Ứng dụng triển khai chức năng chất lượng QFD xây dựng mô hình lớp học tiếng Anh hiệu quả.

 

國⽴立⾼高雄應⽤用科技⼤大學
製造與管理外國學⽣生碩⼠士專班 102 秋季班
碩⼠士論⽂文

 

 
應⽤用質量機能展開（QFD）於建設⼯工程之研究﹣以英語教學教室的
概念設計為例
QFD in the Conceptual Design of the English-Lecturing classroom
construction  

: ⿈黃⽒氏紅絨
研究⽣生
Master Student : H o a n g T h i H o n g N h u n g
指導教授
Advisor

: 蘇明鴻博⼠士
: Ming-Hung Shu, PhD

中 華 ⺠民 國 104 年 6 ⽉月
i


應⽤用質量機能展開（QFD）於建設⼯工程之研究﹣以英語教學教室的
概念設計為例
QFD in the Conceptual Design of the English-Lecturing classroom

construction  
: ⿈黃⽒氏紅絨
研究⽣生
Master Student : H o a n g T h i H o n g N h u n g
指導教授
Advisor

: 蘇明鴻博⼠士
: Ming-Hung Shu, PhD

A Thesis
Submitted to
Institute of Industrial Engineering and Management
National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences
In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements
For the Degree of
Master of Engineering
in
Industrial Engineering and Management

June 2015
Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Republic of China
中華民國 104 年 6 月

ii


iii

QFD in the Conceptual Design of the English-Lecturing classroom
construction
Advisor: Ming-Hung Shu, PhD

Student: Hoang Thi Hong Nhung

Department of Industrial Engineering and Management
National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences

Abstract
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is one of the Total Quality Management (TQM)
techniques which assures the voice of customers are heard and translated into the design,
development and production process of a product. The objective of this paper is to
determine features of an English teaching classroom toward satisfying the customer’s
requirements and to utilize QFD methodology to improve the quality of the conceptual
design of a construction project. The study is based on primary data collected by the
questionnaire survey from students, teachers, staffs and etc. who are considered as
customers in a university of languages in Vietnam. The data was analyzed by using the
techniques of QFD and Pareto Analysis. On the basis of these feedback, a house of
quality is developed, which highlighted the major requirements of customer and also
highlighted some benchmarks where other institutions are more productive. With this
result, design team is able to prioritize design solution that meets the customer needs.

Key words: Quality Function Deployment, English teaching classroom, Conceptual
design.

iv


Acknowledgement

I would like to express my appreciation to my advisor Professor Ming-Hung Shu for
his suggestion of this thesis’ reseach method, for the continuous support of my research.
His tremendous assistance and guidance helped me in all time of writing this thesis.
I wish to give a special thank to Department of Industrial Engineering and Management
of National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences for the financial support during
the period of two years. Also I would like to thank all the respondents of the
questionnaires.
My sincere thanks goes to Ms. Nguyen Thi Ha, Lecturer of English Department of The
University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS) for her encouragement,
insightful comments, and spent the generous amount of time with me discussing about
my thesis.
I also thank my fellow labmates in National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences:
Siva Narayanan, Le Van Tinh for their counsel, ideas and encouragement throughout
this entire effort.
I would like to express my special thanks to my family members who gave me the
constant source of love, concern, support and strength all two years to finish my master
thesis.
Your sincerely,
Hoang Thi Hong Nhung

v


Table of Contents
Abstract ......................................................................................................................... iv  
Acknowledgement ......................................................................................................... v  
Table of Contents .......................................................................................................... vi  
List of Tables .............................................................................................................. viii  
List of Figures ............................................................................................................. viii  

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .................................................................................. 1  
1.1 Background
 .......................................................................................................... 1  
1.2 Research Motivation ............................................................................................ 2  
1.3 Objectives
 ............................................................................................................. 3  
1.4 Structure of the Thesis.......................................................................................... 4  
CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ....................................................................... 5  
2.1 Quality Function Deployment (QFD) .................................................................. 5  
2.2 Benefits and drawbacks of QFD .......................................................................... 6  
2.3 QFD in construction ............................................................................................. 6  
2.4 QFD in Vietnam ................................................................................................... 7  
CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY ................................................................................. 9  
3.1 The Cross-functional Team .................................................................................. 9  
3.2 Questionnaire Survey ......................................................................................... 10  
3.3 Affinity Diagram ................................................................................................ 10  
3.4 Tree Diagram...................................................................................................... 11  
3.5 House of Quality ................................................................................................ 12  
3.6 Building the House of Quality ........................................................................... 14  

vi


3.7 Pareto Analysis................................................................................................... 18  
CHAPTER 4: APPLICATION OF QFD ..................................................................... 19  
4.1 Project background ............................................................................................. 19  
4.2 The Customer
 ..................................................................................................... 20  
4.3 The Cross-functional team ................................................................................. 20  
4.4 Collecting the customer requirements ................................................................ 20  
4.5 Building the House of Quality ........................................................................... 21  
CHAPTER 5: RESULTS ............................................................................................. 26  
5.1 Concepts about style and type of chair and desk ............................................... 26  

5.2 Concepts about type of door and window .......................................................... 27  
5.3 Concepts about facilities and furniture............................................................... 27  
CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS .................................................................................. 30  
6.1 Conclusions ........................................................................................................ 30  
6.2 Limitations ......................................................................................................... 30  
6.3 Recommendations .............................................................................................. 30  
REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 31  
APPENDIX 1: ENGLISH QUESTIONNAIRE .......................................................... 33  
APPENDIX 2: VIETNAMMESE QUESTIONNAIRE .............................................. 44  
APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONNAIRE RAW DATA ...................................................... 55  
APPENDIX 4: AFFINITY DIAGRAM OF THE VOC .............................................. 60  
APPENDIX 5: TREE DIAGRAM............................................................................... 65  

vii


List of Tables

Table 4.1 List of customer requirements...................................................................... 22  
Table 4.2 List of technical requirements ...................................................................... 23  

List of Figures

 
Figure 1.1 Structure of the thesis ................................................................................... 4
Figure 3.1 Research process diagram .......................................................................... 10
Figure 3.2 Affinity diagram ......................................................................................... 11  
Figure 3.3 Tree Diagram .............................................................................................. 12  
Figure 3.4 The House of Quality (HOQ) ..................................................................... 13  
Figure 3.5 Cascading Houses of Quality ..................................................................... 14  

Figure 4.1 House of Quality......................................................................................... 25  
Figure 5.1 English teaching classroom layout ............................................................. 29  


 

viii


CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background

Nowadays, English has become the lingua franca of the world. There are more than 50
countries use English as the official language, nearly 80 countries use English as a second language.
English plays a very important role in all areas of business, commerce, telecommunication, tourism
and diplomacy. English is the means of communication among countries, cultures and international
organizations. In the trend of globalization today, English is a prerequisite for a country's
integration into the world family.
English is referred to as an indispensable element in the process of international integration,
industrialization and modernization of Vietnam. English is as "bridge language" to connect
economy and culture of Vietnam with the world. Many years ago, Vietnam committed to join into
the regional and international economic integration. Until now, Vietnam had trade relations with
165 countries, signed bilateral trade agreements with 72 countries all over the world. Vietnam is a
member of the ASEAN Free Trade Area and the World Trade organization. In 2015, Vietnam will
officially become a member of the ASEAN Economic Community. The integration makes more
and more corporations and foreign companies to invest in Vietnam to expand markets and business
cooperation, which will create more job opportunities but also poses many challenges for young
workers Vietnam. Human resources are required to have a high level of expertise, the ability to use
English at work and communicate fluently. English language ability is the leading standard for
large companies to recruit staff and promote to management positions. So people who are good at

communication in English will have more opportunities to work in foreign companies with high
salaries and get promotion faster in the career. They also have competitive advantage about the
expertise as well as better integration with the international labour market.
Students are exposed daily to-date information, technical science. Technology is changing
very rapidly with the presence of foreign languages, mainly English with a series of scientific
terminology, with very diverse expressions in the field of engineering science and technology
scientific style. Thus, the role of English teaching and learning is enormous and decide the quality
of the process of international integration.
Currently, English is the most important language, dominates almost absolute in foreign
language education at the Universities of Vietnam. English teaching in Vietnam has become
extremely important over the past several years. Ministry of Education and Training has very strict
requirements on the language skills of students, which are English as a mandatory condition to be
recognized university graduation or a prerequisite for participation in the program graduate training
abroad by state budget. In terms of training, pedagogy, teaching and learning technologies, the
Central Resolution 2 of the Communist Party of Vietnam has stated: “Innovate powerful method
1


of education and training, overcome entrance one-way train the creative mindset of learners,
gradually apply the advanced methods and modern methods in the process of teaching and learning.
Foreign language teaching and informatics are towards standardizing information, practical,
ensuring capacity utilization of learners.” This shows that the teaching and learning of foreign
languages included English in Vietnam attract a lot of attention. Foreign language and English in
particular have the important position in education and training, and in the development of Vietnam.
1.2 Research Motivation
Although English plays an important role in the new context of integration and
globalization, the quality of English teaching in Vietnam still low which does not meet the market
demand for competent English speaking people. According to the university educational services
after evaluating 59 major universities in Vietnam, 51.7% of graduates do not meet the requirements
of English language skills. English proficiency of the students is just about 360-370 points in

TOEFL or IELTS 3.5. This is the lowest level versus the world’s standard. At this level, students
cannot participate in discussions even at the lowest level. They only receive simple information in
familiar context. The fact shows that the majority of students have low language proficiency. Level
of communication does not meet the requirements of employers, proficiency in reading, writing
cannot afford to majors, including literacy skills. Only 10% of students can use language to access
the academic materials.
Teaching quality of teacher, issues of students and the physical environment to teach and
learn English are the main reasons of this condition. Many universities in Vietnam don’t have
enough teaching equipment and facilities equipment. The classroom is equipped with outdated
facilities, the furniture is of low quality, doesn’t fit the students. In general, equipment for teaching
English is poor and has not been used well. The classroom with well arrangement and decoration
is one of the important factors to improve English teaching and learning quality. Research on the
classroom environment has shown that the physical arrangement can affect the behaviour of both
students and teachers (Savage, 1999; Stewart and Evans, 1997; Weinstein, 1992)
The question now is to invest in the construction of classrooms to meet the English teaching
requirements in order to develop and improve the effectiveness of teaching, to meet the
requirements of the integration process in Vietnam today.


 

2


1.3 Objectives

The objectives of this research are as follows:

(1) To address the condition of English teaching classroom in a university in Vietnam.
(2) To find the key customer requirements and give suggestions in order to improve quality of
teaching English
(3) To identify the important features of an English teaching classroom which meet the customer

to design the most satisfied classroom in order to improve English teaching and learning quality.
(4) To demonstrate Quality Function Deployment tools applied effectively in investigating the
customer requirements, and assuring the important and positive voice of customer is manifested in
the conceptual design of a construction project.


 
3


1.4 Structure of the Thesis
Chapter 1
Introduction

Introduces the background about the role of English, the
status and quality of teaching and learning of English in
Vietnam; objectives and structure of the research.

Chapter 2
Literature Review

Give an overview about Quality Function Deployment
(QFD) and the current usage of QFD in engineering and
construction; concentrate on the previous research results
about application of QFD in the conceptual design of a
construction project in Vietnam. These were all used as the
basis to develop further research in this study.

Chapter 3
Methodology

The research method, data collection and analysis
techniques as well as questionnaire design are presented.

Chapter 4
Application of
QFD

Chapter 5
Results

Chapter 6
Conclusions

Present an application of QFD in the conceptual design of
an English teaching classroom. The voice of customer
about classroom is identified through questionnaire
survey, then the data is organized by using affinity and tree
diagram. With this data, the house of quality is built to
establish technical requirements that are necessary to
respond to the customer requirements.

Present Result and Discussion about the conceptual design
of an English classroom that satisfies the voice of customer.

Briefly sum up the whole study, provide some
recommendations for future studies. Some limitations of
this research are also discussed. The final part in this thesis
will present references and appendixes.
Figure 1.1 Structure of the thesis

4


CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
With a quality management system in a conventional plant, production units, the products
are manufactured in accordance with the standards of product quality is considered satisfactory to
market. However, a problem that enterprises often face up with when trying to maintain or improve
the quality of products is understanding and communication between departments of the market
research, product development and production about customer requirements. Consequently, it is
necessary to have a solution for this case. That is one of the tools for making quality: Quality
Function Deployment.
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) describes a method for translating customer
requirements into functional design in order to increase customer satisfaction (Akao, 1990). QFD
helps create products that please the customer not just the engineer. (Hauser & Clausing, 1988).
Quality function deployment is a way to assure the design quality while the product is still in the
design stage (Armacost et al., 1992). QFD emphasizes on the voice of customer and provide a
means to ensure customer’s needs translated into technical requirements accurately and heeded
throughout product development process with stages like marketing strategies, planning, product
design and engineering, prototype evaluation, production process development and production, and
sales. All operations of a company are driven from the customer requirements. QFD is used at early
stages of a project in order to produce more accurate decisions by focusing on project budgets in
terms of quality and client’s needs.
QFD was researched and developed in Japan in the late 1960s by Professor Shigeru Mizuno
and Yoji Akao. The purpose of Yoji Akao and Mizuno is to develop a method of quality control to
make sure that the customers' needs are taken into products before creating it. QFD is a part of the
Total Quality Management (TQM) system at the Mitsubishi Shipyard in Kobe, Japan in 1972. The
concept of QFD was continued developing in the late 1970’s. QFD reached a peak when the
automobile manufacturer Toyota applied and developed it into a quality table with a "roof" above

with the name "house of quality". Since then, QFD became familiar in the United States.
In 1983, QFD is introduced in America and Europe. A case study was first recognized in
1986, when Kelsey Hayes used QFD to develop sensors with full customer requirements. When
QFD become more common, the users of QFD started noticing that when combined QFD matrix
tables, it would become more useful. Until American Supplier Institute developed and applied QFD
diagram through 4 phases, QFD just is a popular application for complex design. Now, QFD has
spread in the USA and other countries and is used by companies such as 3M, AT&T, Baxter
Healthcare, Budd, Chrysler, DEC, Ford Motor, General Motor, Goodyear, Hewlett-Packard, IBM,
ITT, Kodak Eastman, Motorola, NASA, NCR, Polaroid, Procter and Gamble, and Xerox (Hauser

5


and Clausing, 1988; Hill, 1994; Cohen, 1995; Chan and Wu, 2002).
2.2 Benefits and drawbacks of QFD
Generally, benefits of QFD are to ensure customer needs are met through design and
production; translate the customer needs into technical specifications; link customer needs with
every production stage or the goal of the product is understand and interpret correctly during the
manufacturing process; assist the senior management to determine the cause of the dissatisfaction
of customers. QFD is a useful tool for competitive analysis of product quality; improve productivity
and quality, as well as the time required to develop new products; allow companies to effectively
simulate the design of new ideas that they can bring new products to market sooner and gain
competitive advantage.
QFD brings the following advantages to companies: fewer and earlier design changes,
reduced product development cycle time, fewer startup problems, and, above all, customer
satisfaction. (Kim et al, 1998). As an important side benefit, Akao (1990) states that QFD has
produced reductions in development time of one half to one third. Sullivan (1986) says that the
main objective of any manufacturing company is to bring products to market sooner than the
competition with lower cost and improved quality and that QFD can help do this. Sullivan (1986)
said that QFD has been used by Toyota since 1977, following four years of training and preparation.

Results have been impressive. Between 1977 and 1984, Toyota Auto-body introduced four new
van-type vehicles. Using 1977 as a base, Toyota reported a 20% reduction in startup costs on the
launch of the new van in 1979, a 38% reduction in 1982, and a cumulative 61% reduction by 1984.
During this period, the product development cycle (time to market) was reduced by one third, with
a corresponding improvement in quality, because of a reduction in the number of engineering
changes. QFD not only reduce the product development time, it also improve the quality of product
and lower the price of product. QFD can also facilitate continuous product improvement with
emphasis on the impact of organization learning on innovation.
However, QFD also has some drawbacks
- It is quite difficult to build the house of quality on a piece of paper or a chart.
- Need a lot of time to guide to build the house of quality
- The various components of the house of quality and related calculations are very confusing
especially for the users in the service industry.
- Amendment, deletion, supplement are rather complex in manually.
- QFD software seems unavailable and very expensive especially for people in developing
countries.
2.3 QFD in construction
QFD can be applied to the construction industry in different ways. Mallon and Mulligan
(1993) used QFD on a hypothetical renovation of a personal computer workroom. Serpell and
Wagner (1997) used QFD to determine preferences on the design characteristics of the internal
6


layout of a building apartment. Luiz Atônio Gargione (1999) used QFD in the design phase of an
apartment construction project as a tool to adjust the layout and the highlights of the apartments in
urban areas of Brazil. The purpose of this study applied a method of building design oriented
customers based on the tables and matrices of Akao (1990). Another purpose of this study is testing
the application of QFD in management for real estate projects and develop it for the small company
to increase business efficiency. Syed M.Ahmed et al (2003) Survey the suitability of QFD in
planning and design and Suggest a QFD application models available for use in the process for

planning and design. Neil Eldin and Verda Hikle (2003) apply QFD in the design process for a
modern classroom in a university. Research has proven that QFD can be applied successfully in
the construction project.
QFD application in the construction industry has been developed in many countries of the
world in recent years, and especially in a competitive environment is fierce, the quality of building
products should be paid more attention from every stage of design phase until the end of work. The
design phase for building has task to achieve client’s requirements. The company needs to reach
the standards of quality through drawings and technical specifications in this phase.
Conceptual design is the very first phase of design, in which drawings or solid models are
the dominant tools and products. The conceptual design phase provides a description of the
proposed system in terms of a set of integrated ideas and concepts about what it should do, behave,
and look like, that will be understandable by the users in the manner intended. Using QFD during
the conceptual stage of a construction design can assure major design decisions always focus on
the requirements of customers.
In construction project, if the client needs and requirements are not noticed and treated
appropriately or they are disregarded or vanished as the project phase goes on, some problems like
misunderstanding of client expectations, rework, etc. are occurred. Hence, it is necessary to
consider and collect customer requirements at the first time in the early design stage to provide the
correct design solutions. In construction project, designers often make decision about design
solutions and customer expectations are often neglected. This leads to reduce the satisfaction. In
this situation, QFD is proved to be helpful in both collecting and transferring customer expectations
into design solutions without them diminishing as the project goes on. QFD helps to track the
customer requirements from the start till the end of construction project; help designer check any
distortions in time; help minimize uncertainty when develop project phases; reduce cycle time and
restrict redesigns.
2.4 QFD in Vietnam
While QFD has been widely used throughout the world, QFD has only been implemented
in a number of enterprises in the industrial park in Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong and some other
provinces. There are a few companies knew QFD but companies understand the QFD and apply it
successfully are not much. Some organizations, such as Quality Center III (Quality Center III is

organized under the Science and Technology Directorate for Standards and Quality - Ministry of

7


Science and Technology, was established in May 1975 on the basis of the National Institute of
Calibration) provide regular training on QFD. Actual application of QFD in Vietnam is very few.
Just some cases like ATVN, Thai Tuan Textile, Number One (THP Group) have used QFD. Besides,
there are also a number of research projects on the application of QFD in the design phase of some
projects in the construction industry in Ho Chi Minh City. In summary, QFD has not been applied
widely and effectively in Vietnam.

8


CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

In business and industry, every company has its customers. There are two types of
customers: internal customers and external customers. Internal customer is any member of an
organization who depends on assistance from anyone else to accomplish his or her tasks within the
organization. In the engineering and construction, internal customer is staff who use and maintain
the completed facility like sales, design, engineering, manufacturing, quality control, etc. External
customer is anyone who directly affected by an organization’s product or service. External
customer purchases products that provide the revenue to keep the organization flourishing.
Satisfied external customers are often keep coming back and spread good feedback about the
company to others. It is the reason external customer is important to the success of a business. QFD
helps to determine customer requirement to satisfy or delight the customers. QFD provide a set of
planning and communication routines, it focuses and coordinates skills within an organization, first
to design, then to manufacture and market goods that customers want to purchase and will continue
to purchase. It is based on the belief that products should be designed to reflect customers’ desires

and tastes (Hauser, 1988). QFD is a methodology for taking the voice of the customer and using
that information to drive aspects of product development.
3.1 The Cross-functional Team
Because most projects require knowledge in many areas so it is necessary to have a crossfunctional team that is a group of people with different functional expertise working toward a
common goal (Krajewski and Ritzman, 2005). The cross-functional team identifies and listens to
the voice of customer, uses QFD tools to translate the customer requirements into the technical
requirement, complete one or more of series of matrices to get insights about how best to create a
most satisfied product or service and how to prioritize their research and development activities
forward.

9


This study applied the methods as QFD technique and Pareto Analysis. QFD is a structured
method that uses some tools to gather and prioritize customer’s needs quickly and effectively so as
to make a design quality that satisfies the customer and translate the voice of customer into design
targets. The QFD tools adopted in this research are Questionnaire Survey, Affinity Diagram, Tree
Diagram and the House of Quality.

QFD
Tools

Questionnaire
Survey

Affinity
Diagram

Pareto
Analysis

Tree Diagram

House of
Quality

Figure 3.1 Research process diagram

3.2 Questionnaire Survey
Questionnaire survey is often used to collect data for many different reasons, such as to
learn people’s opinions, determine customers’ satisfaction, or identify employees’ needs. All
questionnaires have two characteristics. The data source is a person and statistical analysis is
required to reach conclusions. A plenty of questionnaires have to be obtained to get results of
statistical significance. This data collection will affect the later phase of research methods. Hence,
it is imperative that the questionnaire survey needs to be designed carefully. The process of
implementation and analysis the questionnaires must be considered to assure the quality of the
results. In this study, the purpose of questionnaire survey is to get the customer requirements and
measure the degree of importance of the voice of customer. This data can help determine technical
requirements toward satisfying the customer.
3.3 Affinity Diagram
The affinity diagram organizes a large number of ideas into an overall hierarchical structure.
It is used when the firm confronted with many facts or ideas in apparent chaos or when issues seem
too large and complex to grasp, and when analyzing verbal data, such as survey results. Affinity
Diagram’s procedure is as follow. Each idea voiced by the customer is recorded with a marking
pen on a separate sticky note or card. All notes need to be visible to everyone. If two ideas seems
to be related in some way, the notes are placed side by side. Repeat this action until all notes are
formed into groups of ideas that suggest some same themes. When ideas are grouped, select a major
topic for each group. Place the card that captures the meaning of the whole group at the top of the
10

group. These theme groups are grouped into higher-level themes. The purpose is to achieve with
five to ten main ideas at the top (the primary level). The ideas at the next level down (secondary
level) provide definitions for the primary level. The tertiary level defines the secondary level
(Cohen 1988). Figure 3.2 shows an example of affinity diagram. Seats and desks represent the
words of the customer. They belong to the “seatings”. Blackboard, projector and computer belong
to the “teaching aids”. Each was entered on a card. These were related to the general idea of
classroom furniture.

Figure 3.2 Affinity diagram
3.4 Tree Diagram
The tree diagram is a hierarchical structure that starts with one item which branches into
two or more, each of which branch into two or more, and so on. It looks like a tree, with trunk and
multiple branches. It is used to break down broad categories into finer and finer levels of detail,
from generalities to specifics based on the analysis of the existing structure. The hierarchy is
expanded to the level that represent a complete structure. Tree diagram can be used after an affinity
diagram that has uncovered key issues. The cross-functional team has to look for gaps at each level
of the hierarchy structure of the affinity diagram and then add more information to obtain a
complete structure. According to figure 3.2, videocassette recorder and microphone would be
added in the tertiary level. See figure 3.3.

11


Figure 3.3 Tree Diagram
3.5 House of Quality
House of quality (HOQ) is the central construct of QFD. It is a convenient and simple tool
to translate the customer requirements to technical requirements. The HOQ uses a matrix to display
what the customer wants (WHATs) and how a company offers technical solutions to meet those
wants (HOWs). The customer requirements that are listed at the left side of the matrix are the input

to the HOQ matrix. They are controlling requirements to find out the measrable design
requirements that are listed at the top of the matrix. Technical requirements that respond the voice
of customer are the output of the HOQ. When developed fully, HOQ resembles a house with the
skeleton as figure 3.4. It shows customer requirements, technical requirements, priority of the
various requirements, relationship between the descriptors, target values for each descriptor,
competitive evaluation between various other products with the current product, etc.
The HOQ is a kind of conceptual road map that gives the cross-functional team a means of
reaching consensus on actions to be taken that will lead to customer satisfaction (Hauser and
Clausing, 1988). A series of HOQ can be made to drive the customer requirements during the
construction project. The voice of customer can be systematically cascaded into engineering
requirements, design, component characteristics and construction documents. This is done by
creating matrices in which the HOWs of the current HOQ becomes the WHATs of the next HOQ
(Neil N. Eldin, 1995). See figure 3.5. The quantity of the houses of quality depends on the specific
project.

12


Figure 3.4. The House of Quality (HOQ)

13


Figure 3.5 Cascading Houses of Quality
3.6 Building the House of Quality
Following are steps in building the HOQ for this study.
Step 1: Develop a list of customer requirements. The list of customer requirements includes the
major customer needs, also what the customer would be delighted with even though not asked for.
The voice of customer is obtained from many different ways, including surveys, focus group
interview, listening posts, etc. In this study, customer requirements are gotten by questionnaire

survey and they are in the left side of the HOQ.

14


Step 2: Develop a list of technical requirements or technical design elements along the roof of the
house. These are the design elements that relate to customer needs. The cross-functional team
members should participate in developing the list and it should be based on the inputs from
customers. All views must be considered (Ullman, 1992).

Step 3: Demonstrate the relationships between the customer requirements and technical design
elements. A diagram can be used to demonstrate these relationships. The symbols with scores
related to them are as follow:
˜ = 9 (Strong association)
™ = 3 (Somewhat associated)
∆ = 1 (Weak association)
The number represents the strength of relationship between each WHAT and each HOW, is placed
in the cell located in the middle of the HOQ. The cell is left blank if there is no relationship. A
WHAT row with all blank cells means that the WHAT has not been addressed and design
requirement need to be added. A HOW column with all blank cells means that the HOW has not
been addressed any of the WHATs and it should be eliminated.

Step 4: Identify the correlations between design elements in the roof of the house. The QFD team
detects conflicts and use the symbols as follow show whether different design elements are
positively or negatively correlated. Positive and negative scores are assigned to each symbol.
˜ = +9 (Strong positive)

15

™ = +3 (Positive)
X = -3 (Negative)
* = -9 (Strong negative)

Step 5: Perform a competitive assessment. On both the right side and in the lower middle portion,
it is the assessment of how the product compares with the key competitors. There are two
assessments, one for customer requirements and another for the technical requirements. These
comparisons are on a 5-point scale with 5 being highest competition.

Step 6: Prioritize customer requirements. On the far right side of the HOQ are customer
requirements priorities. These priorities include importance to customer, target value, sales point,
and absolute weight.
The cross-functional team assigns rating for importance of customer requirements based on
the result of questionnaire survey in step 1 and the team members’ experience and their knowledge
of customer needs. This is a subjective assessment of how important each WHAT is to the
customers. This weighting is on a 10-point scale with 10 being most important. The ratings are
placed in the “Importance to customer” column of the HOQ. Customer requirements with high
importance but low competitive assessment need to be improved.

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Target values are set on a 5-point scale where 1 is no change, 3 is improve the product, and
5 is make the product better than the competitor. With the target value, the cross-functional team
decides whether to change the product. These target values are based on the needs of the customer,
the competitive assessment and evaluation of what is possible at what cost.
The sale points is established by the cross-functional team members on a scale of 1 or 2
with 1 meaning not emphasizing this requirement, 2 meaning emphasize satisfaction of this
requirement.
The absolute weight is found by multiplying the customer importance, target value, and

sale point as the following equation:
Absolute weight = customer importance X target value X sale point

Step 7: Prioritize technical requirements
The relative and absolute weights for technical requirements are evaluated to determine
what engineering decisions need to be made to improve the design based on customer requirements.
This is performed by computing a percentage weight factor for each of the absolute weight and
relative weight numbers.
The value for absolute weight is established by multiplying the relationship between customer and
technical requirements and the importance to the customer.

a j=

𝐧
𝐢$𝟏 𝐑ijci

Where:
a is the absolute weight
R is the relationship between the customer requirement and the technical requirement
c is the degree of customer importance
Absolute factor

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