QFD - ECHOING THE VOICE OF THE CUSTOMER

One of the most promising techniques in contemporary, customer-driven engineering is quality-function deployment (QFD). This product-realization approach helps ensure that customer needs and expectations directly influence the definition, design, implementation, and deployment of products and services. QFD comprises a system of highly traceable engineering procedures in a cross-functional team framework that use graphical displays to drive all phases of product deployment without stifling the voice of the customer. QFD-based product realization yields clear competitive advantages over more traditional processes by promoting greater customer satisfaction, shorter time to market, and improved product performance. Within AT&T, QFD has been used in such diverse applications as planning software-development environments, specifying the characteristics of transmission systems, and guiding the definition of more tangible products like batteries. This paper high-lights the QFD process, drawing examples from recent projects that used QFD in refining a software-development environment and in realizing computing services.