company at each stage of the product development cycle from research and development, to engineering, manufacturing, marketing, sales and distribution. The DFC translates customer requirements into technical specifications at each stage of the product development process. A systematic method to ensure that the properties, characteristics and specifications of a product, as well as the selection and development of equipment, methods and process controls, are oriented to customer or market demands
It's not?
- It is not a quality tool, it is a powerful planning tool. It allows you to introduce new products at half the cost and twice the productivity and quality and is manufactured 2/3 of the time.
DFC Phases
- Customer requirements become internal company requirements, which are called design requirements. These are usually the global characteristics of the product (almost always capable of being measured). The global requirements of the product translate into critical characteristics of the parts. The next step is to determine the appropriate manufacturing operations. Manufacturing operations are transformed into production requirements.
DFC strengths
The DFC's greatest strength is its ability to prevent things from going wrong as a product goes through a complicated series of design and production activities.
- It helps to improve quality and reduce costs. It reduces the negative effects of the departmental division as the DFC is applied horizontally. It generates commitment and involvement. It concentrates on solving a problem the entire corporate experience. The process itself becomes a catalyst It is a communication mechanism between the different areas involved in the project. Fewer product development cycles, fewer design changes, fewer startup problems, quality improvements, cost reductions. It is not only focused on the attention to customer requirements, but also focuses the company on critical areas and how to improve market share through competitive advantages. Helps in reducing warranty costs.
Benefits:
- The DFC allows you to focus on the details, whether of products or services, that lead to market success. It helps to focus energies on high-risk details that almost always go unnoticed and allows the normal operating system to handle many details. The most important is that the DFC is a tool to identify and satisfy the needs of customers, to manufacture products oriented to quality and cost in an era in which these are the factors that lead to increasing market share. CFD is one of the basic methodologies to achieve the transition from reaction to prevention, from the basic concepts of quality control oriented to manufacturing, to quality control oriented to product design. It is based on defining "what should be done" and "how it should be done".The DFC spreads the voice of the customer - customer requirements defined through in-depth consultation, detailed discussion, feedback mechanisms, and market research - throughout the entire product development process.
Tangible benefits:
- Decreased development time Elimination of last-minute changes Lower design costs Greater design reliability Economical production controls
Intangible benefits:
- Greater customer satisfaction Better quality assurance Process documentation Basis for continuous improvement
Others:
- Initially define clear objectives depending on the market and business Focus between product and process Clarity on how to set priorities to allocate resources Better communication at work Products meet customer needs Products have competitive advantages
Meets ISO requirements:
- Focus on the client Process-based approach Measurement of customer satisfaction Transmit customer requirements
Correlation matrix
The triangular-shaped correlation matrix is the roof of the house and that gives rise to its name.
Describe the correlation between each "how" using special symbols. The most common symbols are white circle (positive), black circle (strongly positive), an x (negative) and the number symbol (strongly negative).
It seeks to describe the "hows" that support or are mutually conflicting. It is based on the influence of each "how" on the satisfaction of others "how".
Competitive evaluation:
It is a comparison using two graphs, between the company's product and similar competitive products. The first graph (vertical axis on the right, corresponds to the "what") and the second, on the horizontal axis corresponds to the "how".
The first is the client's competitive evaluation, the second is the technical competitive evaluation.
Categorization and Weighting
It is the numerical weight between the "what" and the "how" in terms of the desired end result. The "what" column reflects the categorization according to relative importance to the customer. These ratings are multiplied by the assigned weights. The result is recorded on the horizontal axis below the “how much”.
This exercise leads to the identification of critical product requirements that translate into critical customer requirements.
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Then Professor Víctor Yepes Piqueras, from the Polytechnic University of Valencia, makes an introduction to the operation of the QFD tool, Deployment of the Quality Function, sharing: its background, its definition, the concept of quality house, the waterfall of QFD matrices and the benefits that its implementation can generate, evidencing the importance of the client in the development of products.
