Modern QFD tools for Gemba study

One of the most frequently asked questions about customer gemba visits is what questions to prepare in advance.

Gemba preparations depend greatly on the type of QFD project. Is it an improvement, a refresh, an upgrade, a new technology, a next generation, or totally new to the world?

The new ISO 16355 for QFD explains the process in Part 2 (ISO/DIS 16355-2). Modern QFD offers specific tools for this, including the customer process model and gemba visit table, and this critical part of QFD is taught in detail in the QFD Green Belt^®.

The most important thing to remember during a Gemba visit is to encourage your customer to speak openly about what frustrates them, not just product complaints. Use the gemba visit to discover what you don't know you don't know. A January 2, 2016 article in The New York Times by Pagan Kennedy "How to Cultivate the Art of Serendipity" calls this wonderfully, "the art of finding what we're not seeking."

illustration of the Persian tale
source: wikipedia {PD-US}

The article explains the history of the word 'Serendipity' to a Persian fairy tale about three princes from the Isle of Serendip who have super powers of observation — a skill, not just dumb luck. Three types of observers are identified by University of Missouri information scientist, Sanda Erdelez:

•  Non-encounterers who stick to a preferred list;   
•  Occasional encounterers who have moments of serendipity;
• Super-encounterers who have happy surprises wherever they look.

Among a super-encounterer, these are some of their attributes:

• Open to ideas that evolve on an unrelated project.
• Transform mistakes into a breakthrough.
• See patterns that others don't see.

Readers familiar with the modern QFD tools may recognize some of these attributes. You can master these tools and techniques and you too can become a "serendipiter."

1. Gemba visits should be conducted by...
2.  ....
3.  ...  Read the full article at www.qfdi.org

Master the art of super Gemba, AHP and ISO 16355

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Please contact us or see the Calendar if above dates do not work for you.

I'd like my QFD sunny-side up!

You've earned your Spring Break from the coldest, snowiest winter in recent memory.
Come to Orlando, Florida for the next QFD Green Belt^® training course on March 6–7, 2014.

Learn modern QFD tools to translate voice of customer into unspoken customer needs, get accurate priorities, and operationalize innovative solutions to what matters most.

Blitz QFD^® uses simple Excel sheets (provided) to feed into, and often replace, the House of Quality and other matrices. Can be applied to systems, modules, components — for hardware, software, service, and healthcare. Bring your own project for the workshops.

Online Brochure   |   PDF Brochure   |   Registration

The course has these components:

• Workshop 1: Defining project goals and outcomes. (Project Goals Table)

• Workshop 2: Defining key customers and stakeholders, and their applications/scenarios. (Customer Segments Table)

• Workshop 3: Planning customer visits (gemba) to see for ourselves, and model what they say and do. (Customer Process Model)

• Workshop 4: Documenting what goes right (and is to be protected) and wrong (and is to be improved) based on voice of customer and observational study. (Gemba Visit Table)

• Workshop 5: Translate voice of customer into true customer needs, both spoken and unspoken. (Customer Voice Table)

• Workshop 6: Structure customers needs to find missing ones. (Affinity Diagram and Hierarchy Diagram).

• Workshop 7: Prioritize customer needs. (Analytic Hierarchy Process).

• Workshop 8: Deploy high priority needs into solution requirements and concepts. Assure quality in deliver. (Maximum Value Table).

• Discussion on advanced QFD tools for competitive assessment (Quality Planning Table), complex projects (Modern House of Quality), Emotional Quality (Kansei Engineering), etc.

• Implementing QFD in your organization.

Course includes workbook, Excel tool templates for workshops, and related case studies. Bring your own projects for the workshops.

An Apple a day — Use QFD to systematize Steve Jobs' design genius beyond a single individual

In my opinion, late Steve Jobs was a rare individual who had such an intuitive grasp of the fundamentals of QFD thinking. For example, in the April 1, 1989 interview with Inc. Magazine, he was asked by reporters Bo Burlingham and George Gendron, "Where do great products come from?"

This is what Jobs said:

"I think really great products come from melding two points of view-the technology point of view and the customer point of view. You need both.

"You can't just ask customers what they want and then try to give that to them. By the time you get it built, they'll want something new. It took us three years to build the NeXT computer. If we'd given customers what they said they wanted, we'd have built a computer they'd have been happy with a year after we spoke to them-not something they'd want now..."

Let me put this in QFD perspective.

We see two common flows in the way QFD is practiced: forward and reverse. Forward QFD begins with the voice of the customer which is often a mixture of "what they want," that is product performance, features, and technology. Because customers rarely know what the future may bring, their voice is typically tied to the past or present.

As Jobs points out, the product may be sufficient for the past, but insufficient at the time of launch or during its useful life. You can ask customers what they want as a starting point of a QFD analysis. The tool for this analysis is the Customer Voice table; its purpose is to translate voice of customer (VOC) into true customer needs. In this table, we explore with customers why they want something.

For example, a customer in a café may state "I need a hot cup of coffee," but what they really need is "I am cold and I want to warm up." Using Jobs logic, you could produce a cup of coffee that was too hot to drink, thus forcing the customer to wait until it cooled down. You would give them what they asked (hot), but not really meet their needs (warm up).

In modern QFD, we define a customer need as being product-independent, and that is the first step in creating great product.  Read More ...

Capturing voice of social network and using it

Brian X. Chen reports in the January 2 2013 Bits section of the New York Times, "The iPhone Goofs Up on Telling Time, Again," that the new Do Not Disturb (DND) function on iOS6 iPhone failed to turn off for many users on New Years Day.

This is a new feature that allows iPhone users to set a quiet time (like when you sleep) to block incoming calls and alerts. It is suppose to turn itself off at a pre-determined time so that calls, alerts, and alarms can be heard.This bug is even more noteworthy because it is featured in a new television commercial airing this week. NYT readers first blasted Apple for the bug, and then turned on themselves for whining about such a small inconvenience.

This brings to mind two QFD concepts. The first is the famous "Sales Point" column in the quality planning table room on the right side of the House of Quality matrix (or done independently in Blitz QFD^®) where a selling point is given extra weight which eventually strengthens the improvement calculation for related technical requirements. Below is one example of a HOQ with Sales Points weights (the yellow highlighted column).

The purpose of the "sales points" column has been frequently challenged as it seems to do the same job as the relative importance and the level-up columns, and is thus redundant. Dr. Akao's purpose, however, was to add a sales point value when the associated customer need is going to be promoted, as in the case of this Apple commercial. The added weight would direct engineers and software developers to  pay more attention to its auto on/off functionality.

The second point, I commented myself back to the New York Times:

"I see the DND issue as one of software quality. Developers often have incomplete or inaccurate use cases around which they design their features and code. They do not fully understand how the feature gets used in real life, and so sometimes get it wrong. Like the proverbial mushroom, they are kept in the dark and fed s**t!

It is comments from users like you who post here that can provide the necessary insight to do the job right the first time. There are methods for analyzing the voice of the customer, like QFD, that actually build on your feedback and help marketeers and engineers do their jobs better. So keep on blogging and contributing your experiences - we will all benefit."

My second point is that every opportunity to get customer feedback should be welcomed by a company. Many companies do monitor social media as part of their customer relationships management (CRM) programs, but not all companies forward the information to new product development departments.

The customer voice table is the QFD tool for analyzing these comments. In order to give engineers direction for improvements and next generation products, negatives and complaints should be reversed into positive statements, and technical solutions should be translated into product independent customer needs.

Related Reading...

• QFD for Software and IT Projects

• QFD for Predicting Future Technology Risks

• Trusting Front Line Employees To Be Customer Advocates

• Learn Blitz QFD^® tools ... QFD Green Belt^® Certificate Course

QFD at Holiday Time

The holiday season is a great time to sharpen our QFD skills. Here are some techniques that might make the celebrations and shopping a little easier.

• Gift shopping for someone? Instead of asking them what your should buy (a solution), try asking for what they need (what difficulties do they have at work or home, what opportunities do they wish for, how would they like others to see them)? This helps us practice the Customer Voice table where we translate VOC into true needs.

• Hard to choose among several options for a gift, a restaurant, or a party to attend? Practice your alternative selection technique.

1. First list your options.
2. Write down what is attractive about each option, and what is unattractive about each option. Convert unattractive statements into positive ones. For example, this restaurant is "too far away" becomes "nearby." These are your judgment criteria.
3. Prioritize the judgment criteria. For emotional decisions, AHP's pairwise decision making is a great way to work through them.
4. The highest priority judgment criteria will drive your decision. Look at which option best fulfills them. Feel comfortable that you made the best choice possible given all the wonderful options.

• Have to be in two places at once? Try TRIZ (Theory of Inventive Problem Solving). See Glenn Mazur's web page http://www.mazur.net/triz/ for details.

1. Define your dilemma using the Engineering Parameters in Table 2 in the above link. For example, I am invited to two parties at the same time – my best friend and my in-laws. One contradiction is improve EP 26 Amount of Substance (I want to improve my pleasure for the afternoon) without the undesired result of EP 13 Stability of Object (I don't want my marriage to become unstable).
2. Look up the pair in the Table of Contradictions to find Inventive Principles 15, 2, 17, 40. Let's see what solutions we can invent.

    IP 15. Dynamicity.

1. Make an object or its environment automatically adjust for optimal performance at each stage of operation. Have the meal at your in-laws (so you can compliment her cooking) and dessert at your friends (so you can stay late).
2. Divide an object into elements which can change position relative to each other. Same as above, but decide that day where to go first.
3. If an object is immovable, make it movable or interchangeable. E-mail your suggestions to qfdi@qfdi.org

    IP 2. Extraction.

1. Extract (remove or separate) a "disturbing" part or property from an object.
2. Extract only the necessary part or property. Exchange gifts, have a drink at the in-laws and then see your friends.

    IP 17. Move to a new dimension.

1. Remove problems with moving an object in a line by two-dimensional movement (i.e. along a plane). Invite in-laws and friends to your house, instead. Have one party upstairs and the other downstairs.
2. Use a multi-layered assembly of objects instead of a single layer. Add pleasure to visiting your in-laws by inviting your friends to come with you. Or, have lunch with in-laws and dinner with friends.
3. Incline the object or turn it on its side. E-mail your suggestions to qfdi@qfdi.org

IP 40. Composite materials.

• Replace a homogeneous material with a composite one. Take two cars, and divide the family up so each can stay as long as they want at either party.

 

Delivering crystal-clear brand identity from end-to-end

"Drunk With Power," an October 14, 2012 New York Times article by Daniel Duane, describes an on-line wine seller named Jon Rimmerman Jon, who earned  his retail cred while at Starbucks. Jon summarizes it as this:

 “the beauty of retail marketing … can be roughly translated as defining a crystal-clear brand identity and then ensuring that everything from the product to customer relations reinforces it."

I like his words, and would like to give them a QFD flavor.

The purpose of modern Blitz QFD^® is to define and prioritize with crystal clarity, that which is most important to the customer, and then ensure that everything from the product to customer relations reinforces it.

Let me explain.

"Crystal clarity" of what matters most to customers. In QFD, this means having a customer need that truly states the value proposition to the customer. Typically, this is the benefit a customer receives from having a problem solved, an opportunity enabled, or image enhanced. It should be independent of the product, its features, and its technology. A Voice of Customer (VOC) statement such as "fits in my pocket" is not a customer need, but rather a fuzzy set of dimensions.

With the Customer Voice table, a Blitz QFD^® tool, you can translate that into true customer needs such as "I can carry with me easily," "Easy to store in my pocket," "Easy to retrieve from my pocket," "Stays in my pocket when I move around," "Does not damage my pocket,"  etc. This helps us understand these true benefits and avoid later design mistakes resulting in "the product falling on floor when I lean over," "the product tearing my pocket off," "the product is too hard to remove from my pocket when I want to get it out quickly," etc.

Crystal clarity means the need statement must be at a sufficient level of detail to be actionable in design, which is typically a tertiary level on a customer needs hierarchy. Abstract expressions such as "convenient" should be deployed to more detail.

Crystal clarity also means that we have accurate priority values. The QFD community replaced the 1960s' ordinal scale weights with AHP-derived ratio scale weights in the mid-1980s, first in Japan and then later in the US. Unfortunately, most English language QFD books and articles were written before this and missed the update. Even today, new QFD texts still cite these early works, and continue the math errors resulting from using ordinal weights in both customer needs and matrix relationships, as well as misuse of matrices including using a House of Quality matrix (HOQ) when it is not needed.

This is why the QFD Institute Green Belt^® and Black Belt^® courses are strongly recommended for professionals in product/service/business development, marketing, design, sigma/lean/DMAIC black belts and so forth. You will learn how to use the modern AHP approach and we provide updated Excel templates. Without AHP clarity, your limited resources risk missing what is truly important and deploying lower priority things.

"Ensuring that everything from product to customer relations reinforces it" is the QFD call for end-to-end quality assurance. Depending on your industry, product, and company, this will vary, but typically describes, end-to-end, the full development, commercialization, and retirement of the product, service, or software. In other words, we must assure that any weakness related to the most important customer needs are made robust. For example, if poor packaging compromises the sterility of a medical supply item, it becomes scrap (let's hope!), wastes money, ruins reputations, could result in injury or death, etc., no matter how well the function and performance of the item was designed.

In classical QFD, each of the design, develop, test, procure, produce, assemble, package, ship, store, sell, support, and other commercialization dimensions has its own matrix. Since the matrix only compares two dimensions at at time, anywhere from four to thirty matrices have been identified in the literature. Maybe in the 1960s-80s, we had enough time and people to analyze these, but that is difficult these days.

In Blitz QFD^®, all these matrices have been replaced for the most part by a single Maximum Value table. One tool goes end-to-end through all the dimensions. How do we do it – with crystal clarity focus on what matters most to customers. This is where we apply our best efforts, first. Makes sense, doesn't it? The Maximum Value table is one of the key tools taught in the QFD Green Belt^® Course and QFD Black Belt^® Course.

Additional training dates will be published at QFD Training & Events Calendar as they become confirmed. Or you can e-mail to us.

Election-earing: how QFD helped a candidate truly hear the Voice of the Constituent

The U.S. presidential debates are underway wobbling between the wonkiest details on debt retirement to cartoonish attacks in Sesame Street’s Big Bird. Equally, the media swing between fact checking and photogenic charisma. Voters are encouraged to make intelligent choices, but how should candidates present themselves in order to make this less frustrating?

“QFD is the art and science of taking the voice of the customer, and, more specifically, the top needs of the targeted customer segments, into consideration before developing a product or service.  Can this technique be applied to a political campaign?”

This lofty question is going to be answered and the specific steps using Modern Blitz QFD^® tools will be presented at the upcoming 24th Symposium on QFD on November 2, 2012, “QFD and Politics — A Sure-fire Way to Start An Argument” by Carey W. Hepler, QFD Black Belt^®and Operations Director of Care Spot Express Healthcare.

Carey’s case study involves an actual election campaign by his wife Ruth Ann for a Florida county judgeship. The primary focus of the paper is to understand how to: 1) select target segments; 2) use the voice (top needs) of the target segment customers to develop the strategy; 3) creating the message and; 4) deploy the messaging to the targeted segments for a campaign.

For example, what sort of true “customer needs” can be identified from this verbatim voice of voters — “what do you think about the Chick-fil-A case?” and then what kind of a campaign strategy and slogan should be deployed?

Carey’s QFD application is solid and innovative (he is a full status QFD Black Belt^® after all). This interesting paper deploys downstream using the data to make strategic and operational decisions. Carey’s presentation is worth every campaign dollar.

Does nothing wrong mean anything right?

A couple of interesting papers recently crossed my desktop that I'd like you to reflect upon.

The first was a 1994 paper by Dr. Juran (one of America's top quality gurus) titled "Quality Problems, Remedies and Nostrums" that focused on the Zero Defect (ZD) movement. In this paper, he states that "the results of the ZD movement are not very impressive" first, because failures greatly exceed successes and second, published results appeared more qualitative than quantitative as if their main purpose was to impress their customers.

The second document is an ISO related discussion on the difference between "corrective action" and "preventive action" to eliminate the causes of non-conformance. The paper explains that corrective action is about stability, and preventive action is about capability. For QFD practitioners, this explanation also demonstrates the difference between a problem solving approach using DMAIC, and a design approach using DMADV to understand true customer needs and assure satisfaction.

Neither paper answers this critical QFD question, however: "Does nothing wrong mean anything is right?" 

We ask this question at the start of every QFD Green Belt^® course in order to provoke students to go beyond fixing and preventing negative quality, and to search for positive quality.

In other words, customers don't buy a product or service because the product is problem-free; they buy a product because it helps them, the customer, become problem-free. This means you must understand what outcomes the customer truly wants in their life and work.

 

Unfortunately customers are not always good at explaining themselves. After all, few suppliers ever bother to ask, so customers are not practiced at describing their problems or unfulfilled opportunities.

This is why VOC tools such as the gemba visits, Customer Process model, and Customer Voice table are essential to good QFD. These tools help customers use words and actions to show us what "success" means to them and why they are failing. Through these tools, customers can explain their biggest headaches and missed opportunities. 

With this knowledge, a QFD team can then identify solutions that are capable of delighting the customer better than the competitors. This is how QFD differs from other quality initiatives.

If you find this topic helpful, you might be also interested in reading "Finding Customer Delights Using QFD" in the 2006 Symposium Transactions. Better yet, plan to join us this fall in the 24th Symposium on QFD in St. Augustine, Florida, to learn more about these modern tools.

When executive solutions become design constraints #2 – The case of Sweden's 17th century warship Vasa

In my last blog, I related the case of the boss who did not listen, and actively discouraged the advice of the very specialists he hired. An historical, but famous example of this recently came to my attention.

In a recent onboard flight magazine, I came across an article recommending things to do in Stockholm. Among the list was the Vasa Museum. I remember visiting it on one of my earliest QFD trips to this beautiful Scandinavian country. It was impressive to see the fully intact 135 foot wooden warship from the 17th century despite it being lost under water for over 300 years.

From my QFD perspective, the ship’s history offered interesting insight to the management style problem discussed in “The unreasonable boss - when executive solutions become design constraints.”  

Vasa, fully intact 17th century Swedish warship
(photo - wikipedia)

Vasa was commissioned by King Gustavus Adolphus (1594–1632) to flag the nation’s largest and most powerful naval force at the time. But immediately after leaving the dock on its maiden voyage in 1628, the ship sank in the Baltic Sea.

Why? Too many design changes as after-thoughts, lack of specifications and documentation detailing the ongoing design changes and modifications, unclear division of responsibility, unrealistic schedule demand, the project mission that got blurred by those changes, and stunted communication between the customer (king), producer (shipwright and builder), and operator (naval officers in charge of testing and navigation).




In particular, the changes that the king ordered after the timbers had been cut to size and the ship’s keel had been laid exacerbated the ship’s instability and ballast deficiency. Other late changes also shifted the project mission unwittingly.

For example, adding the second gun deck (after learning Denmark was building such a design) not only increased the weight burden (too many cannons) but also changed the main objectives of naval war tactics (from crippling the enemy ship with firing volleys from one deck and taking over onboard to capsizing the enemy ship by broadside firing from two decks).

decorated stern model of Vasa
(photo - wikipedia / Peter Isotalo)

In those days it was customary for warships to have ornate decorations that glorified the king. Again, many more sculptures were added on Vasa than its original design. Each measuring 10 feet long, you can imagine how heavy 500 sculptures were to the 135 foot ship.

None of the workers and subordinates had the courage to reveal these structural problems to the king, who had issued a threat against anyone causing schedule delay.

As we discussed in our previous post, Modern Blitz QFD^® tools can help analyze and offer solutions to these scenarios.

Readers, can you follow the process described in that post and do your own analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the king’s orders for the Vasa project?  Please share your analysis and questions with us in the comments.

The unreasonable boss - when executive solutions become design constraints

An acquaintance of mine recently complained that her new boss just didn't listen. She was recently hired by a large sports wear chain to manage their social media and promotional events in advance of their entering new markets and attracting new customer segments.

The owner, it seemed, was so attached to his ideas of how to promote because of his past successes that he could not comprehend that the new customers he wished to attract needed to be approached differently. His most recent demand was that because his children liked popcorn, he told the marketing team to rent an old-fashion popcorn cart for the product booth at a street fair in 100°F weather.

What bothered my acquaintance most, however, was that her direct boss and other managers were afraid to challenge the owner's positions. Whatever he demanded, he got.

QFD has some solutions to such a scenario. Whether it is the boss or the customer, proposed solutions need to be translated back into functional requirements, and then into solution-independent needs, so that better solutions can be examined to achieve those needs.

In the sports wear store example, the popcorn is a solution to what problem or need? Can we analyze for the owner the advantages and disadvantages of popcorn.

For example:

Popcorn's aroma attracts attention. Functional requirement: Attract attention. Need: Our booth stands out in a crowded event. What other ways can we stand out on a hot day? How about misting fans? Handing out folding fans?

Popcorn is something kids love to eat. Functional requirement: Distract kids. Need: Keep kids entertained while mom looks at our sports wear. How else can we entertain kids on a hot day? How about water guns?

Popcorn from an old-fashioned cart shows we are traditional and have been here a long time, and will continue to be here a long time in the future. Functional requirements: Show we are your neighbors and a trusted part of your community. Need: We are a trusted place to shop. How else can we build trust in this new market segment? How about our brands, satisfaction guarantees, our current customers who are respected in the community?

Food sales require a city license, trained operators, food handling protocols. This is a constraint that makes it expensive and time consuming. Our focus is to sell sports wear, and the popcorn could be a distraction.

Popcorn oil can damage our sample products. Kids and adults eating the popcorn and then touching the products will leave fingerprints and stains that will make our samples unattractive and discourage potential shoppers. This is another negative.

If you have attended a QFD Green Belt^® course, you remember that this solution-to-need translation is the job of the Customer Voice table and that the analysis of solution constraints is the job of the Maximum Value table.

Both are new tools  in Modern Blitz QFD^®. These are core tools in the QFD Green Belt^® Course offered in St. Augustine on October 21-November 1, 2012.