Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
TABLE 12.1
Comparison of Results Achieved Between Traditional Approaches
and QFD
Mean
Mean
Traditional
SQFD
Result Achieved
Rating
Rating
Communication satisfactory with technical personnel
3.7
4.09
Communication satisfactory with users
3.6
4.06
User requirements met
3.6
4.00
Communication satisfactory with management
3.4
3.88
Systems developed within budget
3.4
3.26
Systems easy to maintain
3.4
3.42
Systems developed on time
3.3
3.18
Systems relatively error-free
3.3
3.95
Systems easy to modify
3.3
3.58
Programming time reduced
3.2
3.70
Testing time reduced
3.0
3.29
Documentation consistent and complete
2.7
3.87
1989), IBM (Armonk, NY) automated teller machines (Sharkey 1991), and Texas
Instruments' (Dallas, TX) products to support engineering process improvements
(Moseley & Worley 1991). There are many cited benefits of QFD in software develop-
ment. Chief among them are representing data to facilitate the use of metrics, creating
better communication among departments, fostering better attention to customers'
perspectives, providing decision justification, quantifying qualitative customer re-
quirements, facilitating cross-checking, avoiding the loss of information, reaching
consensus of features faster, reducing the product definition interval, and so on.
These findings are evident by the results in Table 12.1 (Hagg et al., 1996). The table
provides a comparison of the results achieved using traditional approaches and using
QFD (given on a 5-point Likert scale, with 1 being the result was not achieved and 5 be-
ing the result was achieved very well). QFD achieves significantly higher results in the
areas of communications satisfaction with technical personnel, communications sat-
isfaction with users, user requirements being met, communications satisfaction with
management, systems being relatively error-free, programming time being reduced,
and documentation being consistent and complete. The remaining areas yielded only
minor differences. Despite the fact that these two studies were undertaken 5 years
apart, these new data indicate that the use of QFD improves the results achieved in
most areas associated with the system development process (Hagg et al., 1996).
QFD is a planning tool that allows the flow-down of high-level customer needs and
wants to design parameters and then to process variables that are critical to fulfilling
the high-level needs. By following the QFD methodology, relationships are explored
between the quality characteristics expressed by customers and the substitute quality
requirements expressed in engineering terms (Cohen, 1988, 1995). In the context
of DFSS, we call these requirements “critical-to” characteristics. These critical-to
characteristics can be expanded along the dimensions of speed (critical-to-delivery,
CTD), quality (critical to quality [CTQ]), cost (critical to cost [CTC]), as well as
the other dimensions introduced in Figure 1.1. In the QFD methodology, customers
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