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quality function deployment

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 International Journal of Modern Engineering Research (IJMER)
www.ijmer.com Vol.2, Issue.3, May-June 2012 pp-896-901 ISSN: 2249-6645

Analysis & Designing an Engineering Course Using QFD

Dr. Rupesh Gupta 1, Dr. Sheifali Gupta2, Kuldeep Nagi3
*(Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chitkara University, India)
** (Department of Electronics & Communication Eng., Chitkara University, India)
*** (Department of Mechanical Engineering, Chitkara University, India)

ABSTRACT
Quality function deployment (QFD) is applied to together with the principles and methods of engineering
university education system in this paper. It discusses analysis and design, to specify, predict, and evaluate the
in detail the various aspects and tools associated with results to be obtained from such systems [1].
QFD. Now a day’s employment competition is fiercer The importance of adapting to market has been pointed out
because of global economic crisis. So how to design in [2]. Therefore, it is emergent to innovate the traditional
education program for improving undergraduate education program, and design market oriented education
competitiveness is focused. QFD theory is applied to program, especially under the new economic situation. QFD
education program design for satisfying market translates the customer or market requirements into
requirements. Statistical Quality Control (SQC) is the design targets, which achieves market oriented
course which has been analyzed and designed by using principle and taking customer demands as the
QFD. Major stakeholders of Statistical Quality Control exclusive gist. QFD can be applied into many areas.
(SQC) education were identified as students, faculty Education is one of those, like in [3]. QFD was applied for
and future employers; in which future employers education quality planning for SQC students. It showed the
included enterprise, graduate institute and government stakeholder requirements from SQC education, and than
department according to SQC employment situation in generated an education program. However, it didn‟t consider
India. Second, a set of design requirements is that different education program should be designed
developed based on the analysis of SQC education according to different stakeholders. Therefore, [4] QFD is
program in a University. Furthermore enterprise applied to education program design for satisfying market
demands were translated into education program with and student requirements in this paper. Through the house of
the house of quality. The designed program satisfies quality, different stakeholder requirements can be
stakeholder requirements well, so that this method can transformed to corresponding education program, which can
help improve the quality of SQC graduate. It is hoped support university to make adaptive cultivation plan.
that the paper can also serve the needs of researchers
and practitioners for higher education institutions of II. QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT
QFD studies and applications, and hence promote QFD is a systematic approach to design based on a close
QFD’s future development. awareness of customer desires, coupled with the integration
of corporate functional groups. QFD was developed by Yoji
Keywords - Engineering Institutions, house of quality, Akao in Japan in 1966. By 1972 the power of the approach
Quality Control, Quality Function Deployment, had been well demonstrated at the Mitsubishi Heavy
Statistical Quality Control (SQC); Industries Kobe Shipyard (Sullivan, 1986) and in 1978 the
first book on the subject was published in Japanese and then
later translated into English in 1994 (Mizuno and
I. INTRODUCTION
Akao,1994).
In QFD, the focus is on designing quality in a product or
In Akao‟s words, “QFD is a method for developing a design
process while in quality assessment; the focus is on assuring
quality aimed at satisfying the consumer and then translating
quality in the educational process. QFD stresses knowing
the consumer's demand into design targets and major quality
your customers and meeting their needs; quality assessment
assurance points to be used throughout the production phase.
stresses meeting the information needs of all constituents.
QFD is a way to assure the design quality while the product
QFD emphasizes the enterprise functioning as a whole;
is still in the design stage.” As a very important side benefit
quality assessment emphasizes all aspects of the educational
he points out that, when appropriately applied, QFD has
environment. QFD requires multi-disciplinary teams; quality
demonstrated the reduction of development time by one-half
involves representatives from all constituents of the
to one-third. [8] The 3 main goals in implementing QFD are:
academic community. Both approaches stress outcomes
definitions
1. Prioritize spoken and unspoken customer wants
Relevant analytical tools and techniques must be identified
and needs.
and incorporated into the talent training models when
2. Translate these needs into technical characteristics
applied to study of higher education. Quality Function
and specifications.
Deployment (QFD), can be modified to provide a
3. Build and deliver a quality product or service by
flexible, framework for integrated training models. SQC is
focusing everybody toward customer satisfaction
concerned with the design, improvement, and installation of
Since its introduction, Quality Function Deployment
integrated systems of people, materials, information,
has helped to transform the way many companies:
equipment and energy. It draws upon specialized knowledge
and skill in the mathematical, physical, and social sciences  Plan new products

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 International Journal of Modern Engineering Research (IJMER)
www.ijmer.com Vol.2, Issue.3, May-June 2012 pp-896-901 ISSN: 2249-6645

 Design product requirements

 Determine process characteristics
 Control the manufacturing process
 Document already existing product specifications

III. QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT PHASES

QFD uses some principles from Concurrent Engineering in
that cross-functional teams are involved in all phases of
product development. QFD process has four different
phases. Each of the four phases in a QFD process uses a
matrix to translate customer requirements from initial
planning stages through production control (Becker
Associates Inc, 2000).
In QFD, each phase‟s [Ref. fig. 1] important outputs
(HOWs), generated from the phase‟s inputs (WHATs), are
converted into the next phase as its inputs (new WHATs).
So each phase can be described by a matrix of “WHATs”
and “HOWs”, which is easy a convenient to deal with
in practice.

Figre.2.QFD Matrix Distribution

Phase 1, Product Planning: Building the House of Quality.

Led by the marketing department, Phase 1, or product
planning, is also called The House of Quality. Many
organizations only get through this phase of a QFD process.
Phase 1 documents customer requirements, warranty data,
competitive opportunities, product measurements,
competing product measures, and the technical ability of the
organization to meet each customer requirement. Getting
good data from the customer in Phase 1 is critical to the
success of the entire QFD process.

Phase 2, Product Design: This phase 2 is led by the

engineering department. Product design requires creativity
and innovative team ideas. [Ref. fig. 3] Product concepts
are created.

Figre.1.QFD Model Phase 3, Process Planning: Process planning comes next

and is led by manufacturing engineering. During process
The four QFD phases include: Phase I to translate customer planning, manufacturing processes are flowcharted and
needs into product design attributes which we will call process parameters (or target values) are documented. These
technical measures; Phase II to translate important technical correlation coefficients are calculated and represented in the
measures into parts characteristics; Phase III to translate form of symbols which are further quantified by the
important parts characteristics into process operations; numbers to show the strength of association.
and Phase IV to translate key process operations into day ● = 9 (Strong association)
to day production requirements[5]. ○ = 5 (Somewhat association/ Medium Relationship)
Each phase, or matrix, [fig. 2] represents a more specific Δ = 1 (Weak association)
aspect of the product's requirements. Relationships between
elements are evaluated for each phase. Only the most
important aspects from each phase are deployed into the
next matrix. [9]. The different four phases are explained
below.

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 International Journal of Modern Engineering Research (IJMER)
www.ijmer.com Vol.2, Issue.3, May-June 2012 pp-896-901 ISSN: 2249-6645

Figure.4.Matrix Relationship Model

Figure.3.House of Quality to deploy QFD The general model for curriculum design requires 4
matrices. The first matrix is what‟s matrix it is also called
Phase 4, Process Control: And finally, in production needs matrix. Here the customers needs for the course is
planning, performance indicators are created to monitor the developed. In order to satisfy those needs, a set of required
production process, maintenance schedules, and skills skills should be developed and the relationships between the
training for operators. This phase shows inter-correlations two sets are evaluated. Once it is validated the skills can be
between technical requirements provided by the Institute. carried into the second matrix namely skills matrix, to match
The purpose of calculating inter-correlation between them is a set of primary topics. On the development of topics
to show that whether there is association or supporting matrix, the primary topics are broken down into secondary
behavior or conflict between each of the technical topics [Ref. fig. 4] and this now creates subjects for
requirements which the instructional hours are assigned. This becomes
the third matrix. The fourth matrix will be on delivery of
IV. QFD APPLIED ON ENGINEERING EDUCATION the subjects and knowledge.
Quite a number of studies have been implemented on QFD The QFD technique is used for the identification of various
in engineering education. In the engineering educational procedures or how‟s [Ref. fig. 5] for satisfying the primary
area, FD‟s applications include enrollment [6] and requirements‟ of the students and the details of QFD
curriculum design [7] in colleges/institutes described the use analysis is furnished below.
of QFD in engineering education. Some studies have applied
a QFD technical for engineering education. Study shows
how QFD be used to evaluate the service quality of
undergraduate nursing education. Principles of QFD in
engineering education should have four aims:

I. Training objective
II. Training process
III. Training system
IV. Training evaluation

The QFD analysis in curriculum development of

engineering education and the models of curriculum design
and delivery will definitely help the academic administrators
to implement in their curriculum development process.
A. QFD Analysis for Curriculum development
The house of quality is the first name of the QFD charts or
matrices that appeared because there is a triangular shaped
matrix attached to the top, sometimes called rooftop. The
rooftop matrix looks just like a house, hence the name. It is
a kind of conceptual map that provides the means for
instructional planning and communications.
Figre.5.QFD Sample Matrix Solution

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 International Journal of Modern Engineering Research (IJMER)
www.ijmer.com Vol.2, Issue.3, May-June 2012 pp-896-901 ISSN: 2249-6645

FIGRE.6.QFD MATRIX ANALYSIS FOR SQC

Step-1 This is the first step to begin the QFD process
V. METHODOLOGY where the university seeks to capture the needs and
QFD is the method proposed for the design and expectations of the students. The voices of the students are
improvement educational program in an engineering taken from students . These Students requirements are
Institute based on student requirements and benchmarks verified by collecting the data through questions, in depth
obtained from its competitor Institute B and A. The primary interviews, and focus group discussions with students who
planning tool used in QFD is the House of Quality [10]. are enrolled in different engineering Institutes. Following
are the student‟s requirements for a particular course is
Step-2 deals with the technical requirements that are
associated with the student‟s needs and expectations: Basic

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 International Journal of Modern Engineering Research (IJMER)
www.ijmer.com Vol.2, Issue.3, May-June 2012 pp-896-901 ISSN: 2249-6645

Knowledge of quality, Primary Knowledge of Statistics and importance to student‟s column. [Ref. fig. 6]
quality, advanced knowledge of SQC, Research paper
writing, Practical Application of SQC, Quality n
Improvement T j   Rij C i
i 1
.Step-3 This step is relationship matrix showing the level Tj =Absolute weight row vector for the technical
of association/influence between each student needs and requirement.
each technical requirement the institute is providing. These Rij =Strength of association assigned to the relationships
correlation coefficients are calculated and represented in the matrix (i=1...n and j=1…m)
form of symbols which are further quantified by the Ci =Importance to the student‟s is column vector for the
numbers to show the strength of association. student requirements. (i=1…n)
m =number of technical requirement and n =number of
●=9 (Strong association) Students requirement
○ =3 (Somewhat association) The relative weights are found by calculating the sum of
Δ=1 (Weak association) the products of the relationships between students and
technical requirements and absolute weight of the student‟s
Step-4 This step being the roof of the house of quality requirements.
shows inter-correlations between technical requirements n
provided by the university. The purpose of calculating S j   Rij d i
inter-correlation between them is to show that whether there i 1
is association or supporting behavior or conflict between Where Sj =Relative weights for the technical requirement
each of the technical requirements. These correlation row vector
coefficients are calculated and represented in the form di = Absolute weights for the student‟s requirements
symbols which are further represented by the numbers to column vector.
show the direction and the strength of association. According to the calculation results, the most important
design requirement is quality development. Therefore,
● = 9 (Strong association) education program should focus on it. Besides, primary
○ = 3 (Somewhat association professional knowledge is the second important
Δ = 1 (Weak association) design requirement. In addition, as to the characteristics of
* = -3 (Negative association) SQC education, practice and application is also very
important while we design an education program. In all,
Step-5 This step is used for developing the the outcome of the design method well satisfies enterprise‟s
desires/priority based students requirements These are requirements. Another five stakeholders‟ requirements can
categorized into columns of the house of quality i.e. be translated into design requirement with the same
importance to the customer, scale-up factor, target value, method. And the characteristics of each education program
sale point and finally the absolute weight. In case of the are:
importance to the customers for instance, the student‟s
focus group assigns each of the student requirements by  To satisfy student‟s requirements, Primary
assigning a rating. These ratings are assigned 1 through 10 Knowledge of Statistics and quality, Practical
i.e. 1 indicating the least important to students while 10 for application of SQC should be the most important
the very essential to students. Target values are set on the elements in education program.
scale 1 through 5 with 1 „no change „, 3 „improvement is  Considering student‟s needs, more emphasis
needed‟ and 5 „make it better than the competitor‟. The should be paid on advanced knowledge of SQC,
column of scale up factor is another important factor which practice and application.
is obtained by dividing the column of target value to the  Primary Knowledge of Statistics and quality
rating of Institute in the student‟s competitive assessment teaching and research paper writing are
column. Lastly, the absolute values were calculated by two highlighted in the education program under
ways as follows: Faculty‟s expectation.
Absolute Weight = (importance column)*(Target
Value)*(Sale point) Or Absolute Weight = (Importance to VI. CONCLUSION
customer)*(Scale up Factor)*(Sale point) [Ref. fig 3] This study suggests that the QFD technique can be used to
fulfill Student‟s expectations in the engineering education
Step-6 This step deals with developing a prioritized system. In this regard, the customer expectations mean the
technical requirements corresponding to each of the “voice of the customer”. And the customer means the
technical descriptors. This includes the technical difficulty student in this study. QFD have been applied to be very
level, relative and absolute weights. Here absolute weight is powerful when designing engineering education. The
obtained for each of the technical requirements through the universal acceptance of QFD in education after industry
scalar product of the relationship matrix column and the
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 International Journal of Modern Engineering Research (IJMER)
www.ijmer.com Vol.2, Issue.3, May-June 2012 pp-896-901 ISSN: 2249-6645

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