Birla Institute of Technology and Science,

Pilani

QUALITY CONTROL ASSURANCE

AND RELIABILITY
Quality function deployment in
Online Retailing

Submitted by :

Chintan Singhvi 2011B2A4811P

Sachin Saxena 2011B1AB816P
Shashank gupta 2011B5AB718P
Jalaj Chhabra 2011B2A4740P

QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT

Whats QFD?
Quality Function Deployment refers to both (1) determining what will satisfy the
customer and (2) translating those customer desires into the target design. So, in
short we can say that:

A process for determining customer requirements (customer

wants) and translating them into the attributes (the hows)
that each functional area can understand and act on.

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a method to transform user demands into

design quality, to deploy the functions forming quality, and to deploy methods for
achieving the design quality into subsystems and component parts, and ultimately
to specific elements of the manufacturing process. as described by Dr. Yoji Akao,
who originally developed QFD in Japan in 1966, when the author combined his
work in quality assurance and quality control points with function deployment
used in Value Engineering.
QFD is designed to help planners focus on characteristics of a new or existing
product or service from the viewpoints of market segments, company, or
technology-development needs. The technique yields graphs and matrices.
QFD helps transform customer needs (the voice of the customer [VOC]) into
engineering characteristics (and appropriate test methods) for a product or
service, prioritizing each product or service characteristic while simultaneously
setting development targets for product or service.

House of Quality
One of the tools of QFD is the house of quality. The house of quality is a graphic
technique for defining the relationship between customer desires and product (or
services). Defined as:

House of Quality is a part of Quality Function Deployment process

that utilizes a planning matrix to relate customer wants to
how the firm is going to meet those wants.

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.
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 competitors 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 are 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 inter-functional 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 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 progress the decisions get closer to the
engineering/manufacturing details.
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.
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.
To build the house of quality, basic seven steps are performed. These steps are:

Identify Customer wants.

What do prospective customers want in this product?

Identify how product will satisfy customer.

Identify specific product characteristics, features or attributes and show how
they will satisfy customer wants.

Identify relationships between firm's hows.

How do our hows tie together? What is the relationship between our two or
more hows?

Develop importance ratings.

Using the customer's importance ratings and weighs for the relationships in
matrix, compute our importance ratings.

Evaluate competing products.

How well do competing products meet customer wants? (entirely made on
research)

Determine the desirable technical attributes.

Desirable technical attributes, our performance and the competitor's
performance are determined and compared.

Basic graphic diagram for any house of quality resembles this one:

Customer
Requirements

Imp. Ratings

Technical
requirements

Relationship
Matrix

Technical attributes
Technical evaluation

Competitive Assessment

Co-relationships

Online Retailing Services: Baggy.com

What is Online Retailing?
Online retailing is the sale of goods through the Internet. Retail stores can offer a
variety of goods sold primarily through a webpage or other online source. Auction
sites, such as eBay, offer a place where retailers can sell their items without creating
their own page. The goods can be sold through classified ads, auction sites, a business
webpage, or e-mail advertising. For even more sales, many online store owners have
started using apps that load ads to mobile devices.
The retail industry provides an exciting way of life for the more than 23 million
people who earn their livelihood in this sector of the U.S. economy.Retailers provide
the goods and services you and I needfrom food, auto parts, apparel, home
furnishings, appliances, and electronics to advice, home improvement, and skilled
labor.
The Quality Function Deployment (QFD) Technique was used to identify the
minimum set of design characteristics of a system that would meet online customer
requirements.Relationships between each of the customer requirements and the design
characteristics were identified and established. Thereafter, the design characteristics
were ranked in absolute and relative terms to identify order of importance.

Decision over product availability

We started out to find the preferences of the potential customers through a questionnaire.
Thereafter ,we followed the sequence of steps as given below.

Find out what the customer wants...

Wants Winning orders can be achieved through these wants...

How

Do we have ability to make product in accrodance to the wants...

How we would be able to do that?

Product specifications are designed and discussed...

Design Final product through HOQ is designed and fabricated...

Test

Final market test...

Evaluation for the product... Successful?

Questionnaire
The following questionnaire was used to figure out the Wants of the potential customers

Wants (as figured out from the survey)

Trust and Reliability
Minimum pricing among competitors
Discounts and offers
Huge umbrella of choices
Mobile Technology
Quick shipment and delivery
Post Sales Service
Quick and convenient
Detailed and accurate information

QUESTIONNAIRE SCORES
The analysis of the survey revealed the following scores for the Wants.
Minimum pricing among competitors
Huge umbrella of choices
Quick shipment and delivery
Post Sales Service
Trust and Reliability
Discounts and offers
Detailed and accurate information
Quick and convenient
Mobile Technology

9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1

Fig.2:Questionnaire scores

Identify how the service will satisfy the customers wants

The following Hows were decided to satisfy the customer Wants
Retail logistics
Demand-driven supply
Unambiguous Purchase Transactions
Delivering customer value
Managing supply relationships
Transaction Privacy and Safety
Individualized Attention
Clear Return policies and Refunds
Error Free Processing

Individualized Attention

Managing supply
relationships

Error Free Processing

Clear Return policies and

Refunds

Delivering customer value

Unambiguous Purchase
Transactions

Retail logistics

Demand-driven supply

Transaction Privacy and

Safety

HOWS

RELATION BETWEEN HOWS

DEVELOP IMPORTANCE RATING

This step is quite difficult and longer. In this step, first well draw the relationship matrix
between the hows and the wants. Then we determine the importance ratings for our final
work to be started.

Importance rating
Transaction Privacy and
Safety

5x6

30

Clear Returns and Refunds

policy

6x6 + 5x6

66

Delivering Customer Value

9x1 + 4x1

13

Retail Logistics

7x6

42

Error Free Processing

7x3

21

Demand Driven supply

8x3 + 4x1

28

EVALUATE COMPETING SERVICES

A competitive analysis is a critical part of your company marketing plan. With this evaluation,
we can establish what makes our product or service unique--and therefore what attributes you
play up in order to attract your target market.
In this step, well compare features of competing products of other companies. For example, in
market, we say Three companies (Flipkart , Amazon and Snapdeal) are competing for Online
Retailing.
So, well first discuss and compare their retailing services to get a more comprehensive and
detailed report about Online retailing.

CONCLUSION
The following advantages of QFD can be clearly seen from our study-:
Customer driven
The focus is on customers wants, not what the company thinks the customer
wants. The "Voice of the Customer" drives the development process.
Co-ordinated decision making
It helps organizations reach agreement on measurement systems and
performance specifications that will meet customer requirements.
Competitive analysis
Other products in the marketplace are examined, and the company product is
rated against the competition.
Prioritizing
It also prioritizes the steps that a business must take in order to satisfy the
spoken and unspoken requirements of the customer.
Reduced development time
Careful attention to customer requirements reduces the risk that changes will be
required late in the project life cycle. Time is not spent developing insignificant
functions and features.
Reduced development costs
The identification of required changes occurs early in the project life cycle
reduces development costs
Documentation
A knowledge base is built as the QFD process is implemented. A historical
record of the decision-making process is developed.
Improves teamwork
QFD ensures that your organization's teams work together by focusing them on
the same goal.
In essence, utilizing QFD helps businesses gain a competitive advantage.

AREAS OF APPLICATION OF QFD

QFD is applied in a wide variety of services, consumer products, military needs
(such as the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter and emerging technology products. The
technique is also used to identify and document competitive marketing strategies
and tactics (see example QFD House of Quality for Enterprise Product
Development, at right). QFD is considered a key practice of Design for Six Sigma
(DFSS - as seen in the referenced roadmap). It is also implicated in the new ISO
9000:2000 standard which focuses on customer satisfaction.
Results of QFD have been applied in Japan and elsewhere into deploying the highimpact controllable factors in Strategic planning and Strategic management (also
known as Hoshin Kanri, Hoshin Planning, or Policy Deployment).
Acquiring market needs by listening to the Voice of Customer (VOC), sorting the
needs, and numerically prioritizing them (using techniques such as the Analytic
Hierarchy Process) are the early tasks in QFD. Traditionally, going to the Gemba
(the "real place" where value is created for the customer) is where these
customer needs are evidenced and compiled.

REFERENCES
The content above is taken from following websites:

Wikipedia (Wikipedia.org)
QFD Online (qfdonline.com)
QFD Capture (qfdcapture.com)
Google (google.com)
Encarta Encyclopedia (encarta.msn.com)
Britannica Online Encyclopedia (britannica.com)
QFD Institute (qfdi.org)
iSixSigma House of Quality (isixsigma.com/tt/qfd)

Additionally the following book helped me:

Operations Management by Jay Heizer

Online PDF resources used:

Public State HOQ (public.iastate.edu/~vardeman/IE361/f01mini/johnson.pdf)

Stanford University (mml.stanford.edu/publications/1998/1998.WISC.QFD.Martin.pdf)
US Csuchi Corp. (www.csuchico.edu/~jtrailer/HOQ.pdf)
CIRI Orgn. (www.ciri.org.nz/downloads/Quality%20Function%20Deployment.pdf)