Search results

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 purpose of the study is to provide a concrete, integrated plan to improve the service quality of mobile government (m-government) services from the customer perspective in the Gulf Cooperation Council.

A quantitative approach was used to analyze a case study of the UAE Ministry of Interior (MOI) mobile application and a competitor: the MOI application of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Data were collected using a focus group.

Results show that the technical requirement “real time” has the highest priority for deployment and “tangible service” has the lowest priority.

Findings are limited to m-government services. Further studies could explore other government services such as traditional face-to-face services.

Results imply that if government decision-makers or software developers aim to understand customer requirements and improve their mobile services accordingly, the quality-function-deployment (QFD) approach is much more effective than traditional approaches in which decisions regarding services are prioritized based on the decision-makers or software developers’ perspectives.

Many previous studies have applied QFD for developing products based on customer needs. This, however, is one of the few studies to successfully apply the QFD matrix to m-government services.

This study proposes targeted modernization of the Department of Defense (DoD's) Joint Forces Ammunition Logistics information system by implementing the optimized innovative information technology open architecture design and integrating Radio Frequency Identification Device data technologies and real-time optimization and control mechanisms as the critical technology components of the solution. The innovative information technology, which pursues the focused logistics, will be deployed in 36 months at the estimated cost of $568 million in constant dollars. We estimate that the Systems, Applications, Products (SAP)-based enterprise integration solution that the Army currently pursues will cost another $1.5 billion through the year 2014; however, it is unlikely to deliver the intended technical capabilities.

This study aims to determine the technical requirements for copyright protection of theses and dissertations for proposing a model for applying in Iran’s National System for Theses and Dissertations (INSTD).

This study used a mixed research methodology. The grounded theory was used in the qualitative phase, and a researcher-made checklist was applied in the quantitative phase for surveying the status of the INSTD. Research population included INSTD as well as six information specialists and copyright experts. Data were analysed by using open, axial and selective coding.

Based on data extracted from the completed checklists, some technical requirements had been provided in the system. The technical requirements that interviewees pointed out included the following two main classes: technical components and technical-software infrastructures, explored in the phase of the grounded theory. The individual categories included access control, copy control, technical-software challenges, protecting standards, hypertext transfer protocol secure, certificate authority, documentation of thesis and dissertation information, the use of digital object identifiers, copy detection systems, thesis and dissertation integrated systems, digital rights management systems and electronic copyright management systems.

Considering the subject of this study, only the technical aspect was investigated, and other aspects were not included. In addition, electronic theses and dissertation (ETD) providers were not well aware of copyright issues.

Using the technical requirements with high security is effective in the INSTD to gain the trust of the authors and encourage them to deposit their ETDs.

The increased use of the system encourages the authors to be more innovative in conducting their research.

Considering the continued violation of copyright in electronic databases, applying technical requirements for copyright protection and regulating users’ access to the information of theses and dissertations are needed in the INSTD.

To explore the potential for adoption of TQM in self‐financed technical institutions in the light of new demands and challenges posed by customers/students and society.

The paper presents use of quality function deployment (QFD) which prioritizes technical requirements and correlates them with various customers'/students' requirements for the present Indian context. As an extension to the basic model of QFD – house of quality (HOQ), the scope for futuristic improvements is explored through a four‐phased QFD process. Challenges involved in the implementation of TQM are investigated using an approach of force field analysis.

Identifies technical and students' requirements for the modern educational set‐up. Provides information about the severity of various technical requirements of competitive education. Recognizes the need for continuous improvement, cultural change and effective use of financial resources to improve the value addition at each level. Develops an understanding of the issues to be addressed at each phase of TQM implementation.

It is expected that insights gained will help sensitize the emerging self‐financed institutions towards the demands of new age students. Conclusions derived will also provide some opportunities for reflection by students, faculty members and leaders/top management of institutions for continuous development at an individual as well as institutional level.

A novelty of work lies in the use of a mix of qualitative and quantitative approaches, which not only evaluates the present system but develops an understanding of future challenges to continuous improvement.

The purpose of this paper is to employ quality function deployment (QFD) method for translating internal customer needs and expectations into appropriate service specifications to perform existing process assessments in relation to quality characteristics for increasing internal customer satisfaction.

The integration of SERVQUAL into QFD has been used to set the success factors to improve quality in the textile industry. One of the largest textile companies in Turkey provided the sample. A SERVQUAL-type of questionnaire was used and a total of 32,938 questionnaires were distributed both manually and online, 24,551 usable were received, comprising a response rate of 77.31 percent.

Findings of the QFD application suggest internal customer focus as having the highest weight score of almost 12 percent improvement. In addition, improvements in technical requirements of politeness and process communication have a 9 percent impact each on internal customer satisfaction criteria.

QFD technique is able to provide companies with a better understanding of internal customer expectations and translate these into appropriate service specifications and perform existing process assessment.

This paper is a first attempt that applies this integrative approach to a different type of industry, thus offering practical and applied information for professionals engaged in academia and as practitioners.

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.

The quality of academic programs is drastically affected by the design of the courses within the program. The design and delivery of courses are the most essential elements for building quality in academic programs. The purpose of this paper is to customize the techniques of quality function deployment (QFD) for designing courses and demonstrate its use in the design of a basic statistics course in the Department of Systems Engineering, King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals. In this study, organizations from industry are used as external customers. Faculty members and students are utilized as internal customers to identify the course technical requirements. Then QFD process planning matrices are used for developing several alternative course design concepts. Then based on a simple decision criterion the design concept that closely meets customer requirements is identified. The result of the analysis is a balanced basic statistics course.

This paper aims to investigate to what extent quality function deployment (QFD) can be used in quality improvement rather than design activities.

A framework was developed for implementation of QFD as a quality improvement tool. A case study approach is used to test this framework, and quality issues were analyzed using the framework in a ceramic tile manufacturing company.

The results showed considerable improvements in the critical quality characteristics identified and sales rates, demonstrating the potential of QFD to be used in assessing and prioritizing areas of improvement, and converting them into measurable process or product requirements.

One case study was completed. More studies would be beneficial to support current findings.

This framework provides structured approach and guidelines for practitioners in adapting QFD for quality improvements in existing products or processes.

This study proposes a new framework to use QFD in quality improvement activities, expanding its application areas. Moreover, the results of the literature study performed provide a valuable collection of practical QFD implementation examples.

In this study, a multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) approach for evaluating airworthiness factors were presented. The purpose of this study is to develop an acceptable rationale for operational activities in civil and military aviation and for design, production and maintenance activities in the aviation industry that can be used in-flight safety programs and evaluations.

In aviation, while the initial and continuing airworthiness of aircraft is related to technical airworthiness, identifying and minimizing risks for avoiding losses and damages are related to operational airworthiness. Thus, the airworthiness factors in civil and military aviation were evaluated under these two categories as the technical and operational airworthiness factors by the analytic hierarchy process and analytic network process. Three technical and five operational airworthiness criteria for civil aviation, three technical and nine operational airworthiness criteria for military aviation were defined, evaluated, prioritized and compared in terms of flight safety.

The most important technical factor is the “airworthiness status of the aircraft” both in civil (81.9%) and military (77.6%) aviation, which means that aircraft should initially be designed for safety. The most significant operational factors are the “air traffic control system” in civil (30.9%) and “threat” in the military (26.6%) aviation. The differences within factor weights may stem from the design requirements and acceptable safety levels (frequency of occurrences 1 in 10⁷ in military and 1 in 10⁹ in civil aircraft design) of civil and military aircraft with the mission achievement requirements in civil and military aviation operations. The damage acceptance criteria for civil and military aircraft are different. The operation risks are accepted in the military and acceptance of specific tasks and the risk levels can vary with aircraft purpose and type.

This study provides an acceptable rationale for safety programs and evaluations in aviation activities. The results of this study can be used in real-world airworthiness applications and safety management by the aviation industry and furthermore, critical factor weights should be considered both in civil and military aviation operations and flights. The safety levels of airlines with respect to our airworthiness factor weights or the safety level of military operations can be computed.

This is the first study considering technical and operational airworthiness factors as an MCDM problem. Originality and value of this paper are defining critical airworthiness factors for civil and military aviation, ranking these factors, revealing the most important ones and using MCDM methods for the evaluations of airworthiness factors for the first time. In civil aviation flight safety is the basic tenet of airworthiness activities in risk analysis, on the other hand in military aviation high levels of risks are to be avoided in peace training or operational tasks. However, even high risks have to be accepted during the war, if the operational requirements impose, as mission achievement is vital. The paper is one of a kind on airworthiness evaluations for flight safety.