Designing Products and Processeswith a Future

What does it take?

Involve the customerMeet with the customer

Listen to customer

Educate the customer

Incorporate quality function deployment (QFD)

Design for robustness

What is a customer?

The person who buys the product? The federal regulator? The consumer reporter? The marketing and sales

department? Engineering? Manufacturing? Suppliers?

How do you hear the customer?

Needs Wants Satisfaction Perception

Features

Quality

Value

Importance

Competitors

Detractors

ABOUT

Product DesignWhat the Customer wanted

What Marketing described

What Engineering designed

– Idea generation– Assessment of firm’s ability to carry

out– Customer Requirements– Functional Specification– Product Specifications– Concept Generation– Concept Selection– Engineering Design– Engineering Evaluation– Prototype and Testing

Manufacturing Design

What is Design? A Decision Making ProcessFlexibility

Cost

Few SuccessesFew Successes

0

500

1000

1500

2000

Development Stage

Number

Product specification

100

1000

Market requirement

Ideas1750

One success!

Functional specifications

500

Design review,Testing, Introduction

25

QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT

QFD: An approach that integrates the “voice of the customer” into the product and service development process.

Quality Function Deployment– Uses the voice of the customer to

build a design tool:

»House of quality

Quality Function Deployment

Identify customer wants Identify how the good/service will

satisfy customer wants Relate customer wants to product hows Identify relationships between the

firm’s hows Develop importance ratings Evaluate competing products

House Of Quality

Technical assessment and target values

Customerrequirements

Relationship matrix

Productcharacteristics

Importance

Competitiveassessment

TradeoffMatrix

Customer Requirements

Importance to Cust.

Easy to close

Stays open on a hill

Easy to open

Doesn’t leak in rain

No road noise

Evaluation

Engineering Characteristics

For

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oor

For

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For

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Wat

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63 63 45 27 6 27

7

5

3

3

2

X

X

X

X

X

Correlation:Strong positivePositiveNegativeStrong negative

X*

Competitive evaluationX = UsA = Comp. AB = Comp. B(5 is best)

1 2 3 4 5

X AB

X AB

XAB

A X B

X A B

Relationships:Strong = 9Medium = 3

Small = 1Target values

Red

uce

ener

gy

leve

l to

7.5

ft/lb

Red

uce

forc

eto

9 lb

.

Red

uce

ener

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7.5

ft/l

b.

Mai

ntai

ncu

rren

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elTechnical evaluation(5 is best)

54321

B

A

X

BAX B

AX

BX

A

BXABA

X

Doo

r se

al

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ce

Acc

oust

. Tra

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Win

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House of Quality Example

An Automotive Door

Idea Generation Stage

Provides basis for entry into market Sources of ideas

– Market need (60-80%); engineering & operations (20%); technology; competitors; inventions; employees

Follows from marketing strategy– Identifies, defines, & selects best market

opportunities

Customer Requirements Stage Identifies & positions key product benefits

– Stated in core benefits proposition (CBP)– Example: Long lasting with more power

(Sears’ Die Hard Battery)

Identifies detailed list of product attributes desired by customer – Focus groups or

1-on-1 interviews

House of QualityHouse of Quality

Customer Requirements

Product Characteristics

House of QualityHouse of Quality

Customer Requirements

Customer Requirements

Product Characteristics

Functional Specification Stage Defines product in terms of how

the product would meet desired attributes

Identifies product’s engineering characteristics– Example: printer noise (dB)

Prioritizes engineering characteristics

May rate product compared to competitors’

Determines how product will be made Gives product’s physical specifications

– Example: Dimensions, material etc. Defined by engineering

drawing Done often on computer

– Computer-Aided Design (CAD)

House of QualityHouse of Quality

ProductCharacteristics

ProductCharacteristics

Component Specifications

Product Specification Stage

Quality Function Deployment

Product design process using cross-functional teams– Marketing, engineering, manufacturing

Translates customer preferences into specific product characteristics

Involves creating 4 tabular ‘Matrices’ or ‘Houses’– Breakdown product design into

increasing levels of detail

To Build House of Quality Identify customer wants Identify how the good/service will

satisfy customer wants. Relate the customer’s wants to the

product’s hows. Develop importance ratings Evaluate competing ideas and

conceptsUltimately you choose the design Not the customer!

You’ve been assigned temporarily to a QFD team. The goal of the team is to develop a new camera design. Build a House of Quality.

© 1984-1994 T/Maker Co.

House of Quality Example

House of Quality Example

What the customer desires (‘wall’)

CustomerRequirements

CustomerImportance

Target Values

Light weightEasy to useReliable

House of Quality Example

CustomerRequirements

CustomerImportance

Target Values

Light weightEasy to useReliable

3

12

Average customer importance rating

House of Quality Example

CustomerRequirements

CustomerImportance

Target Values

Light weightEasy to useReliable

321

Choose engineering characteristics to satisfy thecustomer requirements

AluminumParts

SteelParts

AutoFocus

AutoExposure

House of Quality Example

CustomerRequirements

CustomerImportance

Target Values

Light weightEasy to useReliable

321

Relationship between customer attributes & engineering characteristics (‘rooms’)

AluminumParts

SteelParts

AutoFocus

AutoExposure

5 28 7

84 5 319 14 21 17

QFD Cascades

ROBUST DESIGN

Design that results in products or services that can function over a broad range of conditions

What does Robust Design mean? Plan for variability Assess your capabilities Design for Manufacturing Reduce Costs Practice! Improve RAM-D

Variability: The Taguchi Approach to ROBUST DESIGN

Design a robust product− Insensitive to environmental factors

either in manufacturing or in use. Central feature is Parameter

Design Determines

− factors that are controllable and those not controllable

− their optimal levels relative to major product advances

ASSESS CAPABILITIES

Identify Core Strengths

Match Products To Processing Capabilities

– Design for Manufacturing (DFM)

DESIGN FOR MANUFACTURING

The designers’ consideration of the organization’s manufacturing capabilities when designing a product.

Materials

Processes

Assembly

REDUCE COSTS

Focus on simplification & standardization

− Design for Assembly (DFA)

− Increase emphasis on component commonality

Study how products are designed & built

Eliminate duplicate design & processes

Strategically control capital spending

INVOLVE OPERATIONS

Practice concurrent engineering

Establish technical exchange programs

Use collaborative styles

Look for continual improvement

IMPROVE DURABILITY, RELIABILITY, & SAFETY

1) Improve component design2) Use redundancy3) Improve production and/or

assembly techniques4) Improve testing5) Use robust design6) Use modular design7) Improve preventive maintenance8) Educate customers

Good Luck with your designs!