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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Upcoming Public QFD Courses — Learn today's best methods and tools

All events listed here will be held at Charleston Marriott in Charleston, South Carolina USA. The 1-day Symposium on December 5, 2014 is complimentary to the course attendees.

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For questions, please contact the QFD Institute.
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QFD Green Belt^® Certificate Course
December 3–4,  2014  (Wed & Thurs)

• Your chance to learn Modern Blitz QFD^®.  
• Learn how to do QFD analysis without the outdated 4-house matrices, without the resource-consuming House of Quality matrix.
• Learn how to do a Gemba and VOC analysis, correctly identify and prioritize customer needs, transform them into design specifications of customer-value and innovative solutions, deploy them throughout your new product/service development process — with agility and efficiency essential to today's lean environment. 
• Templates included (modern QFD, AHP, modern House of Quality, Maximum Value Table, and more).
• No Prerequisites.

QFD Black Belt^® Certificate Course
December 8–12,  2014  (Monday - Friday)

• Advanced QFD training for DFLS/DFSS black belts and master black belts, trainers, facilitators, innovation leaders, corporate training scouts, and anyone who is inspired to be a project leader.  
• Learn the full depth and breadth of Modern Comprehensive QFD, including detailed instructions on how to correctly deploy a House of Quality matrix for its full power, with correct data input and prioritization.
• Learn how to expertly integrate your own process and other quality and design methods such as DFLS, Hoshin, Kansei Engineering, TRIZ, Critical Chain, six sigma DMAIC, StageGates, DFMEA and more. 
• Templates included (modern QFD, AHP, modern House of Quality, Maximum Value Table, and more), and over 1,000 pages of training manual.
• Prerequisites: Qualified graduates of the QFD Green Belt^® Courses.

If you have attended the above courses more than three years ago, now is the time to refresh your knowledge and skills in these semi-private coaching sessions:

• QFD Green Belt^® Update Course is the continuing education for QFD Green Belt^® graduates. This half-day course is conveniently scheduled on December 7, 2014, 4 PM - 7:30 PM.
• QFD Black Belt^® Update Course is the continuing education for QFD Black Belt^® graduates. Attendees of this full-day course on December 7, 2014 receive the latest copy of both QFD Green Belt^® and QFD Black Belt^® training manuals.

We look forward to meeting you in these Charleston QFD events.

Shakespeare's Gemba

While ago, I nominated Champlain as my Mr. Gemba ("I get my kicks from Champlain").

Polonius

Here are more Gemba wisdom for you, one from the literature masterpiece and another from today's TV show.

Hamlet, Act 1 Scene 3, Lord Polonius advises Laertes.

• Listen twice as much as you speak.
• Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice
• Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment

Today's TV star Judge Judy puts it more directly:
"God gave your two ears and one mouth for a reason."

I believe the #1 gemba tool is a piece of tape across the lips of every QFD team member.

When we are silent, the customer fills the silence with gold – his take on his life and business, what he likes and dislikes. This is the true VOC from which we can begin to understand his needs.

Mirror Neurons – the science behind "gemba" ?

Recent studies on the behavior of monkeys in a research lab in Parma Italy accidentally found that brain neurons that fired when a monkey picked up a peanut, also fired when a monkey watched a human pick up a peanut.

Ongoing research in these so-called "mirror neurons" in humans have discovered what might be the root-cause of empathy. When we see someone performing a task, it triggers the same neurons as if had been doing the same task ourselves.

A recent discovery has also shown that people on the "empowered" side of a relationship lose some ability to fire these mirror neurons compared to those on the "unempowered" side of the relationship.  (See the report and video at NOVA: Mirror Neurons)

For QFD practitioners, this gives strong support for the power of gemba visits. Unlike surveys and questionnaires which are passive, going to gemba to observe and even participate in activities with our customers, apparently triggers empathy in our brains that may improve how we understand our customers and how we innovate solutions to their problems. Further, this latest research suggests that if we empower the customer to lead the gemba visit, we consequently unempower ourselves, thus improving our ability to empathize.

Wow! I've been teaching "go to the gemba" for twenty years and now have an explanation for why this works so well, especially for bringing marketing and technical people together to better understand customers.

The tools we've developed, which are now core in the Blitz QFD® approach and taught in the QFD Green Belt® course are designed to capture this implicit mirroring process and make it explicit. The result has been more marketing-technical teams attending both public and in-company Blitz QFD® training.

Why not join our next course on September 4-5, 2013 in Santa Fe NM and learn how to put your mirror neurons to good use!

The joke is on us (consumers)

Take a look at this video. It is about a Google Japan project to develop a better interface for typing Japanese.

Owning to its complex writing system (several thousand Chinese characters mingled with two sets of 51 phonetic alphabets), keyboarding Japanese became feasible only in 1970s. Even today with advancements in software and AI, typing Japanese remains highly cumbersome, compared to Romance languages such as English, Spanish, French, etc.

So when Google Japan announced its intention to design a better way to type, the project sounded like a worthy effort.


Google Japan video, April 2013 (http://youtu.be/HzUDAaYMNsA)  Click "CC" for English caption.

Have you noticed the intriguing initial concept based on drum-playing? Granted, Google has always been known for quirky ideation, but many Japanese viewers thought this was an absurd, if interesting, departure from the traditional keyboard.

Alas, the complexity of the Japanese language necessitated infinite drums to be added (to accommodate thousands of characters), resulting in an inoperably massive drum assembly. Did you see that?

To solve this problem, the Google engineers did what many project teams typically do: They gathered in a meeting room to brainstorm.

Does it sound pretty normal to you, so far?

After many days of brainstorming, one day while waiting for a commuter train, an engineer had an epiphany: A split-flap input display system (the old-fashioned mechanism that flips panels to display departure/arrival information for trains, airplanes, etc.).

Did you see that?

Then comes the really eccentric part: Since people today prefer everything mobile, the Google team decides to build this new Japanese input system in the form of funky eye wear (Google glasses for the 19th century)!  Now you can type Japanese wherever you are simply by blinking your eyes.

See that?  What else did you notice?

The real scoop is, while users of Gmail in the US were greeted with the total ‘blue’ screen prank on April Fools’ Day, Google Japan made an elaborate effort to produce this video prank instead. What is interesting is that many people failed to discern the joke.

We showed this video to our colleagues in Japan, many whom are professors of Information Technology and Business. Here is what they said, which also resembles the comments of many Japanese Youtube viewers:

“It is an interesting concept, but I found it difficult to understand.”
“It looks hard to use for me, but young people like this?”
“The initial drum concept looked interesting; it is too bad that the final product departed from it.”
“Who is the wholesaler of this product? Can I get in touch?”

People did not get the joke, perhaps, because even today real life product development often resembles what the Google team portrayed in the video. That is, a team of experts gathers in a meeting room, discusses product ideas out of thin air, brainstorms design issues with each other, and eventually (hopefully) someone has a lucky break for a final product idea that might reflect solutions to the engineering problems at hand, but pay little regard to customer gemba and their real needs.

Without knowledge of customer-centric approaches like QFD and practical experience of how to implement the DFCV (design for customer value) such as gemba tools and maximum value table in Blitz QFD^®, the product development in this April Fools’ video came across to many as a rather reasonable, realistic way that many businesses still conduct product development. I hope yours is different.

Learn better ways of product development… QFD Green Belt^® Certificate Course

“Did you find everything okay?”

It’s a question consumers hear on a daily basis, whether they’re at a grocery store, electronics store, sporting goods store or basically any kind of retail outlet.  Sometimes our answer is ‘yes’ and other times ‘no,’ but what never seems to change is the outcome from this little encounter.  Anyone reading this blog probably already understands why – because it’s not a service question, it’s a marketing statement.

Much like “Welcome!” from greeters at many mega stores, this simple line is meant to project a customer-first attitude amongst a store’s employees (and at no additional cost!,) however, unlike a throwaway greeting, this question represents a much greater missed opportunity.

It is not that the asker (often a cashier) is disingenuous when asking this question, but rather the question itself is problematic and their training does not enable them to deal with the voices of customers they receive.  It is an avenue for feedback, but it almost always leads to a dead end.

The most immediate problem with this question is that it’s vague and open to multiple interpretations by different customers.  One of the main principles of asking good questions is making sure the respondent actually knows what’s being asked.

The first possibility that springs to my mind is, “Was the process of finding specific product groups and making selections easily accomplished?” This can be broken down in at least three ways as follows:

• “Was our inventory organization logical to you?” 
• “Was our inventory accessible to you?”  and 
• “Did we provide enough information to help you decide?”  

There are likely more ways to break down the process of shopping, but it’s worth noting that an online store like Amazon, which has begun to enter the grocery business in some cities, can easily meet these needs without much extra effort through their existing online interface.  This makes it all the more important for today’s brick and mortar grocery stories to satisfy in these areas.

Another way to interpret the question is, “Do we carry the specific items you’re looking for?”  – either by item type or item brand. This is an issue of supply management and no amount of friendly customer service is going to help the customer get what they want on that current trip.

There might, however, be an easy and visible method for customer requisitions, which would not only please a customer but also guarantee a return visit when their item arrives.  This is often possible at electronics stores (although the process is far from visible or easy) but is rarely possible in grocery stores.  When a customer’s favorite brand of mustard or bread goes missing and they ask an employee why they no longer carry that item, they’re often met with an “I don’t know” which is neither helpful nor informative. The excruciating weakness of that response is that it could be!

Even when store representatives ask meaningful questions and their customers provide informative answers, they’re rarely trained with the necessary tools or provided a response channel to turn that voice of customer into helpful information.

Every time the question is asked, a store is in position to receive useful feedback, both positive and negative, yet that information goes nowhere; it gets stuck with a clerk who doesn’t know who to give it to or a manager who doesn’t want to receive it. “Did you find everything okay?” is a façade of customer-first thinking, and fortunately there’re ways to improve it.

An easy start is to ask better questions, and to make sure your representatives know how to respond when the customer's answer is “no.”  A working response channel from customer to representative to management is important, however this is dependent on a customer’s time, mood and memory and may lead to skewed results.

For instance, feedback on message boards tends to occur more when something has gone wrong, rather than when something has gone right.  Questionnaires sent out by grocery stores tend to be focused on their own product or process rather than the customer’s experience (or their desired shopping outcome), and by the time customers receive them, they may not remember all of the relevant details from their shopping encounter.  Furthermore, even if a customer did have difficulty searching through a store’s shelves and a cashier was able to help them, what good would it do if the customer had already waited in line and was about to pay (as they often are when the question is asked)?

For these reasons, going to the gemba is the most effective way to find customers’ needs in order to improve their shopping experience.  True customer-first thinking means discovering if they “found everything okay” (and everything it entails) before they check out of your store.

Ken Mazur

Related Read...

• Trusting Front Line Employees To Be Customer Advocates 

• Translating Voice of Customer into True Customer Needs 

• Electronic Medical Records in the Gemba 

• Service QFD and State-Transition Diagram

Kansei Engineering and Education

One of the "cousin" methods we use in Modern QFD is called Kansei Engineering, which I often translate as emotional quality (when used by itself) or lifestyle deployment (when combined with QFD).

The original concept creator, Dr. Michio Nagamachi, also uses it for ergonomics (both physical and emotional) in order to elevate a produce above its pure functionality.

In a January 5, 2013 article in the New York Times by Al Baker, "Ergonomic Seats? Most Pupils Squirm in a Classroom Classic", the subject of school chairs interested me greatly. It seems that even today, most schools see chairs as a means to corral children so they can learn in the traditional school settings that date back to the 19th century 5-S approach: sit straight, speak only when spoken to, study only the books we approve, store easily, and save money.

Saving money seems to still trump the others, as schools continue to buy chairs that will last 30-50 years. Despite a German study and recent experience that children's comfort and engagement are improved with more ergonomic and mobile chairs, schools are slow to change. Professor Galen Cranz in her 1998 book "The Chair: Rethinking Culture, Body and Design," wished child movement were accorded more consideration.

From a QFD and Kansei perspective, children should be seen as "customers" and users of the chair.  Today's classrooms, group work, electronics, and other educational tools should be observed in "gemba" visits (actually go to a classroom and see how teachers and students interact), so that 21st century chairs and desks can be created to help children achieve their educational goals.

I know observing children is problematic, and adjustments to the gemba methods must be made. You may find these papers helpful:

• "Jurassic QFD" (1999) where children were observed in a petting zoo during the design of an animatronic triceratops

• "Elementary QFD: Using QFD to Assess and Evaluate the Learning Environment of a Private School Library and to Systematically Engage an ISACS Review" (2012) where an elementary school library was evaluated for improvement.

• "Brand Engineering using Kansei Engineering and QFD"(/u> - a student research paper on chair design by using Kansei Engineering and QFD.

QFD for high-speed rail, IT projects, smartphones, education, telecom industry, and political campaign

The previous post (Election-earing: how QFD helped a candidate truly hear the Voice of the Constituent) previewed the first-of-its-kind political campaign case study. In addition, these exciting presentations are planned for The 24th Symposium on QFD, November 2, 2012 in St. Augustine, Florida.

The transactions of this symposium will become available to public in May 2013, but the most privileged content is often shared with the symposium audience only. In addition, the 2012 symposium includes a mini tutorial on Hoshin Kanri (Policy Management).

Come join us to learn and network. This will be also a good chance to get your QFD questions answered and receive tips on how to apply these tools in your project.
Registration is still open.
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"Going to the Gemba: Number Two with a Bullet"

The first generation of Chinese bullet trains was marred with design flaws that manifested in the catastrophic July 2011 accident which killed at least 40 people and injured more than 200 (NYTimes.com, Dec. 28, 2011). For the second generation hi-speed trains, Tangshan Railway Vehicle Company decided to try QFD to address the previous deficiencies.

The symposium presentation will share the traditional QFD approach and tools used in this project, as well as the unique gemba story in a country where the central government and Chinese Ministry of Railways believe that they speak for everyone and represent the voice of the customers.  
Speaker: Jack B. ReVelle, Ph.D., ReVelle Solutions, LLC (USA)

"Change Fix Model"

Some of the issues that add complication to IT projects include volatility of customer requirements and assessing risks involving changes. The Change Fix Model aims to improve agility of the estimation by using lean and QFD tools, enabling assessment of the impact of a change into the entire software lifecycle, starting with a regression model for establishing the relationship between impact of change and additional effort for implementing the change.

Using a CTQ drill down tree, which is one of the mechanisms to implement QFD, the paper is the first of its kind to measure the impact of a change by using a regression model. This will be presented by using a case of a major communications player.  
Speaker: Karthik Jegannathan, Cognizant Technologies Solutions (India/USA)

"Repertory Grid – Potential for Requirements Management in the Quality Function Deployment - An Example of the German Smartphone Market"

This research by German scholars proposes integration of cognitive psychology science, the Repertory Grid Technique (RGT), into QFD. In evaluating quality/performance of a product/service, customers follow unconscious personal perceptions, besides consideration of physical properties such as size, color, functions, etc. It is these unconsciously perceived characteristics that play an important role in the decision making process.

Repertory Grid Technique is based on the Personal Construct Theory, a constructivist theory that contends that people experience, organize, and describe their environment in terms of cognitive personal concepts that can be distilled into bipolar verbal labels. From its initial application in psychological diagnosis, the method has evolved to a set of general guidelines used in a wide variety of application domains, including environmental studies, education, healthcare, business, and it can be useful in identification of customer requirements in QFD analysis. The symposium presentation will use a case of German smartphone market to introduce RGT and show how it can be used in QFD analysis.
Speaker: Philipp Tursch, Chair Quality Management, Cottbus University of Technology (Germany)


"Elementary QFD: Using QFD to Assess and Evaluate the Learning Environment of a Private School Library and to Systematically Engage an ISACS Review"

A Modern Blitz QFD^® application in a non-traditional customer/product model – a school. Emerson School, a private school in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is in the midst of undergoing a review by The Independent Schools Association of the Central States (ISACS). The project goal was to identify key customers and translate their Voice of Customer as well as ISACS criteria into true customer needs.

Often organizations act on a situation without fully determining the true needs of stakeholders that would reveal the important context or unstated factor, leading to inadequate solutions or even exacerbated situations. This occurred several years ago. QFD gemba study revealed the largest and unexpected hindrances to the current learning environment in the library media center. These observations and customer verbatims were translated into true needs and fully ordered using paired comparisons in the Analytic Hierarchy Process. Finally, the highest ranking needs were evaluated on a systematic level, addressing potential causes for concern such as difficulties of implementation, perception of teachers and students, as well as resources like cost, time and effort.  
Speaker: Ken Mazur, QFD Black Belt^®, Japan Business Consultants, Ltd., USA

"Implementing Quality Function Deployment to Improve Service Quality and Customer Satisfaction: A Three Stages Empirical Approach in Jordanian Mobile Telecommunication"

The aim of this research is to develops a conceptual model that integrates the SERVQUAL Gap model and QFD to help telecom companies in Jordan explore service quality shortfalls and improve customer satisfaction. The first stage involved designing, administering and analyzing the SERVQUAL framework questionnaire.

The study population comprises all Jordanian mobile telecommunications companies (Zain, Orange, and Umniah) located in Amman, the capital of Jordan. There is a gap between expectations and experience in all service quality dimensions. QFD model will be used to close these gaps.  
Speaker: Tasneem Alfalah, Glasgow Caledonian University (UK)

"QFD and Politics (A Sure Way To Start An Argument)"

First of its kind, this paper reports the use of Modern Blitz QFD^® tools in an actual political campaign for a Florida county judgeship. The primary focus was to understand how to: 1) select target segments; 2) use the voice (top needs) of the target segment customers to develop the strategy; 3) create messaging; and 4) deploy the messaging to the targeted segment.

This application uniquely deploys downstream using the Voice of Constituents data to make strategic and operational decisions. 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?” Read more on this paper in the previous post...
Speaker: Carey Hepler, QFD Black Belt^®, Solantic Urgent Care (USA)

Skills Building Exercise: Hoshin Kanri mini tutorial

Hoshin Kanri is a systematic quality approach to planning, executing, auditing, and managing corporate vision and business strategy. It is a company-wide strategic management system that uses common QFD tools to visually indicate the relationships between executive-level targets and the means to achieve them, and those of direct reports. In this mini workshop, attendees will be introduced to the basic concept and application of how Hoshin Kanri works through an easy-to-follow example and hands-on exercise.
Instructor: Glenn Mazur, QFD Red Belt^®, QFD Institute


Events Schedule (PDF)

How to attend...

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.

Social Media for VOC

In a recent New York Times article "Facebook, Twitter and Foursquare as Corporate Focus Groups" on July 30 2012, it was noted that producers of hit food and other retail fads are using social media to extract new ideas from consumers, as well as to select which ideas to commercialize.

Younger consumers who are more adept at online communications and can be attracted in larger numbers and more quickly than traditional focus groups. Further, their online profiles are self-populated and can provide much more demographic and attitudinal details than otherwise obtained. Sorting responses by these criteria can yield valuable insight according to age, income, location, and other characteristics important to target marketing.

In recent years, several QFD practitioners have been using social media to acquire Voice of Customer (VOC) data during new product development. QFD, of course, would usually begin well before focus groups were employed to evaluate solution options, in order to acquire VOC to define customer needs and product requirements. In these cases, users are asked to send in videos and photos of their activities and frustrations, usually around a product theme. Other uses are to search personal social media postings for issues related to the new product project.

In my experience, this has proven to be a rich source of candid VOC where the user is directing the script. A kind of virtual "gemba." In one case, we uncovered that one company's product was being abused by young teens, allowing the maker to change the product and make it less prone to tampering.

Of course, like any customer gemba data, these are only inputs to a deeper QFD analysis that includes translating VOC into prioritized customer needs, product requirements, and features. These features can be tested again using social media as described in the above captioned article.

Benchmarking – the fatal flaw in modern quality thinking

Frequently we hear in quality conference presentations and papers high praises for benchmarking and "shamelessly stealing" the ideas of others. But does it make sense to take what is successful elsewhere and expect it to work in a different context with different staff and customers? Two recent news reports are noteworthy.

"How Apple Store Seduces You With the Tilt of Its Laptops" (from Forbes Magazine, June 14, 2012): Apple Retail has found that tilting demonstration laptop computer screens at a specific angle encourages customers to adjust them to their ideal viewing angle – and by virtue of touching the computer, invite them to experience the product and its apps in a multi-sensory mode.

"A Store Without a Checkout Counter? JCPenney Presses on with Retail Revolution" (Time Magazine, July 20, 2012): In late July 2012, J.C. Penney (a large American department store chain) announced that by 2014, it will eliminate cash registers and checkout counters at their retail stores. This idea emulates Apple Computer's successful retail store format, also the brainchild of Ron Johnson who left Apple Retail this spring to become CEO of J.C. Penney (JCP). Key functions of the plan are to have store employees with remote scanners roam the store and record purchases and payments, as well as create an iPhone app that allows customers to check themselves out.

Readers who have shopped at an Apple Retail store know that you are surrounded by staff both eager to leave you alone to play with the devices, but instantly there should you have questions or wish to make a purchase. If you use a credit card, you can be immediately checked out right where you stand, and instantly receive your receipt by email. But can a clothing and general merchandise retailer imitate this successfully?

From a QFD perspective, let's examine JCP's decision to emulate Apple as a new solution to an existing problem or opportunity. At the start of a technology-driven QFD project (Apple may have been customer-driven, but benchmarking is usually technology- or solution-driven), we look at the the functions of the technology and what important customer problems does it address?

For example:

• Who are the target customers and how do they shop?
• Do they come in with a purchase already in mind or do they browse?
• Do they buy things from multiple departments and don't mind paying for different purchases in different departments?
• Do they pay with cash?
• Do they add additional items as they walk towards the checkout counter?
• How big a problem is checking out and purchasing at JCP today?
• Do customers abandon their purchases due to waiting in line?
• What other problems do customers face at JCP such as poor selection or size availability?
• How will floor staff handle lost sales when customers that cannot find what they want?

So, when benchmarking another business, be careful to understand the "spirit" and not just the "form."  We talked about this in the QFDI Newsletter "Hoshin Kanri - Understanding the spirit behind the form"

What fits others may need alterations before it fits your business.

Big Soda and Obesity Fishbone Analysis

New York City mayor Bloomberg made headlines recently by proposing a ban on the sale of sugary soda that is larger than 16 ounces (473 milliliters). He explained it as “a way to fight obesity in a city that spends billions of dollars every year on weight-related health problems.”

The mayor’s proposal is stirring up a myriad of debates, from anti-junk food / sugary drink movement, freedom of choice, food stamp, school lunch program, political motive to healthcare cost management, universal health care, and legislative legality. “What’s next on the list? Large slices of pizza? Double-scoop ice cream cones? Tubs of movie-theater popcorn? The 16-ounce strip steak?” asked a newspaper.

Well, obesity is a national problem. According to the CDC, an estimated 30 percent of U.S. adults (over 60 million people) can be classified as obese. One study said that obesity adds $190 billion in the nation’s health cost [msnbc.com 4/30/2012].

We applaud the mayor’s good intentions and willingness to tackle the obesity problem. But obesity has so many causes. Is the oversized sugary soda the major one?

So here we‘ve tried a simple quality tool, a fishbone diagram.

What comes next is further studies to determine which cause has the high contribution to obesity and what would be the most effective and efficient solutions to address this cause.

But until the mayor can prove that an oversized sugary soda indeed has the highest contribution, the proposed soda ban may only have a minimal effect on the war against obesity.

How we use Blitz QFD® in our venue decision

The gap between industry-defined luxury (product-out thinking) and customer needs (market-in thinking)  was the topic of a recent QFDI newsletter “Defining Luxury for Today’s Business Travelers.” A survey by an online hotel reservation service confirmed some of the topics raised, according to the June 2012 issue of Michigan Meetings and Events.

“Browsing the Internet over a plate of waffles is a guest’s real idea of luxury,” was an example cited in the magazine with nearly 40% of the survey respondents agreeing that free Wi-Fi is the most important amenity (except for the seniors, who valued free breakfast more than free internet). Another finding was that 23% of female respondents considered designer toiletries a perk in their luxury hotel experience, while only 12% of men agreed. Conversely, 27% of men said they place high value on access to a premium workout facility, while only 19% for women. It should be noted that the survey was done with guests of all ages who used the online reservation service of hotels.com.

As mentioned in the newsletter, we recently conducted a site visit for a future symposium and applied QFD thinking. For example, over the years (the 2012 Symposium on QFD will be the 24th consecutive year) we have seen a shift in our attendees from automotive engineers to more representation from health care services and software and IT developers. Automotive engineers were local and drove to our Detroit area venue, so convenient highways and parking were most important.

As the attendees profiles changed and we began holding the symposium in other parts of the U.S., the quality of city life and availability of evening activities (fun bars and restaurants after a grueling day of study) became important. Based on attendee  questions and comments before, during, and after the conferences, we have seen evolving needs and priorities each year. This is our gemba where we learn about our customers – you, the QFD professional.

When we make a site-visit for future conference venues, part of our job is to represent your needs when examining meeting facilities, observing how hotel staff interact with guests, and discovering interesting evening activities in the area. Of course, it would be nice if the hotel's and convention bureau's glossy brochures, websites, and sales force could describe these things remotely, but that is not often the case. Visiting the venue (our future gemba), is still the best way to "walk in the shoes" of our attendees.

This year’s symposium will be at the Hilton St. Augustine Historic Bayfront hotel. Our site visit to the nation’s oldest and continuously inhabited European settlement took place a little over a year ago.  We spent three days visiting several hotels recommended by the local CVB (St. Augustine & Ponte Vedra Visitors and Convention Bureau), presenting your needs, listening to each property's offerings, and experiencing first-hand how well the service level and facility quality would meet your most important needs.

Blitz QFD® tools such as the Maximum Value Table help align the product and service capabilities defined by the hotel’s proposal with the needs and expectations of our customers. We then analyze the overall best value to our attendees using AHP. Your needs become the criteria in our venue selection.

Because we know what you want, we are able to negotiate from a position of strength, and work hard to contract the best location for the best guest room price.  Many of the restrictions hotels place on groups such as meeting room rental fees, minimum number of guest rooms, meal costs, etc. we are able to beat because of the clear prioritization AHP provides.

So join us this year. The Hilton St. Augustine is located right in the historic area within steps from many restaurants and shops. Castillo de San Marcos national park (right photo) is within walking distance, as are an authentic pirate museum, and other attractions. St. Augustine is also a good base to explore many pristine beaches of Florida, including the nearby Anastasia State Park, and the early November weather should be warm and pleasant. Several world-class golf courses and the World Golf Hall of Fame are also nearby.

Tell us how well we do with this year's Symposium venue selection.
Both Registrations for the 2012 Symposium and QFD courses as well as hotel reservations are now open for the October 31 – November 9, 2012 event. See http://www.qfdi.org/ for more details. Below is a quick rundown of the events:

October 31-November 1

   QFD Green Belt® Certificate Course

November 2

   The 24th Symposium on QFD

November 3

   QFD Green Belt® Update 

    QFD Black Belt® Update

November 4-9

   QFD Black Belt® Certificate Course