Int. J. Advanced Operations Management, Vol. 3, No.

1, 2011

19

Linking voice of customer to product development

through quality function deployment (QFD)
J.R. Sharma
Institute of Management Technology,
35 KM Milestone, Katol Road,
Dorli, Nagpur 441502, India
E-mail: sjiten1@gmail.com
Abstract: In the present scenario of open-door economic policies, industries
have to be one-step ahead than the customers expectations and meeting these
customers expectations requires the expectations be understood. In this paper,
authors have attempted to link voice of customer (VoC) to product
development process through quality function deployment (QFD) for complete
customer satisfaction. The paper discusses the gathering of customers voice
and their development into structured, evaluated and quantified customer
requirements through affinity diagram, along with a detailed discussion on the
steps involved in illustrative manner. It also attempts to suggest ways and
means to improve and innovate the quality of understanding customers
requirements that drives the design and development of product. The outcome
of the study is a system that is objective and methodically derived, which aids
not only in quality enhancement programmes but in a variety of product
development programmes. The methodology has been applied and tested by
means of a real case application on a consumer durable.
Keywords: affinity diagram; customer driven product
importance ratings; satisfaction ratings; QFD; VoC; India.

development;

Reference to this paper should be made as follows: Sharma, J.R. (2011)

Linking voice of customer to product development through quality function
deployment (QFD), Int. J. Advanced Operations Management, Vol. 3, No. 1,
pp.1939.
Biographical notes: Jitendra Sharma is working as an Associate Professor at
the Institute of Management Technology, Nagpur, India. Before joining this
institute, he has been a Senior Faculty with MIETs Department of Mechanical
and Production Engineering. He has more than 17 years of experience in
academic and industrial field. He has done his research work in the field of
quality management and product development. He has the distinction of
publishing more than 30 research papers and articles in reputed international
and national journals. He is also on the expert review panel with the editorial
board of Elsevier group of journals.

Introduction

Quality can be defined as meeting customer needs and providing superior value. Meeting
customer needs requires that those needs be understood. Quality can only be defined by
the customer (Juran, 1989). To compete and survive in todays cut throat market scenario,
Copyright 2011 Inderscience Enterprises Ltd.

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J.R. Sharma

companies have to concentrate on the needs of customers and offer them products or
services which goes beyond their expectations. The critical and first step in any quality
improvement programme is to understand the voice of the customer (VoC) the words
and/or phrases that customers use to describe their wants and needs. VoC takes the role of
defining excellence out of the hands of the engineers and managers and puts it in the
hands of the customer. Customers will be satisfied only with products and services that
meet or exceed their wants and needs at a reasonable price. To these end, many firms are
changing their business operations from a product-oriented approach to a market-oriented
approach (Lai, 2003).
The growth of quality function deployment (QFD) and its rapid diffusion through the
business and engineering community has made the VoC a commonly heard phrase as
more and more organisations have jumped on the bandwagon. QFD translates the VoC,
the spoken and unspoken customer requirements; into the internal language of the
company and its engineers and designers (Sharma and Rawani, 2006a). Griffin (1992)
reports that QFD provided short term benefits in 27% and long term benefits in 83% of
the cases. Griffin and Hauser (1992) reports that, in a head to head comparison with
traditional product development process, QFD enhances communication among team
members. A complete QFD process provides a traceable path to bring the overall
customer concerns into the product development process from conceptual design to
manufacturing. As such, customer requirements elicitation becomes the starting point of
employing QFD technique for product planning and conceptualisation (Hauser and
Clausing, 1988).
The requirements extraction, determination, and building specification are,
admittedly, the most difficult, error prone and yet decisive step, for the long term success
of any product development process. Since a product has to satisfy the perceived
customer needs, designing from the product from the customers view point is central to
any effective requirements definition process. Companies are introducing customercentred approaches in an effort to chart a clear path from customer to deliverables. In a
customer-driven product development process, the main target is to align the
development process towards customer satisfaction (Sharma and Rawani, 2006b). Thus it
becomes imperative that the customer requirements are pulled through all development
stages.

QFD and customer requirements: a review

QFD determines product design specifications (hows) based on customer needs (whats)
and competitive analysis (whys), which represents a customer-driven and market-oriented
process for total and complete satisfaction of the user or customer. Thus, it is quite
natural to use QFD in the field of user requirement analysis as suggested through various
research work and resulting articles: King (1987) proposed and supported the methods of
listening to the VoC using the QFD system. Reid and Hermann (1989) discussed the
QFD and the VoC. Denton (1990) enhanced competitiveness and customer satisfaction
through QFD approach. Klein (1990) suggested new technologies and methods for
listening to the VoC. Mazur (1991) touched upon the VoC analysis and other recent QFD
technology. Koksal et al. (1992) presented a modern approach for meeting customer
requirements for the textile industry. Shillito (1992) discussed customer oriented product

Linking VoC to product development through QFD

21

concept beyond the house of quality. Graessel and Zeidler (1993) utilised QFD
in improvement of customer service. Hales (1993) captured and integrated the VoC
into product and process development. Mallon and Mulligan (1993) elaborated on
QFD as a very effective system for meeting customers needs. Brown and
Harrington (1994) defined network capabilities using the VoC. Farrell (1994)
helped business identify and integrate the VoC. Hunter and Landingham (1994) used
QFD for listening to the VoC. Schauerman et al. (1994) talked about the QFD its
implementation and the VoC. Tottie and Lager (1995) attempted to link the customer to
the product development process as a part of the TQM concept. Taylor (1997) expounded
the virtues of QFD through Rover groups drive towards extraordinary customer
satisfaction. Goodstein and Butz (1998) emphasised on the customer value and put it on
high priority list as the centre of any organisational change. Matzler and Hinterhuber
(1998) discussed and suggested as to how to make product development projects
more successful by integrating Kanos model of customer satisfaction into QFD. Xie
et al. (1998) studied the sensitivity of customer voice in QFD analysis. Chaplin et al.
(1999) used QFD to capture the VoC and translated it into the voice of the provider.
Kotler and Armstrong (1999) were of the view that customer satisfaction is based on
products performance relative to customers expectations. In the similar vein, Walker
(2002) propounded a customer is satisfied only if and when they are satisfied. The
perceptions are his/her interpretation of the value received played back against
expectations. This declaration does not require any objective evidence and it can be
declaration made with no reason. Herrmann et al. (2000) attempted market-driven
product and service design by bridging the gap between customer needs, quality
management and customer satisfaction.

QFD methodology

3.1 Identifying and defining the product to be studied

The first and foremost step is to identify the product to which the QFD is being
applied. The product is stated unambiguously. The other crucial aspect of the survey
preparation is to identify key competitors i.e., brand-models of the selected
product which will be used for assessment and comparison. The competitors selected
should offer more or less same products; cater to the same market and segment of
customers.
The concept of QFD will be applied to refrigerator as a consumer product our own
and few more from its rival competitors. As far as the numbers of competitors are
concerned, it is quite impractical and economically not viable to consider all brands of
refrigerator that are available in the market. The major part of the study was carried at
one of the leading Indian Multinational Electronics Appliance Manufacturers
Refrigerator Unit in Maharashtra, and from here onwards this organisation is being
referred to as the base-organisation and the brand model as base-model or O which
stands for our own. The competitors are also coded for confidentiality reasons and are
code-named as A, B, C and D. However, the whole QFD approach is made from
base-models point-of-view which renders the final outcome more presentable and
comprehensible for the uninitiated.

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J.R. Sharma

3.2 Identifying the customers: who are they?

In the competitive world, all organisations aspire to have a unique competitive advantage.
Such advantages can be achieved through pricing strategy, by ability to meet customer
needs on short notice, and by quality. The QFD methodology is based on the philosophy
that products should be designed according to customer requirements. Therefore, the
customer is the most important part of the process. By identifying customers, analysing
their needs, and understanding quality status relative to competition, new product quality
goals are established which would lead to competitive advantage. In order to achieve this,
the first objective is to determine exactly who the customers are. There are several
different ways to identify the customers of a product. A commonly used approach is to
ask the question Who must be satisfied with the product that it is considered a success?
One defines the customer as anyone disposed towards the product, process or service.
Identifying the customer is not easy because some are obvious some are not.
In broad sense of the term, a customer is any individual or group using or affected by
the product. One of the important tool for identifying all those who are impacted by
refrigerator as a product is through customer chain. In this case, it is: management
manufacturer suppliers buyers end users supporters. Refer to Table 1. Though, the
customer chain concept looks simple but it should be further analysed considering the
range of customer groups involved. The range of the customers is quite varied and each
of these customer groups will tend to have different and at times conflicting
requirements. The focus is on the ultimate external customers who could be identified
through previously collected marketing research data and information. Therefore, it is
recommended that each customer group be assigned a priority. Three main categories are:
Table 1

Customer chain
Actual customers

Customers

Suppliers
Supporters

Buyers
End-users
Dealers
Retailers
Servicemen
Repairers

Buyers end users as customers: Users who are mainly concerned with functionality
of the concerned product. Each customer has his/her needs, which must be first
determined and then addressed in planning a product.

Suppliers as customers: Suppliers should be viewed as the extension of the internal

customers such as planning, designing, manufacturing, inspecting etc. Thus their
needs must be understood and addressed during the planning for quality.

Supporters as customers: Supporters are the last link in customer chain, and although
their influence is not significant but it should not to be ignored. These are the
technical support people, who repair and maintain our refrigerators.

In practise, it should be recognised that some customers are more important than the
others. It is not unusual that there exist a vital category, which commands more priority
than the others. The vital category is the actual customer i.e., the buyers and end-users,
and within this vital category, there is distribution of individual customers, which may

Linking VoC to product development through QFD

23

have a hierarchy of importance regarding their needs and requirements. Table 2 shows
the categorised standard primary and secondary requirements of the customers for any
product.
Table 2

Customer categories and their primary and secondary requirements

Manufacturer

Suppliers

Supporters

Actual
customer

Ease of servicing

Use
performance

Primary needs
Ease to produce

Easy to sell
Secondary needs
Meets the customer
needs

Easy to remove/replace
parts

Performance

Uses available
resources

Attractive packaging

Easy to access parts

Conformance

Aesthetically designed

Serviceability

Uses standard parts,

spares and methods

Easy to store and

display

Easy availability of
spares

Uses existing facilities

Right pricing

Good manuals for

maintenance and service

Durability

Produces minimum of
scrap or rejections

Dealer incentives

Easy to manufacture
Easy to assemble

Sales promotion
schemes

Features

Aesthetics
Reliability
Economics
Environmental
concerns

3.3 Determining the customers requirements: VoC

The main objective of applying QFD is to align the product development process towards
customer satisfaction. The customer requirements are pulled through all development
stages. The quality of a product is measured by its potential to satisfy customer needs.
Therefore, the first key to the development of high quality product is to understand the
customer needs thoroughly. The difficult task in a QFD project is not matrix drawing,
but the generation of the matrix data. A fundamental principle of QFD is to determine
directly from the customer what they expect from a particular product i.e., gathering the
VoC. Customer needs, requirements, or voices signify as to how customers profile a
product and its associated quality. In other words, these explain what they want from
product and the way they evaluate or qualify a good product. Customer opinion is one of
the biggest sources for product or service improvement. These opinions can be elicited
through extensive market research, or other more direct communication methods such as
surveys, interviews, focus group, brainstorming, listening and watching, using existing
information, direct observation, product complaint history and customer feedback. The
goal is to find the exact desires of the intended target group.
In planning to collect information on customer needs, one must go beyond the search
for the obvious and aim for more subtle needs that present opportunities for innovative
product designs. Some needs may be perceptional while some may be cultural.
Customers needs may be clear or they may be disguised; they may be rational, less than
rational or downright irrational. To identify and satisfy customers, these needs must be
discovered and served.

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J.R. Sharma

For the purpose of gathering data, users and potential users were targeted. The
method employed is called laddering technique (Reynolds and Gutman, 1988). Laddering
interviews are face to face, individual, mix mode, semi-structured questionnaires based
interviews, which includes questions on customers demographic profile and pertinently
as to what they expect from the product. They consist of two stages: first, an elicitation
technique prompts the respondents to generate relevant quality dimensions they expect or
associate with the product (refrigerator in this case), and second, respondents will be
asked to rank these requirements in order of preference or importance of these quality
dimensions in fulfilling their expectations (Grunert and Grunert, 1995). All the segments
of customers belonging to different socio-economic category (SEC) were considered.
However, in the overall sample SEC B was the most represented category comprising of
middle class customers. The survey primarily dealt with the quality characteristics they
expect in a domestic refrigerator. Other technique like focus groups was also employed.
Along with this a number of product-related case studies and research papers pertaining
to customer-data collection were also referred to. Since, it being a case of qualitative
survey, the sample size was dependent upon the kind of responses, respondents provided.
Lohva (2001) propounded that the sample size is defined as being saturated, when any
new information does not appear through the survey. The responses were getting tad too
repetitive and most of the questionnaire and interviews revealed very much the same kind
of information. The other theory which supports the premise is given by Griffin and
Hauser (1993), according to these authors, needs are description, in consumers own
word, of the benefits to be fulfilled by the product or service. They also recognise that
some needs are harder to articulate than others. Nevertheless, they state that only 20 to
30, individual or group, interviews should be able to provide as much as 90% of the
needs related to a certain product category (Urban and Hauser, 1992). The recordings of
the questionnaire, individual interviews and focus groups were transcribed and
supplemented with the notes taken by the interviewers. All this written documentation
was translated into English. A summary of the main ideas put forward by the subjects
during each focus group and each questionnaire interview was made. Sections of the
transcripts that were incomplete or did not make much sense or were exactly the
repetition of the voices already available were eliminated at this stage, together with
requirements of doubtful veracity. Even after these elimination and curtailment the 130
customer requirements in the form of opinions, desires, needs, expectations,
requirements, and statements is given in Table 3.
Table 3

Collected customer requirements

Adaptability to varying storage requirements

Competent, timely and low cost service

Adaptable storage facility

Conserves and sustains food freshness

Affordable

Consistent and reliable

Assorted areas of different requirements

Coordinates with kitchen space and dcor

Biodegradable

Cope with large items and containers

Burns-up less power

Cope with outsize items and containers

Carry bulky items and containers

Defrost alarm

Carry large items and containers

Defrost alert

Compatible with kitchen area and its interior

Defrost caution

Competency and courtesy of repair

Defrost convenience - signal/warning

Linking VoC to product development through QFD

Table 3

Collected customer requirements (continued)

Defrost handiness

Harmonises with room colour

Defrost indication

Keep up temperature

Defrost sign

Longer functional existence

Dependable and safe

Lot of rack space

Different sectors for cooling

Low electrical power expenditure

Discreet cooling compartments

Low energy consumption

Ease of defrosting

Low energy expenditure

Easily varying storage space

Low energy utilisation

Easy and low cost service (serviceability)

Low power consumption

Easy access and clear visibility

Low power utilisation

Easy and simple to install

Low running cost

Easy retrieval

Maintains right temperature

Easy to carry and move

Manage huge items and containers

Easy to clean

Manage large items and containers

Easy to clean and wash

Matches up with the kitchen shade

Easy to deliver/install/relocate/shift

Maximum storage space

Easy to maintain and repair (maintainability)

More rapidly

Easy to restore and repair

More useful life (durable)

Easy to scrub or scour

Need based cooling zones

Eco friendly

Noiseless functioning

Ecological

Noiseless operation

Economical

Offers faster cooling

Economical and prompt service

Power efficient

Economical and unproblematic service

Preserves food and freshness

Effective durable life

Preserves stored items and freshness

Effortless access and visibility

Protects stored items and their freshness

Enduring and longer lasting

Provides faster and good quality ice

Energy efficient

Quick and excellent ice quality

Enough room for storage

Quicker freezing of ice

Environment friendly

Quiet operation

Extensive voltage limits

Reliable, sturdy, safe and secure

Extreme volt limits

Retains correct temperature

First rate ice making

Right cost

Flexibility for changing storage needs

Robust and sturdy

Flexible storage capacity

Safe and protected

Functional durability

Saves electricity

Green

Saves food and other stored items

Handles big items and containers

Saves power

Handles large items and containers

Separate chilling sections

25

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Table 3

J.R. Sharma
Collected customer requirements (continued)

Separate cooling zones for different needs

Tough and secure

Silent functioning

Trouble free transport

Silent operation

Trouble-free assistance

Simple access to stored items

Trouble-free fixing and repairing

Simple and affordable service

Trouble-free retrieval of stored items

Simple to mend and repair

Trouble-free wipe and wash

Simple to scrub clean

Uncomplicated and apparent visibility

Simple to shift and relocate

Uncomplicated revamping

Spacious inside

Uncomplicated set up

Spends-up less energy

Unproblematic access and retrieval

Stable, safe and secure

Unproblematic mounting

Steady and reliable

Uses minimum energy

Sufficient holding area

Value for money

Superior ice making ability

Varied voltage compatibility

Sustains correct temperature

Wide voltage range

Timely and low cost service help

Wide voltage span

3.4 Organising customer requirements

Once customer needs are gathered, these needs are to be organised. The mass of
interview notes, requirement documents, market research, and customer data needs to be
distilled into a handful of statements that expresses key customer needs. The customer
requirements collected and collated are written down in customers language, the next
step is to get the ratings of each of these requirements as regard to the perception of the
customer. For this, it becomes imperative to pan down these requirements into some
manageable numbers and form that will render most of the similar sounding and
repetitive demands as redundant. Grouping customer needs with affinity into a category
is also helpful in analysing the needs.
Previous studies suggest a set of up to 25 requirements is manageable in the further
planning and deployment process. Matrices with 25 to 30 requirements are still
manageable, but the task becomes more and more onerous as the number of input
requirement list grows. A requirement list of more than 50 is not recommended.
Although the optimum number of requirements depends strongly on the particular
project, 20 to 25 items can be considered a good compromise between grade of detail and
complexity. For instance, if our final requirement list comprises of 30 requirements and
every item generates 1.5 design characteristics, then we have to deal with 1350 (30 45)
relationships between requirements and characteristics and 990 co-relations between the
engineering characteristics in the roof of the matrix. If a constant ratio of requirements to
characteristics is presumed, the number of relationships and co-relationships rise
exponentially with the number of requirements. As the matrix grows, it will lead to signs
of fatigue and loss of interest. The consensus decision process will suffer and the overall
value of the QFD process and its output will be diminished (Day, 1993). For this reason,
it is obviously important to limit the number of customer requirements. Affinity diagrams

Linking VoC to product development through QFD

27

are an efficient method of organising large amounts of unstructured verbal data. They
enforce a high degree of organisation and screen-hidden relationships between the items
and item groups. It is based on the KJ method developed and popularised by Kawakita
(1986). According to Mizuno, this clarifies important but unresolved problems by
collecting verbal data from disorganised and confused situations and analysing it by
mutual affinity.
Once customer needs are gathered, they have to be correctly organised in other
words - to be curtailed to avoid repetitiveness and redundancy. The mass of customer
data needs to be distilled into a handful of statements that express key customer needs.
The customers requirements mentioned in Table 4 are not only unmanageable but are
numerically impractical to consider for the purpose of QFD matrix. In order to limit the
number of customer requirements, similar sounding and repeated requirements are
merged, combined, or eliminated through the use of affinity diagrams (Runte, 1997).
Affinity diagram is a method of arranging random data into natural and logical groups to
organise customer needs. Using the affinity diagram, a large set of verbal data can be
split into natural groups, which are formed by the natural relations of the data.
Affinity diagram is applied for organising and limiting the customer requirements.
The first task was to note down all collected customer voices. Voices containing similar
items were grouped together on the basis of their affinity. The voices are not to be
gathered according to a certain classification scheme or on the basis of certain key words
because they are not supposed to be classified, but simply to be grouped. Having finished
the grouping process, the grouped voices were read and checked one more time to see if
they were properly arranged. Inappropriately assigned voices were then reassigned or
taken out of the group. The voices that appear to be properly grouped were given a label
that represents the characteristic of the group. The label conveys the meaning of these
voices completely. After checking and labelling all the groups, affinity diagrams were
prepared. The outcome of the process is a hierarchical structure of customer requirements
on a primary, secondary and tertiary level (Williams, 1987). Refer to Figures 19. These
tertiary requirements culled out from the secondary level form the final list of
requirements that will be used for the quantitative survey, later in the data collection
process. The definition and explanation of each primary level product requirement is as
under:
Figure 1

Affinity diagram for reliability as primary characteristic

Sturdy and reliable
Stable, safe and secure
Dependable and safe

Reliability

Consistent and reliable

Tough and secure
Robust and sturdy
Safe and protected

Reliable, sturdy, safe and secure

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J.R. Sharma

3.4.1 Reliability
Probability of a product surviving over a period of time under stated condition of use. It
is important to understand what acceptable reliability means to the customer. The product
may only have to work once with near-absolute certainty, or it may be a disposable
product that does not need much reliability. Figure 1.
Figure 2

Affinity diagram for performance as primary characteristic

Preserves stored items
Saves food and other stored items
Protects stored items and their
freshness
Sustains food freshness

Preserves food and freshness

Airiness for food freshness

Preserves freshness
Conserve food and other edible items
Silent functioning
Noiseless operation
Quiet operation
Silent operation
Noiseless functioning
Performance
Maintains temperature
Keep up temperature
Maintains right temperature
Sustains correct temperature
Retains correct temperature
Offers faster cooling
Quicker freezing of ice
Rapid cooling ability
Provides faster and good quality
ice
Quick and excellent ice quality
Superior ice making ability
First rate ice making

Linking VoC to product development through QFD

29

3.4.2 Performance
A products primary operating characteristics. Functional performance requirements are
those elements of the performance that describe the products desired behaviour.
Developing functional requirements with the QFD and building a functional model of the
product are often iterative. The more the function is understood, the more complete are
the requirements that can be developed. Figure 2.

3.4.3 Aesthetics
How product looks, feels, sounds, tastes or smells, usually refers to the sensory
perception towards the product. Any product that is seen, touched, heard, tasted, smelled,
or controlled by a human will have these requirements. One frequent customers
requirement is that the product looks good or looks as if it has a certain function.
Figure 3.
Figure 3

Affinity diagram for aesthetics as primary characteristic

Wide range of colours
Available in different shades and
colours
Harmonises with room colour
Co-ordinates with kitchen space
and dcor (colour)

Aesthetics
Matches up with the kitchen shade
Compatible with kitchen area and
its interior
Fits in kitchen space

3.4.4 Durability
The time that the product will survive with all the aforementioned characteristics in
acceptable condition. The functional life of the product right from the cradle (purchase)
to grave (disposal). Figure 4.
Figure 4

Affinity diagram for durability as primary characteristic

Enduring and longer lasting
Functional durability

Durability

More useful life (durable)

Effective durable life
Longer functional existence

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J.R. Sharma

3.4.5 Features
Features refers to the bells and whistles of a product. The added attachments and
accessories that catches the eye and the attention of buyers, that makes the product
unique without substantially contributing on to the performance or functionality of the
product. Figure 5.
Figure 5

Affinity diagram for features as primary characteristic

Separate chilling sections
Discreet cooling compartments
Assorted areas of different
requirements
Separate cooling zones
Separate cooling zones as per
needs
Different sectors for cooling
Need based cooling zones

Features
Defrost convenience
Ease of defrosting
Defrost convenience signal/warning
Handiness to defrost
Alert/alarm for defrost warning

3.4.6 Serviceability
The speed, courtesy, competence and the cost of repair. Speed refers to the promptness in
attending to the reported problem. It is the time lag between the intimation of failure and
reporting time. Courtesy refers to the general behavioural approach of the servicemen.
Competence is the ability, proficiency and expertise of the service professional pertaining
to the product. Cost of repair includes both service costs as well as replacements costs.
Figure 6.

Linking VoC to product development through QFD

Figure 6

31

Affinity diagram on serviceability as primary characteristic

Simple to mend and repair
Trouble-free fixing and repairing
Easy to maintain and repair
Uncomplicated revamping
Easy to restore and repair
Easy to scrub or scour
Trouble-free wipe and wash
Easy to clean

Serviceability

Easy to clean and wash

Simple to scrub clean
Easy to carry and move
Uncomplicated set up
Unproblematic mounting
Easy to deliver/install/relocate/
shift
Trouble free transport
Simple to shift and relocate
Easy and simple to install

3.4.7 Conformance
The degree to which physical performance match pre-established standards.
Standards spell out current engineering practice in design situations. Some standards
serve as good sources of information, others are legally binding and must be adhered to.
Figure 7.

32
Figure 7

J.R. Sharma
Affinity diagram for conformance as primary characteristic
Manage large items and containers
Cope with large items and containers
Carry large items and containers
Carry bulky items and containers
Manage huge items and containers

Handles large items and

containers

Cope with outsize items and containers

Handles big items and containers
Flexible storage capacity
Adaptability to varying storage
requirements
Flexibility for changing
storage needs
Adaptable storage facility
Easily varying storage space
Sufficient holding area
Lot of rack space
Conformance

Maximum storage space

Spacious inside
Enough room for storage
Simple access to stored items
Trouble-free retrieval of stored items
Effortless access and visibility
Easy access/clear visibility
Unproblematic access and retrieval
Uncomplicated and apparent visibility
Easy retrieval
Varied voltage compatibility
Extensive voltage limits
Extreme volt limits
Wide voltage span
Built-in voltage regulator
Copes with voltage fluctuations
Ability to withstand varying voltage

Wide voltage range

Linking VoC to product development through QFD

33

3.4.8 Economics
The cost involved right from the day of purchase to its disposal, vis--vis the customer.
Cost requirements concern both the capital costs and the costs per unit of production.
Included in capital costs are expenditures for the design of the product. Figure 8.
Figure 8

Affinity diagram for economics as primary characteristic

Right cost
Value for money
Worth all the spent money

Low price

Economical
Affordable
Low energy expenditure
Low energy utilisation
Burns-up less power
Energy efficient
Spends-up less energy
Uses minimum energy
Economics

Low energy consumption

Power efficient
Low power consumption
Low electrical power expenditure
Low power utilisation
Low running cost
Saves electricity
Saves power
Trouble-free assistance
Simple and affordable service
Timely and low cost service help
Economical and unproblematic
Economical and prompt service
Competent, timely, and low cost
Competency and courtesy of repair

Easy and low cost service

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J.R. Sharma

3.4.9 Environmental concerns

It is important for the design team to ensure that requirements imposed by environmental
concerns have been identified. Since the design process must consider the entire life cycle
of the product, it is the design engineers responsibility to establish the impact of the
product on the environment during production, operation, and retirement. Thus, needs for
the disposal of wastes produced during manufacture (whether hazardous or not), as well
as for the final disposition of the product, are the concern of the design engineer.
Figure 9.
Figure 9

Affinity diagram for environmental concerns as primary characteristic

Ecological
Biodegradable

Ecology

Eco friendly
Green
Environment friendly

Table 4

Primary, secondary and tertiary customer requirements

Primary
requirement

Secondary requirement

Tertiary requirement
Quiet operation
Preserves food and freshness

Performance

Maintains temperature
Low power consumption
Provides faster cooling and good quality ice

Features

Separate cooling zones for different need

Defrost convenience signal/warning

Use performance

Flexibility of changing the storage needs

Handles large items/containers
Conformance

Maximum storage space

Easy accessibility/visibility
Easy to clean
Wide voltage range

Serviceability
Aesthetics
Economics

Easy to maintain and repair

Easy to deliver/install/relocate/shift
Coordinates with the kitchen space/dcor
Low price/affordable
Easy and low service cost

Reliability

Reliable, sturdy, safe and secure

Durability

Useful life

Environmental concerns

Eco friendly

Linking VoC to product development through QFD

35

The adapted affinity diagram approach results in a hierarchical structure of customer

requirements on a primary, secondary and tertiary level. The tertiary requirements form
the final and manageable list of twenty one customer requirements that will be used for
the quantitative survey, later in the process. Table 4 shows the consolidated qualitative
customer data in categorical form.

3.5 Customers and sellers priority ratings

3.5.1 Customer importance ratings
After the final list of customer requirements and their interrelationship is generated by the
affinity process, the next step is to evaluate the importance of each of the customers
requirements. QFD as a process, yields the most effective results when the focus is on the
requirements which are most crucial to the success of the product under consideration. It
can be noted that, in most cases Paretos law still holds good, less than half of the
requirements have most critical of the importance. The best way to represent importance
is with a number showing its priority weight relative to the other requirements. The
importance of every item on the customer requirements list has to be assessed, although
all customer wants are probably important, it is necessary to know their relative
importance.
Importance ratings play a key role in the QFD process. No other part of the matrix
has as much influence on the outcome of the process as the priority importance ratings.
Therefore, customer ratings must accurately reflect the customers opinions. Thus, the
effort and expense for satisfying high-priority requirements is of relatively higher
magnitude. The relative importance of the customer requirements is usually expressed as
a set of ratings that can be determined by letting the customers reveal their perceptions on
the relative importance of the customer requirements and then averaging their
perceptions. Therefore, one should be sure that it really has identified the accurate ratings
of customer needs. For that reason, it is not sufficient to just predict and presume the
importance of requirements. This form of internal evaluation is highly subjective and
leads to variation in ground reality of the situation. The data has to be obtained directly
from the customer. Cohen (1995) in his QFD book also stated that it is necessary to
prioritise the customer needs based on market analysis. Different methods yields varying
quality of results, but the most preferred and reliable is forced choice prioritisation
method. This method is actually a combination of the one-on-one interview with a
structured questionnaire. The rating is to be carried out on each and every customer
attribute, by the customers. The collected data from the users and non-users is arranged
for multi-item indicators for all requirements a five-point Likert type scale is used. The
respondents are then asked to prioritise their choices of requirements. The output of the
importance evaluation is a one-dimensional list of importance weights. The rating scale
used is: 5-extremely imp. 4-very imp. 3-moderately imp. 2-marginally imp. 1-not imp.

3.5.2 Customers satisfaction ratings

The weighted list of requirements generated in the process has captured the VoC and
defines the customers perception of the product. In the next step of QFD, this perception
is used as the basis for a comparison between the company and its competitors. The goal
here is to determine how the customer perceives the competitors ability to meet each of

36

J.R. Sharma

the requirements. The purpose for studying existing products is two fold: first, it creates
awareness of what already exists and second, it reveals opportunities to improve on what
already exists. The customer competitive data helps to determine if a product will sell or
not. Because of the value of this information and its power to make informed business
decisions, the data has to have a very high level of accuracy. Its quality is crucial to the
companys success and should therefore be obtained directly by the customer. Although
marketing data takes time to collect and incurs expenses, taking shortcuts or omitting this
step reduces the reliability of information on which critical business decisions are based.
Due to the similarity in both customer importance ratings and performance
satisfaction ratings, the surveys are conducted at the same time. This is carried out in the
same forced choice prioritisation survey by asking customers to rate selected product and
all the competitors product for each customers requirement on the chosen scale. The
survey inputs are the customer requirements on one hand and the competing products on
the other. The output of the competitive assessment is a two-dimensional matrix, of
which rows form the customer requirements and columns represent the competing
products. However, this rating is being done only by the respondents who are using one
or the other selected competing models. Though these are not very refined ratings, they
do give an indication of how the competition is perceived by the customer. The scales
and rating methods for this are similar to the importance rating systems and the
self-explicated Likert scale from one to five is most widely preferred.
The rating scale used: 5 excellent, 4 - very good, 3 good, 2 average, 1 poor.

3.5.3 Sales point ratings

In order to understand the importance of the customer-voiced quality dimensions with
regard to their effect on the sales of the product sales point ratings are collected. These
ratings are defined in a column of related data associated with a customer requirement list
and act as multipliers in calculating the overall importance of each requirement. The
ratings come through selected product dealers and sellers, who decide which attributes
are to be highlighted during marketing and sales promotional campaigns. The importance
of these requirements is underestimated by the product designers and developers because
they do not realise the benefits which would be provided if these requirements were met.
For this purpose, a similar kind of forced choice survey pattern is to be administered
to a host of sellers and dealers. They are asked to prioritise their own choices in terms of
the impact which the fulfillment of a particular customer want will have on the sales of
the selected product. The survey considers a number of sellers and dealers with varying
sales volume.
The rating scale used: 3 - strong effect on sales, 2 - medium effect, 1- least effect on
sales.

Conclusions

QFD is a market driven, systematic, and an objective approach to prioritise both customer
and technical requirements. The problem in selecting customer requirement for
implementation arises from the need to fit within preset project constraints - limited
resources in terms of time, money and quality. In this paper, authors have integrated the
VoC to product development process through QFD for complete customer satisfaction.

Linking VoC to product development through QFD

37

The paper methodically deliberates on the gathering of customers voice and their
development into structured, evaluated and quantified customer requirements achieved
through affinity diagram. The prime importance of the developed methodology is in its
simplicity and flexibility rendered by the use of affinity diagram. The affinity diagram
based approach helps in selecting the high priority customer requirements besides
proving the means to curtail it to limiting constraints.
The methodology has been applied and tested by means of a real case application of a
consumer durable refrigerator. The system methodology is flexible enough as its
database can be updated from time to time if there happens to be any up gradation or
addition of knowledge in customer experience. Consequently, with this methodology
confidence in achieving customer satisfaction increases and with it the probability of
attaining business goals as determined by the market. On the other hand, a relative
emphasis on customer-focus increased design objective credibility and commitment but
increases the time required in product development.
The paper also discusses the steps involved in illustrative manner; and suggests ways
and means to improve and innovate the quality of understanding customers requirements
that drives the design and development of product. The outcome of the study is a system
that is objective, scientifically derived and aids not only in quality enhancement
programmes but in a variety of product development programmes. However, the
dynamics indicate that the increased time spent systematically developing a product,
which remains stable over the remaining part of product development process, results in
getting a product to market faster.
It should be noted here that the focus of the paper is: gathering of the customer data
and the process of synthesis. The work contributes to the VoC literature in two ways
first, this work contributes a new methodology with a very detailed, structured and
comprehensive process for gathering VoC, and second it pares down the uncontrollable
numbers into manageable ones. However, the use of affinity diagram in QFD offers much
promise and the authors intend to extend this work in order to encompass the priority
ratings not addressed in this paper. The VoC devised through affinity diagram, would
save a conceptual model around which a computerised model can be formalised into
various models to precisely specify the step wise approach.

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