Quality function deployment: How to improve its use

Abstract

Although quality function deployment (QFD) is an innovative tool to set up the design of a new product, its use involves some practical problems related to size. This paper presents some tools able to simplify and improve the use of QFD. In particular, two methods are proposed. The first deals with the generation of the correlation matrix of the engineering design characteristics, and the second searches for the minimum engineering design characteristics set. An application of the methods to a real example is also provided.