What is Quality Function Deployment (QFD) in E-commerce?
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a process deployed in e-commerce that focuses on customer needs and requirements to develop a product or service that meets or exceeds customer expectations. It is a customer-driven process that includes four steps starting from assessment and ending with design and implementation.
Significance of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) in E-commerce
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a powerful tool for managing the quality of products and services in E-commerce. The significance of QFD includes the following –
- QFD helps define customer requirements, and identify product and service delivery gaps.
- QFD aids in minimizing costs and ensures that products and services are produced and delivered to customers on time and within budget.
- It is used to ensure that customer requirements are met, products and services are of the highest quality, and that customer satisfaction is maintained.
Prerequisites to Calculate Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and How It Works
The following are the prerequisites:
• Data on customer requirements – through customer surveys, interviews, focus groups, and other techniques.
• Quality function deployment software – to streamline the process of creating customer requirements and engineering specifications.
How it works –
QFD is a four-step process that includes –
- The first step in a QFD project is to create a House of Quality, which is a matrix that compares customer requirements which can be met with the most efficient engineering specifications.
- Once customer requirements and engineering specifications have been identified, a Design of Experiments (DOE) can be used to test and validate these specifications. This process ensures that the product meets customer requirements and is optimized for cost and performance.
- Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is then used to create a detailed plan for the design, manufacture, and delivery of the product. This plan will include detailed instructions for each step in the process, including testing and quality assurance.
- Finally, quality control is used to ensure that the product meets customer requirements and is built to the highest standards. Quality control will inspect each step in the process and verify that the product meets the customer’s needs.
Use Case With Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
Suppose a famous home brand ABC, selling smartphones in Singapore, decided to launch a premium smartphone for its users under certain market conditions. However, the premium release wasn’t much appreciated in its beta testing phase. ABC then decided to perform Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to identify the specific needs and update their product accordingly.