Understanding Customer Requirements

Principles of Design
Zahed Siddique
Assistant Professor School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering University Of Oklahoma zsiddique@ou.edu

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Need to focus
Moving in the wrong direction at a fast pace is still moving in the wrong direction.

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Information on QFD.

Developed in Japan in the mid 1970s Introduced in USA in the late 1980s Toyota was able to reduce 60% of cost to bring a new car model to market Toyota decreased 1/3 of its development time Used in cross functional teams Companies feel it increased customer satisfaction
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Why.?

Product should be designed to reflect customers desires and tastes. House of Quality is a kind of a conceptual map that provides the means for interfunctional planning and communications To understand what customers mean by quality and how to achieve it from an engineering perspective. HQ is a tool to focus the product development process
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QFD Target
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Important points

Should be employed at the beginning of every project (original or redesign) Customer requirements should be translated into measurable design targets It can be applied to the entire problem or any subproblem First worry about what needs to be designed then how It takes time to complete

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Components of House of Quality

Who

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Customer Evaluation This Product

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Now vs What

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Who vs. Whats

Customer Evaluation

This Product

Weighted Importance Importance % Units This Product

Targets Technical Difficulty

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Ratio of Improvement

Extensions to House of Quality

Useful Data Target

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To Listen to the voice of the customer first need to identify the customer In most cases there are more than one customer

consumer regulatory agencies manufacturing marketing/Sales

Customers drive the development of the product, not the designer

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Now vs What

Step 1: Who are the customers?

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Who

Customer Evaluation

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Who vs. Whats

This Product

Hows

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Step 2: Determine the customers requirements

product works as it should lasts a long time is easy to maintain looks attractive incorporated latest technology has many features

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List all the demanded qualities at the same level of abstraction

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Now vs What

Whats

Who vs. Whats

Need to determine what is to be designed Consumer

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This Product

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Step 2: cont...

Manufacturing

easy to produce uses available resources uses standard components and methods minimum waste

Marketing/Sales

Meets customer requirements Easy to package, store, and transport is suitable for display
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Kano Model
Customer Satisfaction + Delighted

Basic Quality: These requirements are not usually mentioned by customers. These are mentioned only when they are absent from the product. Performance Quality: provides an increase in satisfaction as performance improves

rfo

rm

Excitement Absent Satisfiers

Pe

Basic

Disgusted

Excitement Quality or wow requirements: are often unspoken, possibly because we are seldom asked to express our dreams. Creation of some excitement features in a design differentiates the product from competition.
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an

Fully implemented

ce

Types of customer requirements

Functional requirements describe the products desired behavior Human factors Physical requirements Reliability Life-cycle concerns Resource concerns Manufacturing requirements

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How to determine the Whats?

Customer survey (have to formulate the questions very carefully) If redesign, observe customers using existing products Combine both or one of the approaches with designer knowledge/experience to determine the customers voice
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Affinity Diagram

Provides structure for verbal data by creating natural clusters or groups Ensures that the list of demanded qualities are complete and expressed at the same level of detail

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Constructing Affinity Diagram

Set a brainstorming session to list all possible requirements Record each element of the list on small cards Place all cards on a table randomly Silent mode Spend time reading all demanded qualities Start at the same time, once everyone is ready - everyone quickly and without thought find two demanded qualities that have something in common If you find a demanded quality is not where you think it belongs, move it. If it is moved again, make a duplicate and talk about it later. The process continues until all demanded qualities are in a group.

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Constructing Affinity Diagram

Discussion Mode Begin discussion after group composition for the demanded qualities becomes stable First review the demanded qualities that seemed to have more than one home Select a descriptive name for the groups. Group names must also be demanded qualities, but at a higher level of abstraction Look at each group and judge if all elements are at the same level of abstraction Check each group by asking If this is the name of the group, what elements should be included but are missing? Next test for missing groups. Check with the types of customer requirements list
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Step 3: Determine Relative Importance of the Requirements: Who vs. What

Need to evaluate the importance of each of the customers requirements.

Generate weighing factor for each requirement by rank ordering or other methods
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Rank Ordering

Order the identified customer requirements Assign 1 to the requirement with the lowest priority and then increase as the requirements have higher priority. Sum all the numbers The normalized weight
Rank/Sum

The percent weight is: Rank*100/Sum

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Step 4: Identify and Evaluate the Competition: How satisfied is the customer now?

The goal is to determine how the customer perceives the competitions ability to meet each of the requirements

it creates an awareness of what already exists it reveals opportunities to improve on what already exists
Hows vs Hows

The design: 1. does not meet the requirement at all 2. meets the requirement slightly 3. meets the requirement somewhat 4. meets the requirement mostly 5. fulfills the requirement completely
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Who

Customer Evaluation This Product

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Step 5: Generate Engineering Specifications: How will the customers requirements be met?

The goal is to develop a set of engineering specifications from the customers requirements.

Restatement of the design problem and customer requirements in terms of parameters that can be measured.
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Each customer requirement should have at least one engineering parameter.

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Step 6: Relate Customers requirements to Engineering Specifications: Hows measure Whats?

This is the center portion of the house. Each cell represents how an engineering parameter relates to a customers requirements.

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Now vs What

9 = Strong Relationship 3 = Medium Relationship 1 = Weak Relationship Blank = No Relationship at all

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Step 7: Identify Relationships Between Engineering Requirements: How are the Hows Dependent on each other?

Engineering specifications maybe dependent on each other.

Hows vs Hows

9 = Strong Relationship 3 = Medium Relationship 1 = Weak Relationship -1 = Weak Negative Relationship -3 = Medium Negative Relationship -9 = Strong Negative Relationship Blank = No Relationship at all

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Step 8: Set Engineering Targets: How much is good enough?

Determine target value for each engineering requirement.

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Now vs What

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This Product

Evaluate competition products to engineering requirements Look at set customer targets Use the above two information to set targets

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Relationships Among Engineering Characteristics

Customer Evaluation

Customer Identifying performance measure conflicts Engineering Characteristics Evaluation

Record Performance measures for each customer Relative Importance demanded quality ratings for your Record customer performance Customer Attributes Similar product and competitors products

Importance for each demanded quality needs Relationship demanded customer and The first step is tobetween list allto the demanded qualities qualities at the same be determined Technical benchmarking Engineering Performance level of abstraction
Units Technical Difficulty associated with achieving Engineering Objective Measures Targets/improvements and importance of Influence Setting Technical Targets technical characteristics Customer Determining Targets Qualities Important Technical Difficulty Targets Importance Characteristics
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Units

Components of House of Quality

Who
Who vs. Whats

Hows vs Hows
Customer Evaluation This Product

Hows

Now

Whats

Whats vs Hows

Weighted Importance

Addition to the House of Quality presented in text book

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Importance % Units

How Muches
This Product Targets Rank Technical Difficulty Selected

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Now vs What

Creating the Requirement List

Contents of Requirement List Specify if the individual items are demands or wishes in the clearest possible terms Tabulate Quantitative and Qualitative aspects Collect further information If possible rank wishes as being of major, medium or minor importance Living document Arrange the requirements in clear order Define the main objective and the main characteristics Split into identifiable groups Enter the Requirement list on standard forms and circulate Examine Objections
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Requirement List
Requirements list User Changes D W for Requirements Project, product Identification Classification Page Responsible

Specify wether item is D or W

Objective or property with qualitative and quantitative data

Replaces Issues of:

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Design Group Resposible

Date of Change

Requirement List Example

Use information from House of Quality as an starting point for creating the requirement list.

Name 1 Name 2 Name 3

Need to identify requirements for the product that are basic and necessary but are not specified by the customers.

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Example House of Quality

Design a device to toast breads and other similar types of food

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