SOFTWARE QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT - Software Design for Six-Sigma: A Roadmap for Excellence - page 314

method that would design customer satisfaction into a product before it was manu-
factured. For six years, the methodology was developed from the initial concept of
Kiyotaka Oshiumi of Bridgestone Tire Corporation (Nashuille, TN). After the first
publication of “Hinshitsu Tenkai,” quality deployment by Dr. Yoji Akao (1972), the
pivotal development work was conducted at Kobe Shipyards for Mitsubishi Heavy
Industry (Tokyo, Japan). The stringent government regulations for military vessels
coupled with the large capital outlay forced the management at the shipyard to seek a
method of ensuring upstream quality that cascaded down throughout all activities. The
team developed a matrix that related all the government regulations, critical design
requirements, and customer requirements to company technical-controlled charac-
teristics of how to achieve these standards. Within the matrix, the team depicted the
importance of each requirement that allowed for prioritization. After the successful
deployment within the shipyard, Japanese automotive companies adopted the method-
ology to resolve the problem with rust on cars. Next it was applied to car features,
and the rest, as we say, is history. In 1978, the detailed methodology was published
(Mizuno & Akao, 1978, 1994) in Japanese and was translated to English in 1994.

12.3 QFD OVERVIEW

The benefits of using QFD methodology are, mainly, ensuring that high-level cus-
tomer needs are met, that the development cycle is efficient in terms of time and
effort, and that the control of specific process variables is linked to customer wants
and needs for continuing satisfaction.
To complete a QFD, three key conditions are required to ensure success. Condition
1 is that a multidisciplinary software DFSS team is required to provide a broad
perspective. Condition 2 is that more time is expended upfront in the collecting and
processing of customer needs and expectations. Condition 3 is that the functional
requirements defined in HOQ2 will be solution-free.
All of this theory sounds logical and achievable; however, there are three reali-
ties that must be overcome to achieve success. Reality 1 is that the interdisciplinary
DFSS team will not work well together in the beginning. Reality 2 is the preva-
lent culture of heroic problem solving in lieu of drab problem prevention. People
get visibly rewarded and recognized for fire fighting and receive no recognition
for problem prevention, which drives a culture focused on correction rather than
prevention. The final reality is that the software DFSS team members and even cus-
tomers will jump right to solutions early and frequently instead of following the
details of the methodology and remaining solution-free until design requirements are
specified.

12.4 QFD METHODOLOGY

Quality function deployment is accomplished by multidisciplinary software DFSS
teams using a series of matrixes, called houses of quality , to deploy critical customer