Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
correlation matrix). Because there are many customers involved in this process, it is
important to gain “consensus” concerning the strength of relationships.
Wherever a relationship does not exist, it is left blank. For example, if we wanted
to improve search time by adding or removing interfaces among databases, then the
data integrity error rate may increase. This is clearly a compromise. Although it would
be ideal to have correlation and regression values for these relationships, often they
are based on common sense, tribal knowledge, or business laws. This completes each
of the eight rooms in the HOQ. The next steps are to sort based on the importance in
Room #1 and Room #5 and then evaluate the HOQ for completeness and balance.
12.5
HOQ EVALUATION
Completing the HOQ is the first important step; however, the design team should take
the time to review their effort for quality and checks and balances as well as design
resource priorities. The following diagnostics can be used on the sorted HOQ:
1. Is there a diagonal pattern of strong correlations in Room #4? This will indicate
good alignment of the “Hows” (Room #3) with the “Whats” (Room #1).
2. Do all “Hows” (Room #3) have at least one correlation with “Whats” (Room
#1)
3. Are there empty or weak rows in Room #4? This indicates unaddressed “Whats”
and could be a major issue. In HOQ1, this would be unaddressed customer
wants or needs.
4. Evaluate the highest score in Room #2. What should our design target be?
5. Evaluate the customer rankings in Room #2 versus the technical benchmarks
in Room #6. If Room #2 values are lower than Room #6 values, then the
design team may need to work on changing the customer's perception, or the
correlation between the Want/Need and CTS is not correct.
6. Review Room #8 tradeoffs for conflicting correlations. For strong con-
flicts/synergies, changes to one characteristic (Room #3) could affect other
characteristics.
12.6
HOQ 1: THE CUSTOMER'S HOUSE
Quality function deployment begins with the VOC, and this is the first step required
for HOQ 1. The customers would include end users, managers, system development
personnel, and anyone who would benefit from the use of the proposed software
product. VOC can be collected by many methods and from many sources. Some
common methods are historical research methods, focus groups, interviews, coun-
cils, field trials, surveys, and observations. Sources range from passive historical
records of complaints, testimonials, customers' records, lost customers, or target cus-
tomers. The requirements are usually short statements recorded specifically in the
Search WWH ::
Custom Search