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Quality Function Deployment (QFD) proposes to take into account the “voice of the customer,” through a list of customer needs, which are (qualitatively) mapped to technical requirements in House One. But customers do not perceive products in this space, nor do they not make purchase decisions in this space. Marketing specialists use statistical models to map between a simpler space of customer perceptions and the long and detailed list of needs. For automobiles, for example, the main axes in perceptual space might be categories such as luxury, performance, sport, and utility. A product’s position on these few axes determines the detailed customer requirements consistent with the automobiles’ position such as interior volume, gauges and accessories, seating type, fuel economy, door height, horsepower, interior noise level, seating capacity, paint colors, trim, and so forth. Statistical models such as factor analysis and principal components analysis are used to describe the mapping between these spaces, which we call House Zero.

This paper focus on House One. Two important steps of the product development process using House One are: (1) setting technical targets; (2) identifying the inherent tradeoffs in a design including a position of merit. Utility functions are used to determine feature preferences for a product. Conjoint analysis is used to capture the product preference and potential market share. Linear interpolation and the slope point formula are used to determine other points of customer needs. This research draws from the formal mapping concepts developed by Nam Suh and the qualitative maps of quality function deployment, to present unified information and mapping paradigm for concurrent product/process design. This approach is the virtual integrated design method that is tested upon data from a business design problem.

The level of live, reduction of pollution and positive human health is affected by the quality of landscape. In addition, many benefits such as aesthetic, psychological and social can be achieved. The quality of landscape is integrated with the individual’s needs. The scope of landscape must be determined according to user needs and planning methods. The purpose of this study is to propose a house of quality (HOQ) model to identify the landscape design requirements. The Islamic University of Gaza (IUG) was used as a case study. The need to implement the proposed HOQ model has been identified. Also, the male and female students’ priorities have been identified, and the weight of campus landscape design elements was extracted.

The male and female IUG students’ needs were identified using a questionnaire survey. The data were analyzed for testing statistical validity and reliability using SPSS. HOQ model was built using EDRAW Max program.

The ten most important student needs are “cleanliness, praying, feeling safe, feeling comfortable psychic, drinking, spaciousness and breadth, shading, quiet, rest and sitting, and fresh air.” Based on these results and needs assessment, the HOQ was constructed. The most important design elements are “group of seats, shrubs, trees, lawns, pergola, and seats chairs or benches.”

This study adds to the designer’s knowledge about HOQ application in design, and contributes significantly to consider public participation as a way in collecting the voice of customers.

Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) are witnessing an accelerated transformation by the advent of Industry-4.0 (I4.0) in the post-pandemic period. It is offering promising customer responsiveness, competitiveness, business growth and sustainability and thereby, compelling its integration to MSMEs. Therefore, it is imperative for researchers to explore Industry 4.0 challenges and their specific implementation requirements and also provide useful insights to the stakeholders.

This research paper has identified, explained and analysed various determinants of the I4.0 implementation, in MSME context. Focus group approach has been applied for taking inputs from experts for developing the House of Quality (HOQ) tool of the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) methodology from the Total Quality Management (TQM) tool-box.

Based on the responses and after applying QFD, a conceptual model suggesting relevant strategies to execute I4.0 by Indian MSMEs has been developed. The model highlights three key challenges being faced by the Indian MSMEs –Top management support, Incompatible resources and Transition cost. The model also reveals vital few designer's descriptors – Cultural reorientation, IT enabled digitization, Process automation and knowledge and skill in I4.0 implementation (Knowhow) for a structured implementation of I4.0.

The evolved HOQ framework has provided some useful insights - priority areas in the MSME challenges and the designer's descriptors for I4.0 implementation in MSME. The research has also provided the understanding of the dynamics between the I4.0 components through the 10 × 10 interrelationship matrix of the HOQ. Farsighted MSME leaders, practising consultants, sourcing managers and policy makers can use the developed framework as a reference in formulating tactics to mitigate the I4.0 implementation barriers.

The non-conventional application of HOQ in the QFD approach from the TQM tool-box is a useful value addition to the TQM practitioners. The useful insights to the MSME leaders, policy makers, sourcing managers of OEM, consultants engaged in I4.0 transformation and academic researchers are the other contribution.

The purpose of this paper is to establish a three‐dimensional service house of quality (HOQ). The new service HOQ adds a dimension of quality economics to solve the problems of economic evaluation in the process of transferring customer requirements into service characteristics by traditional HOQ.

Based on the traditional two‐dimensional HOQ, this paper constructs a three‐dimension service HOQ by adding an economic dimension into the traditional structure, so that the transformation process from customer requirements into service characteristics can be evaluated with quality economic perspective. The key concern of this new model is to balance the quality improvement and economic gain of a service. The other improvement of this paper is that it uses structural equations to present the coefficient matrix in the new HOQ model to avoid human errors in the evaluation. A case study is used to verify the effectiveness of the new model.

Quality gains and costs should be considered in service design and quality improvement. The three‐dimensional service HOQ uses the dimension of quality economics to balance customer requirements and service characteristics, which is more effective than the traditional one.

The method exposed in the paper can be used by service companies for decision making in service design and quality improvement.

This paper establishes a new three‐dimensional HOQ, by which quality economics can be effectively analyzed in service design and quality improvement.

This paper aims to develop a framework of QFD (quality function deployment)‐based logistics service design to integrate the HOQ (house of quality) technique and modular logic to help in designing logistics services with high quality and a large service variety.

Based on a literature review, a conceptual research framework is built integrating the QFD method and modular logic together. A case study is used to illustrate a real application in logistics service design of the third‐party logistics (3PL) provider.

The results show that QFD and modularity used simultaneously as design principles can ensure service design quality at three layers (service, process, activity) in the modular logistics service platform.

This paper provides multi‐disciplinary insights for both industry and academics on how QFD/HOQ and modular logic can be integrated to systematically translate customer requirements into logistics service designs.

The framework proposed is directed to show how, at the operational level, the service providers can transform customer requirements to customer value with modular services and develop new service modules more quickly for new customers that have not been served before.

The resulting framework combining QFD philosophy and modular logic, particularly integrating three‐level HOQs paralleled with three layers in the modular service platform, adds knowledge in the research on service design, operations management and marketing.

This study aims to revise the weights in the interrelationship matrix of the house of quality.

After determining customer requirements (CRs) and product design characteristics (PDCs), a house of quality (HoQ) has been developed and the interrelationships between CRs and PDCs have been determined and classified using the Kano model. The PDCs have been prioritized based on the classic HoQ and the revised HoQ. Finally the results have been compared and discussed. The television design of Entekhab Industrial Group, the largest producer of home appliance products in Iran has been selected as a case study.

Results indicated different sets of priorities derived from the two approaches. Particularly, the difference between the revised HoQ and the classic approach was due to the nonlinear relationship between CRs and PDCs.

This study was performed merely on a single product of a company, and the case study results cannot be generalized to all of the home appliance industries.

Developing the application of the Kano model in computing and revising the weights of the cells in the interrelationship matrix of HoQ is the main contribution of this paper.

This research has been taken up by the human resource center of organization X, for designing a curriculum for a training course named “Basic Computer Application”, by optimizing topics and finalizing teaching strategies, based on needs and expectations collected from past and prospective training participants from different ranks of employees of X. The study aims to discuss this issue.

The research strategy adopted is based on a survey conducted using a specially designed questionnaire. The questionnaire was circulated to 256 personnel selected randomly having computer backgrounds as well as non-computer backgrounds, who had either attended past batches of the same training course or attended different training courses. The data thus collected was processed using VOC Table and the affinity diagram and subsequently fed into the house of quality (HOQ) for obtaining desired output.

The study has identified and optimized topics for the course, based on employee needs/wants, using the two-stage QFD approach. After delivering the course with an optimized curriculum and teaching strategy, it is observed that the overall participant satisfaction performance of the course has increased from 3 to 4.6, which is higher than the goal set at 4. This indicates an overall enhancement in the satisfaction of participants with the delivery of the new improved course curriculum.

As indicated by the survey findings, the competence level of personnel with computer backgrounds is higher than that of personnel without computer backgrounds, which would result in different design considerations while constructing QFDs for these two entirely different groups of participants. This study has been limited to the course curriculum design for personnel with non-computer backgrounds only. The curriculum design for personnel with computer backgrounds will be addressed separately, in a future study.

This is an original study conducted on randomly selected employees across the country from among personnel working for different establishments of organization X. The approach taken in this study for optimizing a course curriculum is unique in the way that it uses a two-stage QFD, which is traditionally used for the design of a product, its components, and the subsequent manufacturing process. This study has employed a planning matrix that incorporated participant-given ratings for each individual need and also participant-decided benchmarking ratings of other similar courses. Estimation of final target has been done by factoring in participants' competence ratings for each individual topic, for a more truthful representation of participant opinion on the final output. This study has also adopted a unique approach of considering only top 80% (in terms of frequency of occurrence) of total responses while calculating weighted averages, instead of calculating the mean value of all data points. In this way, only the significant contributors have been considered while analyzing data.

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a worldwide-known, design for quality approach, which gathers several design quality methods. Among them, the House of Quality (HoQ) correlates the Voice of Customer and the Voice of Company thanks to L-shaped (2D) Matrix Diagrams (MDs). This paper theorizes, as logically possible, the extension from a bi-dimensional representation (a customer and a provider) to a higher N-dimensional representational freedom without altering the typical QFD’s customer-provider posture. The purpose of this paper is to present QFD 3D: the extension of the Relationship MD in the HoQ toward a third dimension (two customers and a provider or two providers and a customer).

The proposed method is based on an existing well-known quality management tool such as MDs. The authors extend its representational capability by substituting the current L-shaped MDs (2D) with C-shaped ones (3D). The mathematical validity of this extension is described to demonstrate the correctness of the approach.

The paper presents the logical validity and a case study concerning a three-dimensional extension of the Relationship MD in the HoQ, typical of the QFD approach.

The results are limited to a three-dimensional extension. Situations where more than three actors are simultaneously involved are theoretically possible, but they are out of the scope of the current research. The difficulty in manipulating 3D representations on traditional supporting tools will be completely reversed on new computer-supported tools. The proposed method is meant to be a useful and efficient instrument for correlating the needs and the services in multi-actors-based scenario, using a QFD design quality approach fueled by IT support tools.

This paper can be used as guideline for further researches on N-dimensional extensions of HoQ. The proposed method can be used in a scenario based on the Triple Helix of Innovation. It gives a clear correlation between different needs and services, facilitating the decision-making process and the constitution of a more comprehensive view of the scenario under a quality management approach.

Thousands of articles propose different QFD case studies all based on a bi-dimensional correlation between a customer and a provider. This paper proposes a method to extend the pertinence of QFD to scenarios where more than two actors are simultaneously correlated. Considering in particular three actors, the resulting three-dimensional Relationship MD in the HoQ is a totally new design quality tool for correlating customers’ needs and providers’ services. This can result in a significant gain of time and representational ability for quality managers who have to correlate multiple customers with a service provider and conversely a customer to multiple service providers. This approach open the doors for new QFD tools fueled by IT.

The purpose of this paper is to prioritize lean production (LP) and agile production (AP) factors based on costs of quality (COQ).

After literature review, two separated houses of quality (HoQ) have been developed. By the first HoQ, LP and AP factors can be proritized based on prevention and appraisal costs and by the second HoQ, LP and AP factors can be prioritized based on failure costs. The proposed approach has been examined by analyzing data collected from 36 home appliance producers of Isfahan as an industrial province of Iran.

The first HoQ indicates that the highest and the lowest priorities are related to over-production (lean factor) and speed (agility factor), respectively. The second HoQ implies that the highest and the lowest priorities are related to responsiveness (agility factor) and inventory (lean factor), respectively. Quadrant analysis also indicates that defectives and over-processing are the two factors that have the highest priorities based on both failure costs and appraisal and prevention costs. As a major finding, LP factors have strong relationship with prevention and appraisal costs; and AP factors have strong relationship with failure costs.

The proposed approach helps organizations in reducing their costs. By clarifying the relationship of the LP and AP factors and the COQ, managers can determine appropriate strategies with the lowest cost.

The integrated approach of this study has not been applied and studied in the literature. The subject of the relationship of LP and AP and COQ is relatively new, which integrates the two areas of production management and quality management.

The purpose of this paper is to derive mobile-government (m-government) service-quality factors in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and develop an integrated strategic plan for improving the quality of m-government services from a customer perspective in the GCC.

A quantitative approach was used in this case study of m-government services in the GCC. Data were collected using focus groups and questionnaires for three similar m-government applications (one from the United Arab Emirates, one from the Saudi Arabia and one from Oman). The house of quality tool, including technical benchmarking, was applied as part of the quality function deployment (QFD) approach to identify customer requirements, translate them to technical requirements and develop a strategic plan for improving the quality of m-government services.

The results revealed that “real time” had the highest priority for deployment, while “tangible service,” contrary to expectations, had the lowest priority for deployment.

Study findings are limited to the m-government services delivered to citizens. There is scope for further study into m-government services delivered both to businesses and other governments.

The findings imply that the m-government decision makers must involve citizens in all service-development processes to ensure that service delivery meets citizens’ expectations.

Most previous studies regarding m-government service-quality dimensions have used information system service-quality dimensions. This study is one of the pioneering studies to have successfully derived m-government service-quality factors using the QFD matrix.