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The purpose of this paper is to examine the application of C-shaped QFD 3D Matrix in comparing process characteristics (PC), performance aspects (PA) and customer requirements, simultaneously and to prioritize the first two sets, respectively.

A three dimensional matrix has been developed with three sets of PC, PA and customers’ requirements and C-shaped matrix has been applied for simultaneous comparison of the dimensions and prioritization of the subsets of PC and PA. The proposed approach has been examined in a post bank.

Findings confirm the possibility of simultaneous comparison and prioritization of the three sets of dimensions of this study in post bank services. In addition, “growth and learning” and “bilateral relationship with suppliers” had the first priorities among PA and PC, respectively.

While the proposed approach has many advantages, filling the matrixes is time-consuming. Since illustrating the 3D matrix was not possible, the matrix was separated into five two-dimensional matrixes.

Compared to the studied literature, the proposed approach is practically new in the post bank services.

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.

Nowadays, many organizations use quality function deployment (QFD) in order to recognize their customers’ wants and arrange a set of corrective activities in order to satisfy these wants. In a competitive environment, two or more organizations cooperate in order to meet their customers’ wants. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new hybrid approach of QFD employing SERVQUAL method, named three-dimensional house of quality (3DHOQ) to help the cooperation between two organizations with common customers by determining some common corrective activities that would satisfy their customers’ wants.

In order to better explain the proposed model, it is implemented in Birjand International Airport and Iran Air airline. At first, the customers’ want in the airport and airline sections are identified and the SERVQUAL method is used to determine the final weight of these wants. Afterwards, the corrective activities for satisfying the customers’ wants are determined using the three-dimensional QDF; and then are given weights using the multi-dimensional relation matrix.

Results of this study show the customers’ wants in two sections of airport and airline, the importance of each customer want, the gap between customers’ perception and expectation of each want, the collective corrective activities required to satisfy the customers’ wants and the weight of these corrective activities.

This paper helps the airline and airport sections have an analyzed list of their customers’ wants and a set of shared and unshared corrective activities to meet these wants.

This paper presents a simultaneous QFD analysis in the airport and airline sections. Moreover, a new hybrid approach employing SERVQUAL method, named 3DHOQ is introduced to determine the corrective activities of both organizations and their weights.

The purpose of this paper is to develop the C-shaped quality function deployment (QFD) 3D Matrix for service applications.

The C-shaped QFD 3D Matrix proposed by Vezzetti et al. (2016) has been developed for simultaneous analysis of the relationships among three sets of factors of customer requirements, service design characteristics and service performance indicators. The three sets of factors have been determined and based on their interrelationships, 3D and concurrent houses of quality have been formed. Then, service design characteristics and service performance indicators have been prioritized. The obtained priorities have been also compared with traditional concurrent model of QFD.

The findings obtained from the traditional and developed approach seem different, implying that applying the C-shaped QFD 3D Matrix provides a more real perspective of concurrent engineering and the results in different set of priorities of service factors.

The case study was limited to banking services. If the developed approach is used in other institutes, the prioritization of service design characteristics and service performance indicators might be changed.

Compared to Vezzetti et al. (2016) who proposed the C-shaped QFD 3D Matrix for analyzing interrelationships among two customers and a provider, or two providers and a customer, in this paper, the C-shaped QFD 3D Matrix has been developed for analyzing interrelationships among three sets of factors of customer requirements, service design characteristics and service performance indicators.

The purpose of the study is to analyze the user (as a customer of the library) requirements related to library services by using service‐based quality function deployment (QFD) and employ QFD to identify visible marketing strategies in a service sector.

In this study, QFD is applied to central library services of Dokuz Eylul University (DEU) in Izmir, Turkey. Basically, the methodology used in this study integrates the Kano model, AHP and planning matrix of house of quality. First, a focus group study is held to find out the requirements of university students for the university library that are then classified using the Kano model. The requirement categories are ranked with respect to their relative importance using analytical hierarchy process (AHP). In the last step, all findings are transferred to the planning matrix and strategies for DEU Central Library are developed.

The paper reveals marketing strategies for a non‐profit organization, a state university library, and helps the library find out its competitive position.

User requirements are determined through focus group studies held with undergraduate students. Other library users like academicians, external users, university staff and graduate students are ignored. Consideration of all possible user categories will give a whole picture of the requirements and their importance. In addition, a fair number of requirements limited the application of AHP only to the primary requirement categories.

The strategic importance of requirements was identified more precisely and service elements were allocated more effectively.

This study investigates the user requirements for library services in depth. It attempts to integrate AHP, Kano and QFD methods in library services for the first time to find out the most strategically important requirements. Therefore, it sheds light to library managers how to allocate their budget, arrange their services and develop their marketing strategies.

This paper seeks to provide new solutions to cargo companies’ service quality efforts by integrating different scientific methodologies.

Strengths and weaknesses of logistics services of a well known cargo company in Turkey are defined by using a service quality scale (SERVQUAL), service quality attributes are categorized using the Kano model in order to see how well these attributes are able to satisfy customer needs, and findings are transferred to quality function deployment (QFD).

The findings of the Kano model show that ten of the 27 service quality attributes can be categorized as “attractive”, implying the maximum effect on consumer satisfaction. Through the customer priority level of QFD, the three most important service quality attributes are found to be: VIP Service, informing customers about delivery time before sending, and taking deliveries from customers’ addresses. Also, strengthening information technology infrastructure is the most important technical requirement to focus with the highest technical importance level.

The study involves only one cargo company, it concerns just Trabzon city center branch offices and its sample includes only individual customers instead of individual and institutional customers together.

Offering a case study, the paper presents a guide for cargo companies to employ different scientific methodologies in their service quality development efforts.

Intending to offer scientific approaches to cargo companies as a tool of development in their practical procedures, the paper tries to bridge the current gap between academicians and practitioners and adds to the relatively limited theoretical literature.

The purpose of this paper is to apply the proposed methodology to develop the product as per customer’s requirements (CRs) and increase customer satisfaction (CS).

The companies are using different methods to identify CRs and translate these requirements into new products. The Kano model is used to identify CRs. The result of the Kano model is used in quality function deployment (QFD) to decide the priority for improvements of CRs and the technical requirements.

The integration of the Kano model and QFD is applied on the mobile phone. The Kano model helps to find out the CRs which affect the CS, such as attractive (A) attribute, one (O)-dimensional attribute and must be (M) attribute. The QFD method helps to translate the CRs into technical requirements so that the designer can decide priority of requirements for improvement or new product development.

The proposed methodology can be applied to different consumers as well as industrial products.

The Kano model has been used in manufacturing as well as service sector. This work explores its usefulness and applicability for consumer and industrial products.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a methodology to use complaints, claims and company innovation as an internal data source of customer needs for product development using the quality function deployment (QFD)-Kano approach instead of an ordinary customer survey.

This paper confirms that the customer complaints and claims and company innovations from the internal data source are equivalent to the Kano model’s product attributes. Data were selected from the company’s documents. To investigate the data category, a Kano questionnaire was designed and tested with 100 random respondents. Based on their answers, categories for the quality characteristics were determined and compared with the initial data categories. A second survey using professional customer respondents was conducted to increase the results’ reliability.

The approach was shown to be effective in employing complaints, claims and innovations as an alternative source of customer needs in the QFD-Kano approach.

It is assumed that companies document their customer complaints and claims, as well as their strategic innovation plans. The complaint and claim data need to be extracted to reveal their quality characteristics. For future research, data extraction using text or data mining may be useful to bridge this gap.

The product development team may ascertain customer needs as duly classified. This voice of the customer is more accurate and requires less time.

The paper may be of value to researchers and practitioners involved in product design and development, since it offers a new source of customer need data obtained internally as an alternative to customer surveys.

Educational institutions must provide quality of services so as to be to able to delight the customers and be able to compete and achieve a leading position in the long run. This paper is a continuation to an earlier study and aims to present the results of an empirical study conducted on management institutes in India with a customer orientation to the quality paradigm through a focus on the students' perspective. While multiple methodologies were applied, SERVQUAL has already been discussed as the first part of the paper. This part of the series presents a prioritization for improvement of service design of an educational system through incorporation of the Voice of the Customer. The study is an attempt towards the integration of multiple methodologies so as to be able to identify customer requirements and evaluate service quality with the application of SERVQUAL; prioritize improvement of service through the Kano model; and, guide and develop educational services by incorporating the Voice of the Customer through the QFD.

After having derived the findings from the application of the SERVQUAL, the Kano model and the Quality Function Deployment was used to guide and develop an educational system through the Voice of the Customer.

The Kano model provided a guide to prioritize improvement and enhancement of attributes and thus, proposed the improvement and enhancement of delivery of educational service. The QFD helped develop educational services by incorporating the Voice of Customers.

The paper could be useful to policy makers, educational planners and administrators in developing a system that could lead to customer satisfaction and delight.

The integration of the multiple tools and their application to the field of management education in India, has not yet been made available in the literature.

With increasing market competition, it is not sufficient for organizations to rely solely on continuous improvement in order to maintain and develop their competitive edge. There is a need to begin a strategic move towards innovation. This paper proposes an integrated approach involving SERVQUAL, Kano’s model, and quality function deployment. The approach aims to help organizations to evaluate customer satisfaction, to guide improvement efforts in strengthening their weak attributes, and to expedite the development of innovative services through the identification of attractive attributes and embedding them into future services. A case study is presented to evaluate the image of Singapore from the Indonesian tourists’ perspective. Several strong and weak attributes of Singapore tourism were identified and analyzed. Strategies to improve the weak attributes were identified.