Understanding

Customer
Requirements

Principles of Design
Zahed Siddique

Assistant Professor
School of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering
University Of Oklahoma
zsiddique@ou.edu

University of Oklahoma

AME 4163

Need to focus
Moving in the wrong direction at a fast pace is
still moving in the wrong direction.

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University of Oklahoma

AME 4163

Information on
QFD.

Developed in Japan in the mid 1970s

Introduced in USA in the late 1980s
Toyota was able to reduce 60% of cost
to bring a new car model to market
Toyota decreased 1/3 of its
development time
Used in cross functional teams
Companies feel it increased customer
satisfaction

University of Oklahoma

AME 4163

Why.?

Product should be designed to reflect

customers desires and tastes.
House of Quality is a kind of a conceptual
map that provides the means for
interfunctional planning and communications
To understand what customers mean by
quality and how to achieve it from an
engineering perspective.
HQ is a tool to focus the product development
process
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AME 4163

QFD Target
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AME 4163

Important points

Should be employed at the beginning of every

project (original or redesign)
Customer requirements should be translated
into measurable design targets
It can be applied to the entire problem or any
subproblem
First worry about what needs to be designed
then how
It takes time to complete
University of Oklahoma

AME 4163

Hows vs
Hows

Whats
Units
This Product

How Muches

Hows

Whats vs
Hows

This Product

Customer
Evaluation

Now

Now vs
What

Who vs.
Whats

Who

Components of
House of Quality

Hows vs
How
Muches

Targets
University of Oklahoma

AME 4163

Ratio of Improvement

Target

Useful Data

Customer
Evaluation
This Product

Extensions to
House of Quality

Weighted Importance
Importance %
Units
This Product

Targets
Technical Difficulty
University of Oklahoma

AME 4163

Units

This Product

How Muches

Whats vs
Hows

This Product

Customer
Evaluation

Hows

Now

Now vs
What

Whats

Who vs.
Whats

Step 1: Who are the

customers?

Who

Hows vs
Hows

Hows vs
How
Muches

Targets

To Listen to the voice of the

customer first need to identify the
customer
In most cases there are more than
one customer

Customers
drive
the
Customers
drive
the
consumer
development
development of
of the
the
regulatory agencies product, not the designer
product, not the designer
manufacturing
marketing/Sales

University of Oklahoma

AME 4163

Hows vs
Hows

Whats

Whats vs
Hows

This Product

Consumer

Hows

Customer
Evaluation

Now

Now vs
What

Who vs.
Whats

Who

Step 2: Determine the

customers
Need to determine what is
requirements
to be designed

product works as it should

Hows vs
How Muches
How
lasts a long time
Muches
is easy to maintain
looks attractive
List all the
demanded qualities
incorporated latest technology
at the same level of
has many features
abstraction
Units

University of Oklahoma

This Product

Targets

AME 4163

Step 2: cont...

Manufacturing

easy to produce
uses available resources
uses standard components and methods
minimum waste

Marketing/Sales

Meets customer requirements

Easy to package, store, and transport
is suitable for display

University of Oklahoma

AME 4163

Kano Model
Customer Satisfaction
+
Delighted

Basic Quality: These requirements

are not usually mentioned by
customers. These are mentioned
only when they are absent from the
product.
Performance Quality: provides an
increase in satisfaction as
performance improves

Fully
implemented

Excitement
Absent

Basic

Satisfiers

Disgusted

Excitement Quality or wow requirements: are often

unspoken, possibly because we are seldom asked to
express our dreams. Creation of some excitement
features in a design differentiates the product from
competition.
University of Oklahoma

AME 4163

Types of customer
requirements

Functional requirements describe the products

desired behavior
Human factors
Physical requirements
Reliability
Life-cycle concerns
Resource concerns
Manufacturing requirements

University of Oklahoma

AME 4163

How to determine
the Whats?

Customer survey (have to formulate the

questions very carefully)
If redesign, observe customers using
existing products
Combine both or one of the approaches
with designer knowledge/experience to
determine the customers voice
University of Oklahoma

AME 4163

Affinity Diagram

Provides structure for verbal data

by creating natural clusters or
groups
Ensures that the list of demanded
qualities are complete and
expressed at the same level of
detail

University of Oklahoma

AME 4163

Constructing Affinity
Diagram
Set a brainstorming session to list all possible requirements
Record each element of the list on small cards
Place all cards on a table randomly
Silent mode
Spend time reading all demanded qualities
Start at the same time, once everyone is ready - everyone
quickly and without thought find two demanded qualities that
have something in common
If you find a demanded quality is not where you think it belongs,
move it. If it is moved again, make a duplicate and talk about it
later.
The process continues until all demanded qualities are in a
group.

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AME 4163

Constructing Affinity
Diagram

Discussion Mode

Begin discussion after group composition for the demanded

qualities becomes stable

First review the demanded qualities that seemed to have more

than one home

Select a descriptive name for the groups. Group names must also
be demanded qualities, but at a higher level of abstraction

Look at each group and judge if all elements are at the same level
of abstraction

Check each group by asking If this is the name of the group,

what elements should be included but are missing?

Next test for missing groups.

Check with the types of customer requirements list

University of Oklahoma

AME 4163

Step 3: Determine Relative

Importance of the Requirements:
Who vs. What
Need to evaluate the importance
of each of the customers
requirements.

Generate weighing factor for each

requirement by rank ordering or other
methods
Whats
Units
This Product

How Muches
University of Oklahoma

Customer
Evaluation

Whats vs
Hows

Now

This Product

Hows

Now vs
What

Who vs.
Whats

Who

Hows vs
Hows

Hows vs
How
Muches

Targets

AME 4163

Rank Ordering

Order the identified customer requirements

Assign 1 to the requirement with the lowest
priority and then increase as the requirements
have higher priority.
Sum all the numbers
The normalized weight
Rank/Sum

The percent weight is: Rank*100/Sum

University of Oklahoma

AME 4163

Step 4: Identify and Evaluate the

Competition: How satisfied is the
customer now?
The goal is to determine how the customer
perceives the competitions ability to meet each of
the requirements

Whats
Units
This Product

How Muches

Customer
Evaluation

Hows

Whats vs
Hows

Now

This Product

The design:
1. does not meet the requirement
at all
2. meets the requirement slightly
3. meets the requirement
somewhat
4. meets the requirement mostly
5. fulfills
the
requirement
University
of Oklahoma
completely

Hows vs
Hows

Now vs
What

it creates an awareness of what already exists

it reveals opportunities to improve on what already exists
Who

Who vs.
Whats

Hows vs
How
Muches

Targets

AME 4163

Step 5: Generate Engineering

Specifications: How will the
customers requirements be met?

The goal is to develop a set of engineering

specifications from the customers
requirements.
Restatement of the design problem and customer

requirements in terms of parameters that can be measured.

Whats
Units
This Product

How Muches
University of Oklahoma

Customer
Evaluation

Whats vs
Hows

Now

This Product

Hows

Now vs
What

Who vs.
Whats

Each customer requirement

should have at least one
engineering parameter.

Who

Hows vs
Hows

Hows vs
How
Muches

Targets

AME 4163

Step 6: Relate Customers

requirements to Engineering
Specifications: Hows measure
Whats?
This
is the center portion of the house. Each
cell represents how an engineering parameter
relates to a customers requirements.

Whats
Units
This Product

How Muches
University of Oklahoma

Customer
Evaluation

Whats vs
Hows

Now

This Product

Hows

Now vs
What

Who
Who vs.
Whats

9 = Strong Relationship
3 = Medium Relationship
1 = Weak Relationship
Blank = No Relationship at all

Hows vs
Hows

Hows vs
How
Muches

Targets

AME 4163

Step 7: Identify Relationships

Between Engineering Requirements:
How are the Hows Dependent on
each
other? specifications maybe
Engineering

dependent on each other.

Whats
Units
This Product

How Muches
University of Oklahoma

Customer
Evaluation

Whats vs
Hows

Now

This Product

Hows

Now vs
What

Who

Hows vs
Hows

Who vs.
Whats

9 = Strong Relationship
3 = Medium Relationship
1 = Weak Relationship
-1 = Weak Negative Relationship
-3 = Medium Negative Relationship
-9 = Strong Negative Relationship
Blank = No Relationship at all

Hows vs
How
Muches

Targets

AME 4163

Step 8: Set Engineering

Targets: How much is good
enough?

Determine target value for

each engineering
requirement.

Units
This Product

How Muches
University of Oklahoma

Customer
Evaluation

Hows

Whats vs
Hows

Now

This Product

Hows vs
Hows

Now vs
What

Evaluate competition products

to engineering requirements
Look at set customer targets
Use the above two
information to set targets
Whats

Who

Who vs.
Whats

Hows vs
How
Muches

Targets

AME 4163

Relationships Among
Engineering Characteristics

Customer
Evaluation

Customer
Identifying
performance measure conflicts
Engineering
Characteristics
Evaluation

Record
Performance
Relative
Importancemeasures for each customer
demanded
quality ratings for your
Record customer
performance
Customer
Attributes
Similar product
and competitors products
Importance for each demanded quality needs
Relationship
demanded
customer
and
The first
step is tobetween
list
alltothe
demanded
qualities qualities
at the same
be
determined
Technical
benchmarking
Engineering
Performance
level of abstraction
Units

Engineering
ObjectiveTechnical Difficulty associated with achieving
Measures Targets/improvements and importance of Influence
Setting Technical
Targets
technical
characteristics
Customer
Targets
Determining
Qualities
Important
Technical Difficulty
Targets
Importance
Characteristics
University of Oklahoma
AME 4163

Hows vs
Hows

Whats

This Product

Hows

Now

Whats vs
Hows

Now vs
What

Who vs.
Whats

Who

Components of
House of Quality

Customer
Evaluation

Weighted Importance

Addition to the
House of
Quality
presented in
text book
University of Oklahoma

Importance %
Units
This Product

How Muches

Hows vs
How
Muches

Targets
Rank
Technical Difficulty
Selected

AME 4163

Creating the
Requirement List

Contents of Requirement List

Specify if the individual items are demands or wishes in
the clearest possible terms
Tabulate Quantitative and Qualitative aspects
Collect further information
If possible rank wishes as being of major, medium or
minor importance
Living document
Arrange the requirements in clear order
Define the main objective and the main characteristics
Split into identifiable groups
Enter the Requirement list on standard forms and circulate
Examine Objections
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AME 4163

Requirement List
Changes

D
W

Specify wether item is D or W

for

Date of Change

User

Project, product

Requirements

Objective or property with qualitative and quantitative data

Identification
Classification
Page
Responsible

Design Group Resposible

Requirements list

Replaces Issues of:

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AME 4163

Name 1
Name 2
Name 3

Requirement
List Example
Use information from
House of Quality as an
starting point for creating
the requirement list.
Need to identify
requirements for the
product that are basic and
necessary but are not
specified by the
customers.
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AME 4163

Example House of
Quality
Design a device to toast breads and
other similar types of food

University of Oklahoma

AME 4163