Building Quality Function Deployment for Media Content - Paper Example

Introduction

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Quality function deployment (QFD) is of great importance in the society and the same helps in the improving the quality of advertisements and the advertisements that media houses put to the public for entertainment and information. In this regard, there is the need to examine the role of the same and how they help in the improvement in the delivery of the right content to the public. It in this regard that proves the need for the society to ensure that application of the same is beneficial to the population and that they do not contrast with the views and the virtues of the population. The same is of great importance because it is the plan of every company to satisfy and delight their customers thereby proving the need to employ the use of quality function deployment (QFD).

Background

Quality function deployment (QFD) is greatly employed by the quality professionals because they use the same to implement the use of matrix planning product, customer-driven engineering and decision matrices in the process of production. The aim of the same is to listen to the voice of the customer carefully and respond to the needs of the client to ensure that they provide better services so as to fulfill their needs and expectations. In this regard, QFD help in improving provision of services and to help in improving on customer loyalty in the company. One of the main uses of QFD is that it helps in cause-and-effect analysis, and the success of the same is witnessed in the automotive industry as witnessed in the way it has been effective in the measurement of the degree of satisfaction of clientele.

As evident in the above template there are various uses of the Quality Function Deployment as they help in the various factors that affect an organization and help in the use of the same to improve in ensuring that the organization is running in the right direction. Matters of great importance are the seven management and planning tools which help in the identification and the prioritization of the expectations of the customers effectively and quickly. This is because the same is a measure of the degree to which a client is satisfied with a product or a service in the society. This makes it easy for companies to address the wants of the customers to ensure that provision of products and services meet their needs, tastes and preferences.

A more detailed QFD is outlined in the figure below

The diagram above shows a QFD, which is the initial matrix, and it is mostly called the house of quality. In the initial matrix, the methodology focuses on the product or the service that is of the greatest importance to the company and the quality of the same. Much interest is taken into the customers wants, vows and musts. Upon the prioritization of the qualities and products in the product or the service, the next issue of focus is the deployment of the same to the right organization for the right function and enable the company to act on them. In this manner, QFD, assists in the deployment of customer-driven qualities to the responsible functions in an organization. Practitioners the employ the use of QFD submit that the use of the matrix enable them to reduce the deployment cycle of their products and services by as much as 75 percent, and the same has led to the improvement of customer satisfaction leading to the increase in the loyalty of clients in companies.

QFD Methodology Flow

The basic methodology of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) involves four basic steps in the process of product development, and it is apparent that in the course of each phase, there is one or more matrices that help in the planning and communication of the critical product and process planning and design information. The whole process of planning the QFD is presented in the figure below.

The preparation of the product planning matrix can begin, otherwise called the house of quality only begins after identification of the customer needs. In this manner, the first sequence of the steps is the stating of customers needs or preferences on the left side of the matrix, and they are organized by the categories on the basis of affinity diagrams. The process of stating the customers needs and preferences need to ensure that the are a reflection of the desired market segments; the same helps in addressing unspoken needs of the clientele. On the occasion when the number of needs of the clients exceed between twenty to thirty, there is the need to decompose the matrix into smaller subsystems to help in the reduction in the number of requirements in the matrix. Each requirement, on the other hand, requires that the priorities of the customers are stated through the use of a 1-5 rating. Priorities are then developed from the use of ranking techniques and paired comparisons.

The next step is the evaluation of prior generation of products against competitive products; this is the process that requires obtaining of products through the use of customer meeting, surveys, focus groups, and clinics, there is also the inclusion of the customers of competitors to get a balance perspective of the situation in the ground. Another activity that takes place in this step is the identification of price points and the market segments for the products that are being evaluated, there is also the identification of the warranty, service, customer complaint problems, and reliability to help in the identification of areas that need to be improved for the benefit of the organization and improvement of customer satisfaction. The third step is to establish product requirements and the technical characteristics aid in responding to the requirements of the customers to help in organizing the related categories. This process ensures that characteristics are measurable, meaningful, and global. The stating of characteristics need to ensure that the they do not imply a specific technological solution which can constrain the designers.

The fourth step is to develop the relationship between the customer requirements and product requirements; this involves the use of symbols for the strong, medium and the weak relationships. It is advisable that the use of strong relationship symbol is limited and that all the needs of the clients are addressed to make the matrix satisfactory and ensure that it represents the needs of the population. Additionally, there is the need to ensure that the matrix does not entail product requirements of technical characteristics that do not relate to the needs of the customers. The fifth step is the development of a technical solution of the prior generation products and competitive products; this deals with the accessing the competitive products to help in the performance of benchmarking of the product or the technical benchmarking. The evaluation is based on the definition of product requirements of the technical characteristics, other relevant data that prove to be of great importance in this process are the warranty or the service repair occurrences and costs, the same data needs to be used in the process of technical evaluation.

Sixth step is the development of preliminary target values for the product requirements of the technical characteristics; this is followed by the final step which is the determination of potential positive values and negative interactions between product requirements or the technical characteristics through the use of symbols for the positive, medium and negative relationships. On the occasions when there are too many positives, there is the possibility of there being potential redundancy, it means that it is advisable to focus on negative interactions; this requires giving considerations to the product concepts or technology to overcome the potential tradeoffs. Additionally, it is also advisable to consider the tradeoffs to establish target values.

Conclusion

It is apparent that the use of QFD is of great importance to the society, and there is the need of the population to ensure that the businesses develops plans that are of great importance to the society and that companies work to satisfy the needs of clients. One of the great advantages that the matrix has led to the modern-day companies is that it helps in improving efficiency in the use of products and resources in the development of products and services and ensures that organizations achieve their targets by ensuring that the daily activities are directed to the goals and objectives of the organizations.