amsup.com - The American Supplier Institute

client driven companies listen to the Voice of the client. A tool for capturing the Voice of the client is QFD (Quality Function Deployment). QFD is a planning tool for incorporating client quality requirements through all phases of the business development cycle. Its key benefits include increased client satisfaction, reduced development time and increased satisfaction leading to higher market share for your products and services.

The powerful matrix planning technology helps you prioritize the many things you can control in your business to insure that your precious resources are spent where they will have the biggest impact on achieving your goals.

Product Development Process Development

TOTAL QUALITY AND OTHER BUSINESS STRATEGIES

How do you insure that your company's valuable resources are not misapplied?
How do you know that you are focusing on the right projects?
How do you allocate precious resources across your project portfolio?
How do you set the priorities of project tasks to optimize profits?

Expending resources on the wrong priorities wastes valuable time and money. A six-month error on a 10-person project can easily waste hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars. While Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is no panacea, it is one of the most effective weapons against misguided misapplied resources. It integrates marketing into product and process development and helps you prioritize which factors are most likely to drive a successful project outcome. At a high level, use it as a strategic planning tool to help choose the most profitable mix of projects to accept into your company's portfolio. On a specific project, use it to establish the order in which to perform specific tasks identifying what should be addressed quickly and where to focus your company's invaluable resources.

You can obtain these same benefits by utilizing QFD methods to implement your business improvement practices. QFD methods are already integral parts of Six Sigma defect prevention and Policy Deployment since both are driven by a series of matrices. The matrices compare program goals to design factors that affect each goal's outcome.

Business/Project Planning

Matrix-Based

QFD is a matrix-based structured method used to solve probems and make decisions. It helps you analyze and prioritize those factors which most strongly influence the outcome of your goals.

WHATs and HOWs

QFD lists WHATs (Goals) and HOWs (Factors) that can affect the outcome of those goals. Relationships between the factors and goals are then analyzed with the final output, a prioritization of those factors arranged to show what should be focused on and addressed early for the highest probability of success.

HOW DOES THIS SOFTWARE HELP?

Create a Design Knowledgebase
Improve Team Focus
Make Super Presentations
Save Time
Improve Accuracy
Develop Better Process

QFD Designer software can quickly generate and adapt these program matrices so that they support not only Six Sigma and Policy Deployment but also any business improvement strategies your company employs. In fact, the following benefits of using QFD Designer further parallel and support most Total Quality Strategy goals.

Adapts to existing processes and programs.
Enhances objective project evaluation.
Facilitates "big picture", high level strategic thinking and communicates plans to developers.
Links strategies to tactics and prioritizes action plans.
Establishes a framework for a corporate-wide design knowledgebase.
Boosts goal congruence by deploying the "Voice of the client" through development from concept to production.