Must the quality function go beyond its traditional role of inspection and problem solving?

Recently, the questions was asked, "Must the quality function go beyond its traditional role of inspection and problem solving?"

The 'Quality Function' is 'Deployed' across the organization formally with QFD. This puts the “F” in QFD.

What this means is that the quality function is engaged during business planning, project chartering, customer identification and exploration (questionnaires, customer gemba visits, etc.) design and development, build and implementation (manufacturing, service design, software development), testing, logistics, commercialization, support, etc.

Why such a broad mandate? Because quality professionals are capable of assuring that all the other activities are done with quality thinking – PDCA, root cause analysis, SMART metrics, rigorous auditing and use of statistical methods, customer satisfaction measurement, and so on. Leave the quality guys out and numbers will be flying around to “prove” whatever the squeakiest wheels want.

Related reads...

• Integrating QFD in Phase-Gate Product Development

• How QFD differs from other quality initiatives?

• Quality Methods Essential to Innovation and Financial Success

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.

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...

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.

Electronic Medical Records and Clinical Gemba

In a recent newsletter "Electronic Medical Records in Gemba," I addressed some downsides to electronic medical records as they distract physicians from their patients. This was to be traded off against lower medical costs, it was explained generally by those in the industry.

Well, it turns out that may not be true either.

In a September 21 2012 article in the New York Times by Reed Abelson, Julie Creswell, and Griffen J. Palmer, "Medicare Bills Rise as Records Turn Electronic," it is reported that U.S.'s Medicare (healthcare after 65) and private insurers are now paying hospitals and physicians more, even if they do not provided additional care.

Healthcare providers explain this as more accurate billing and increased demand, but the Office of the Inspector General of Health and Human Services Department of the U.S. Government claims that "cloning" patient histories from one patient record to others, allows for physicians to appear to be conducting more thorough exams than were actually performed. Electronic coding of treatments also allow "upcoming" in order to receive a higher rate of reimbursement.

In the current political race for president of the United States, the issue of government policy and healthcare is top and center. While few would disagree that healthcare is expensive and access is inconsistent, the role of government in assuring quality and fairness is a concern. Especially if the cure is worse than the disease!

Laundry detergent pods mistaken for toys as well as candy

In a recent blog "Design for Safety? The dirty laundry of NPD!", I wrote how dangerous the new laundry detergent pods are for small children because they look like colorful jelly candy and are packaged in clear "candy jar" container that is a magnet for a child's attention.

I thought the problem was limited to children ingesting them, but now there are more safety modes to consider.

In a new story on this news video, it seems that just squeezing the pouches like a balloon can cause them to spray out on the child's face and eyes. The pouch's outer skin is thin for easy dissolving in water, and the concentrated chemicals (one small pouch replaces a cup of standard detergent) are so caustic that they can immediately begin burning the lining of the eyes.

While the manufacturers are busy describing the cautionary language on the packaging (which pre-school toddlers can't read), parents are having to choose between laundry convenience and their children's eyesight.

For those of us concerned with product and packaging design, I again urge a safety mode and effects analysis akin to FMEA ((Failure Modes and Effects Analysis). Sure, we can blame the customer, but that does not build business and trusting relationships. As companies go global with their products, we have to consider the context not only of our familiar homes, but the different use modes and environments of the global customers to whom we wish to sell.


PS: You may also need a better RPN calculation when designing for a black swan event. See "How To Handle VOC Issues — Lessons from Japan crisis: Anticipating Improbables with Irreversible Consequences"

GPS Gemba shows need for Kano

In a study by Barry Brown of the Mobile Life Center in Sweden, “The Normal Natural Troubles of Driving With GPS,” global positioning system failures were often found to be the result of driver errors, such as wrong inputs, misreading display, etc.

The study is cited in a recent New York Times article by Randall Stross, a business professor at San Jose State University,  that concludes that no technology will ever eradicate this human error.

The article described Dr. Brown's field study of installing video cameras in test vehicles to capture the GPS instructions, drivers' responses, and conversations when things went wrong. In QFD, we call this "going to gemba" or the place where unscripted user behavior reveals the real truth about customer needs. Gemba visits should be done prior to development to gain knowledge, as well as during design to test and validate solutions.

The conclusion by Dr. Stross reminded me of Dr. Noriaki Kano's model of Attractive Quality Creation, where he introduced the concept of exciting and expected quality. QFD users, of course, are very familiar with the classical Kano model as well as the QFD Institute's modern New Kano Model.

Dr. Kano cites one of his early experiments with Mr. T. Yoneyama of Konica, the Japanese camera company that later merged with Minolta.

In their study at film processing and photograph printing labs (also a gemba), they noticed that the largest number of poor quality pictures were those that were out of focus or under exposed. These problems were operator error, not mechanical failures of the camera. Most of these photographs were taken by amateurs who did not have the professional skills to adjust the camera properly, but never complained to the lab or to the camera maker.

Like in the GPS study, Konica could have just blamed the unskilled customers. But with Dr. Kano's guidance, they did something different – they introduced the built-in auto flash in 1974 and the auto focus in 1977, thus revolutionizing the amateur and later professional camera industry.

In other words, if products or services fail to satisfy, makers should adopt this attitude that their design is at fault, not their customers. Positively stated, these failures are actually opportunities to create exciting products with disruptive technologies.

Design for Safety? The dirty laundry of NPD!

I don't get to the supermarket as often as I should. But when I do, my eyes cast around for lost opportunities for product improvement.

On a recent shopping trip, I happened by the laundry detergent shelf and my eyes were drawn to a large, clear plastic container that contained small, 3/4" diameter colorful balls of laundry detergent.

You drop these detergent balls into the washing machine according to the amount of clothes and without the trouble of accurate measure or the mess of spilled powder. The container design was such that anybody could easily open it with one hand, which I guess is handy if you have the other arm full of dirty clothes.

What struck me immediately was that these colorful balls looked like candy in a candy jar that any child could open, and then put in their mouth.

How could a company that caters to families and household cleaning products (and also some snack foods), design something with such potential risks of a child eating laundry soap thinking it was a cookie? Certainly, this must have been thoroughly tested.

A quick Internet search on the smart phone told otherwise. Just three weeks earlier, in fact, a news report indicated that across the U.S., as many as 10 emergency calls were being made to the Poison Control Center each day regarding this product. Small children were "vomiting, wheezing and gasping" within minutes of biting into the detergent balls.

The manufacturer's response was  “We encourage consumers to keep the products out of the reach of children as with any household chemical.”

So what's the QFD connection?

Just like reliability, safety is a critical design element. Danger Mode and Effects Analysis should be a part of Safety Deployment in your QFD analyses. For users of Modern QFD, this means there should be a section in the Maximum Value table that addresses product and package safety concerns associated with critical customer needs.

For users of Classical QFD matrices, this means a Safety Deployment consisting of one or more matrices to identify and prioritize potential danger modes for additional study.

Related read:

• "QFD security deployment for predicting future risks"
• "How To Handle VOC Issues — Lessons from Japan crisis: Anticipating Improbables with Irreversible Consequences"

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.

Romney PDCA

Mr. Newt Gingrich, in his 2006 book "Saving Lives and Saving Money", expounded on his decade-long fascination with Total Quality Management (TQM), six sigma, and lean thinking. Perhaps he could share his library with U.S. Republican Party presidential candidate Mr. Mitt Romney.

According to Romney advisor Beth Meyers who worked also on his 2003 Massachusetts governor transition team, Mr. Romney has his own brand of "problem solving" that might interest others in the quality field.

In an August 16, 2012 article in the New York Times, "Campaigning Aside, Team Plans a Romney Presidency" by Ashley Parker, Ms. Meyers is quoted:

“With Mitt, his approach to problem solving is first to identify the problem, make sure you’re solving for the problem actually there; second, look at best practices; third, apply best practices to the problem at hand; and fourth, execute on it.”

While Mr. Romney's four steps resemble Dr. Shewhart's and later Dr. W. E. Deming's "Plan-Do-Check-Act" approach to problem solving, it deserves some examination -- especially if he wins the election and employs this technique in government.

Let's compare the two approaches.

QFD is a PDCA approach.

SHEWHART / DEMING

• PLAN. Define the problem. This means to identify an undesirable state (problem) or a desired state (opportunity). How important is this problem relative to other problems. This requires deep analysis including:

1. Prioritization of problems and opportunities so that people, time, and money can be focused where they will do the most good. And by what criteria will "good" be defined? Is the problem due to common causes of variation or special causes?
2. Set a measurable target or outcome (how much must the problem be mitigated to be acceptable or how much opportunity must be realized).
3. What is the current state of the problem or opportunity.
4. What is preventing the current state from achieving the target. That is, what is the root cause(s) of the problem or missed opportunity. If there are many root causes, which has the greatest impact or correlation.
5. In order to address the root causes with the greatest impact, define what a good solution must do or be, independent of a solution.
6. Use creativity and innovation to propose solutions that will do or be what is defined in 5.
7. Define a way to test the solutions for efficacy.
8. Select the best solutions relative to efficacy, time, cost, and other considerations.

• DO. Test the best solutions to see how well they work in real application. Measure both the inputs of the solution as well as the outputs of the solution to determine if the results achieve statistical stability and not just luck.
  
• CHECK (also referred to as Study). Check the results of the solutions against the targets set in the Plan phase. Are they acceptable and sustainable? If not, search for new solutions or as a last resort, lower the targets (and be able to justify why, and when they will be raised again).
  
• ACT. Roll out the solution and standardize the improvements by issuing/training new operating procedures in order to prevent recurrence. Measure inputs periodically to assure that the procedures and systems are being followed. Measure outputs periodically to assure the improved process remains stable and predictable. Determine when the process will be reviewed for further improvement, or begin work on the next priority problem.
  There are many variations on the above, including DMAIC, but this will work for our discussion.
  

ROMNEY

• "Identify identify the problem, make sure you’re solving for the problem actually there." This sounds like good advice to make sure the problem is actually real. But, where is the analysis of the cause of the problem, the current state, the desired state?
• "Look at best practices." It is interesting that Deming did not care for benchmarking best practices, ridiculing the process as “the last stage of civilization.” His argument was that if your company is the same as others, why would your customers buy from you and not the others. Unique conditions require unique solutions. Where in this approach is creativity and innovation? (See our previous post "Benchmarking – the fatal flaw in modern quality thinking")
• "Apply best practices to the problem at hand." Where is the testing to see if the solutions are delivering the desired results? Where is the refinement?
• "Execute on it." This sounds like a repeat of "Apply best practices" so it is not clear if this adds anything to the process. Where is follow up to see if the solution continues to work?
  

Remember, that QFD is also a PDCA approach. Plan includes all the modern Blitz QFD^® tools up to and including parts of the Maximum Value table.

House of Quality matrix actually starts at the end of the Plan stage -- which is why it should be preceded with Blitz QFD^® anyway. Do is the design, development and prototyping. Check is the testing, and market validation phase. Act is the roll out, commercialization, product maintenance, and product retirement phase.