TQM and QFD

8/15/2019 TQM and QFD

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Total Quality Management (TQM) and Quality Function Deployment (QFD) are the two

Japanese techniques embraced globally by the various industries. can be traced to 1949,

when the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers formed a committee of scholars,

engineers, and government officials devoted to improving Japanese productivity, and

enhancing the quality of life. Meanwhile,

1. Discuss the fundamentals, concepts, processes and development of both techniques.

2. Investigate the implementation of both techniques in the manufacturing and

construction industry. Provide examples of project or products.

1.1 TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM)

1.1.1 FUNDAMENTALS

Large manufactures and also small companies applies total quality as it is the wide

organization effort and extensive to improve the product’s quality and services. In

applying the principles of quantity, the large and small organization can get benefit from it.

Total quality mainly focused on decreasing defects and errors through services and

products by the use of measurement, statistics and other tools of problem-solving . Now,

organization started to notice which long-term improvement could not be achieved

without the consideration to the management’s quality practices that were used on daily

base. Therefore, managers started to merge the principles of quality into their

management systems, thus it makes the total quality management (TQM) approach

became popular. Rather than the previous engineering-based technical discipline, quality

evolve to a new meaning of organization wide performance excellence.

a) Historical Evolution of TQM

There are four stages that exists in the evolution of Total Quality Management (TQM)which are first stage - quality inspection, second stage - quality control, third stage -

quality assurance and fourth stage - Total Quality Management (TQM) ( J. Dahlgaard,

Kristensen and K.Kanji, 2007). In 1910s, the first stage of the evolution which is quality

inspection can be seen in the case of Ford Motor Company’s ‘T’ Model car. The fi rm

began to engage the inspector’s teams as the purpose that will test and contrast their


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product with project standard. The poor quality product were found by the inspector’s

team is the reason why the inspection were conducted. Besides, it was applied to all

stages like delivery, process of productions, etc.

The second stage of the evolution of TQM is quality control. It is means that the

quality and development were controlled through written specification, standardization,

supervised skills and measurement (J. Dahlgaard, Kristensen and K.Kanji, 2007). In

Second World War era, the quality started to be established by inspections rather than the

workers themselves therefore, the manufacturing systems became complicated. Then

they had developed the statistical quality control (by inspection) which is the post

production attempt that have the roles of separating the good product from the bad

product.

Next, quality assurance which is the third stage of this evolution. It provide enough

confidence that a good or service will satisfy customer’s wants and it contains all the

earlier stages. It affirm the change from detection activities against prohibition of bad

quality at this stage. While the fourth stage Total Quality Management includes the

implementation and understanding of principles of quality management as well as the

concepts in each aspect of business activities. The growth of Total Quality Management

from 1950 onwards can be deem to the efforts of famous American gurus like Dr Joseph

Juran and Dr Edward Deming.

b) Definition of TQM

E. Mansir and R. Schacht , 1989 define Total Quality Management (TQM) as an

improving personal performance and effectiveness and for focusing all individual efforts

throughout an organization. TQM is an integral management system for accomplishing

the fulfillment of customers that involves all managers and employees which continuously

increase organization’s process by using quantitative methods, define by the FederalQuality Institute.

1.1.2 CONCEPTS


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Figure 1.1: TQM Principles

1) Leadership (Management Commitment)

Top management must know the importance of quality. Although CEO is ultimate

responsibility to quality, but it is also everybody’s responsibility. Besides, managers

need to lead their organization’s transformation to the new culture of continuous

quality improvement (TQM). The leaders focus on structure, policy and system to

sustain continuous quality improvement. The goals of the leaders is to help people,

things to do a better job to achieve better quality. To be a successful leader, the

knowledge of quality is important which means give attention to external and internal

customer, accentuate prevention and improvement rather than maintenance and

empower subordinates. Besides, successful leader must choose supplier based on

quality basis, continuously indicate commitment to quality and create organizational

system that focus on quality efforts.

2) Customer Focus

TQM is based on the theory that quality is regulate by the customers which is both

internal and external customers. Customer focus is crucial in TQM as the TQM objective

is to achieve customer satisfaction. Some measures that commonly being taken by the

organization that aim to foster quality improvement such as training employees,

upgrading computers or software, and improved process management. But, the

customers will measured the final result of the services and products and they also

decide whether the efforts were worth or not. Clearly, a customer focus will help an

organization to do the right things.


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3) Employee Improvement / Involvement

Compare to a traditional organization, employees in TQM environment tend to have

different responsibilities and roles. TQM emphasize on a work environment that make the

employees feel free to examine and discuss their ideas. The employees were given

training, responsibilities and authority to control and measure the quality of the products

or services that were produced by them. They are the cross-trained team that work

together to determine the issues of quality and to perform various kind of tasks. Besides,

the employees in TQM work environment, have larger understanding of the process of

total production, plus they also have greater understanding of the maintenance and

operation of their equipment. Therefore, with the greater roles and responsibilities of the

employees, it will generate a continuous improvement organization of the building.

4) Continuous Improvement

Continuous improvement brings an organization to be creative in finding the ways to

become more effective and competitive at meeting stakeholder belief. The basic of all

TQM systems is to improve the quality of products and services that were provided by an

organization. The results of quality improvement will lead to greater productivity and most

importantly the chances of an organization to remain vital is higher. The Japanese believe

that the most lasting and best changes come through progressive and continuous

improvement. The Japanese called continuous improvement as kaizen that need the

organization continuously strive to be better in problem solving and learning. As far we

worry, the perfection will never be achieved, but by continuously evaluate our

performance as well as take action it will bring to greater improvement.

5) Supplier Quality

The attention on quality at the source stretches out to the processes from suppliers

as well, since the quality of the final product is just a par with the quality of its individual

parts and elements, paying little respect whether they originate from inward and outersources. To make sure that quality at the source extends to supplier network, it is

important to share your quality with the suppliers, include the suppliers in product design

and acquire a formal supplier certification program.

6) Integrated approach


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Generally, TQM is an integrated management system. The mission and vision of the

organization should be appraised by all the employees. Besides, the decisions of

improvement are not just formed by the top management, but all the stakeholders are

given the opportunities to express themselves during the phases of decision making.

Although an organization have different functional specialties that are commonly

organized into vertically structured departments, it is the horizontal processes that

interrelated these functions which are TQM’s focus.

1.1.3 PROCESS AND DEVELOPMENT

1. Organizing

The objectives of quality and strategies have to be set up through the scale of

organizational forward with congruent goals for improvement. The process of

improvement should mixed with other organizational improvement and business action A

multi-disciplinary of TQM and appropriate infrastructure shall be developed to support the

process of improvement. Must take into account that the infrastructure must be integrated

into existing structure. Also, the major problems of quality must be recognise and engage

by senior management group.

2. Systems

The system of quality management must fully documented, provide feedback,

provide direction and audited with effective basis. In the improvement process, regularly

control and affirmation activity must be distinct. . A system should be developed which all

the staff can boost those dispute which avoid them to turn in an error- free performance.

In development of TQM, the tools, techniques and systems were used at distinct stages

in various organizations. The timing of the introduction of precise tool, technique and

system is important to its achievement.

3. Measurement and Feedback

It is important that all processes should work towards satisfaction of the customers. A

system and procedures should be developed to evaluate conformance. The internal and

external customer will complain. But it is crucial to make sure that all customer

disagreements are taken up and resolve and as the result there is appropriate feedback.


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Besides, encourage also the next person or process attitude. For all internal department,

customer satisfaction measures must be established as well as the quality indicators.

4. Changing the culture

The important one are develop, improve and assess all aspects of customer and

supplier relationships on regular basis. Besides, education should continue and broad in

order to cherish changes in behaviour and attitudes in improving the skills base of an

organization. That kind of change should be embedded in the culture of organization.

1.2 QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT (QFD)

1.2.1 FUNDAMENTALS

a) Historical evolution of QFD

QFD was established in Japan by Professors Shigeru Mizuno and Yoji Akao in 1966.

During that era, the statistical quality control that was brought in after the World War II,

had developed in the Japanese manufacturing industry. Besides, the activities of quality

were organized by the expert gurus like Dr. Kaoru Ishikawa, Dr. Juran, Dr. Feigenbaum.

They underscore the crucial of making quality control as a part of business management,

and finally it started to known as TQM and TQC.

Professor Mizuno and Akao have a purpose to enroot a method of quality assurance

that would design fulfilment of customers into a product before it was being assembled.

Other than that, Value engineering principles was introduced by Katsuyoshi Ishihara that

were used to describe how the product and their elements work. He has emerge this to

describe business functions necessary to encourage the design process’s quality itself.

This fresh concepts were blend together and hereafter QFD became the comprehensive

design system for business and product processes.

Recently, QFD carry on to encourage strong interest all over the world, generate new

applications, researchers and practitioners every year. This day countries like Japan,

Sweden, U.S, Australia, Brazil, China, Turkey and Germany have held nation and

international QFD Symposium.


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b) Definition of Quality Function Deployment

The fundamental concept of this method is QFD is a structure that aiming to planning

and translate the voice of customer into the quality characteristics processes, products,

and services concerning to reach customer satisfaction (Bernal, Donberger, Suvelza, and

Byrnes, 2009). The customer’s voice is secured in a different ways like interviews or

direct discussion, focus groups, surveys, observation, etc. In Japanese, the word

deployment indicate to a broadening and extension of activities while ‘Quality Funct ion

Deployment’ is defined as the responsibilities to produce quality item that must be appoint

to all segments of corporation. The system can be implied if we define each of the terms

in QFD :

Quality - Meeting customer requirements

Function - What to do - Focus on the attention

Deployment - When to do it and who will do it

Other than that, according to Akao (1990), QFD is a way to persuade the quality of

design while the product is still at the stage of design. It shows that QFD can be seen as a

process where the customer’s voice is valued in the whole process of services and

production. There are two components involved in QFD which are deployed into the

design process: quality and function. The ‘quality deployment’ carry the customer’s voice

into design process while the ‘function deployment’ components links various

organizational functions and units into design to manufacturing transition by the design

teams ((Lockamy & Khurana, 1995)

1.2.2CONCEPT

There are four phases of QFD methodology that exist over the course of the product

development process. Throughout each phase, there are one or more matrices are

arranged to translate customer requirements from the initial planning stages to productioncontrol. Each matrix, represents a specific aspect of requirements of the products. The

four phase of QFD approach are presented as follows:


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Figure 1.2: Four-phase of QFD approach

Phase 1: Product Planning

The preparation of the product planning matrix also called the ‘house of quality’ will

begin once the customers need were identified. Most of the organizations only connect

this phase of QFD process. Phase 1 that involved of warranty data, competitive

opportunities, requirements or needs of customers, measurements of product, and

competing product measures of the organization to meet each customer requirement. It is

crucial to get a good data from the customer in this phase in obtaining a successful QFD

process.

Phase 2: Assembly/ Part Deployment

This phase is led by the department of engineering. A more complete specification

will be prepared once product planning phase were completed. During this phase,

product concept are created and part specifications are documented. The product

specification and product requirements serve as a basis to develop product concepts.


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Parts were conclude to be the most critical in order to meet customer needs and it then

deployed into Phase 3 which is the Process Planning.

Phase 3: Process Planning

Next phase is Process planning that led by manufacturing engineering. During

process planning, manufacturing processes were flow charted and target values were

documented.

Phase 4: Process Control

The final phase is Process Control. In this phase, the performance indicators and

production planning were developed to monitor the process of production, schedules of

maintenance and skills training for operators. The decisions also were made because of

the processes act as the most risk and controls were put in place to avoid failures.

1.2.3 PROCESS AND DEVELOPMENT

Quality Function Deployment is a system that identify the important of customer

requirements that come from the marketing department. The customer requirements or

needs are scored based on their importance. Then the scores were translated into

precise product characteristics. Next the assessments were made of how the products

contracts with their major competitors to identify the characteristics. Lastly, to identify the

problems, specific goals were set. In implementing the QFD process, it involves putting

together a ‘House of Quality’ like the one shown below.


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Figure 1.3: Relationship matrix

Customer requirements

The first thing we have to do is to survey our customer needs and wants since the

goal is to produce product follow the requirements of the customers. The purpose of the

survey is to find out precisely what they look in a product. Figure 1.3 above shown a

backpack for students and to identify specifically what features students would like in a

backpack. The example of the survey like marketing department will be sending some of

representatives to talk to the students at campus, interviews by telephone and do focus

group.

Competitive Evaluation

In Figure 1.3, there are two competitors which are A and B. The assessment scale is

from 1 to 5 which is if the higher the rating is the better the result. The crucial thing here is

to decide which customer requirements should we go after.


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Product Characteristics

On top of the relationship matrix, it is the specific product characteristics. These are

the technical measures. In the example, it involves the number of zippers and

compartments, the backpack’s weight, backpack’s strength, cost of materials and the dye

colour grade.

The Relationship Matrix

In the relationship matrix above, it shows the strength of the relationship between

customer requirements and product characteristics. For example, the zippers and weight

of the backpack are negatively related. It means that if the desirability of one variable

increase, the desirability of the others will decrease. This kind of information is so crucial

in order to coordinate the product design.

The Trade-off Matrix

The relationship matrix is starting to look like a house, so that is why it is called

‘House of quality’. The complete house of quality is shown in the F igure1221 below.

Trade-off Matrix is done to put the ‘roof’ on the house in our building process. It means

that it is shown as how each product characteristics is related to the others and it allow us

to see the trade-off that we need to do.

Setting Targets

The final step in build the complete house of quality is to assess competitors’

products relative to the specific product characteristics. Besides, the target for our own

product also will be set. The output of quality function deployment is at the bottom row of

the house. Clearly, house of quality is proved to be very useful which can help in the

communication between operations, marketing, and design engineering.


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Figure 1.4: House of Quality


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1.3 Implementation of Total Quality Management and Quality Function Deployment

1.3.1 Implementation of Total Quality Management

Total Quality Management implementation in the manufacturing company is

discussed by Al-Saket (2003) by describing the action taken by ABC steel

manufacturing company.

In implementing Total Quality Management, leadership is one of the component

of TQM which top management must realize the significance of the quality and the

ultimate responsibility is in CEO’s hand. High level of management involvement is

displayed in the ABC steel manufacturing company by commitment of company

executive committee in fulfil their business management system requirements and

effectiveness is ensures with meeting attended by managing director (Al-Saket, 2003).

In ensure the establishment, implementation and maintenance of business

management system, the managing director in the steel manufacturing company

appoints and authorize quality assurance manager.

Quality objectives and strategies must be established and integrated in the all

organizational level with improvement goals. Thus, ABC steel manufacturing company

planning their control approach by identify objectives consistent to their business

policies and making sure their approach fulfil the eight management principles

(Al-Saket, 2003).

Teamwork undeniably important in implementing total quality control and must

be practiced at all levels. Employees involved in every stages of the improvement

process, instead of only involved in aspects which directly affect their role. According to

Al Saket (2003), meetings had been regularly conducted by ABC steel manufacturingcompany in communicating important information to all personnel in all level. The

information including customer requirements, system performance and company

performance has been regularly updated in the meetings.

Apart from that, system and techniques required in implementing total quality

concept must be well established in the company as the quality management system

must be well documented to be able to provide effective direction and feedback.

Suitability of particular technique, tools or equipment used at a different stages is crucial

in ensuring the success.


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Controls, documentation and equipment to aid as tools in process control

approach are identified at the planning stages in ABC steel manufacturing company

(Al-Saket, 2003). Hard copies and electronic information documents related to the

Business Management System in ABC steel manufacturing company is controlled in

order to specify the system control requirements. ABC steel manufacturing company

also generate records for the examination of effectiveness and conformity of the

Business Management System to quality requirements.

Detection and elimination of potential causes of non-conformances is being

done through corrective and preventive action system set up by ABC steel

manufacturing company (Al-Saket, 2003). For instance, some types of

non-conformances are product non-conformities and deficiency within a process (ABC

Steel, 2002 and Al-Saket, 2003).

In ABC steel’s process control approach, internal audits are conducted

periodically by utilizing a checklist with all Business Management System’s activities.

Effectiveness and efficiency of the system will be examined through the internal audit’s

procedure and findings for the audit for a department will be followed up by the

particular department’s manager. The findings also will be reviewed in management

review meeting.

Al-Saket (2003) proposed few improvement recommendations in ABC Steel’s

process control approach. According to him, if there is no measurements and

information gathered during manufacturing, ABC Steel’s top management review for

non-conformance reports does not help in solving problems. Thus, ABC Steel should

have “measuring with manufacturing” process as their f irst step then followed up with

recording of measurement, then the records will be analyzed and finally, correctiveactions and feedback is acted based on the analysis. ABC Steel can develop factual

based decision for corrective action from measurement and information analysis.

ABC Steel also may improve their process control approach by integrating the

following problem solving steps methodology

Problem identification

Understand the problem’s characteristic


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Search for the root causes

Eliminate the causes

Validate the effectiveness of the action

Make elimination of causes permanent.

1.3.2 Implementation of Quality Function Deployment in Construct ion Industry

Implementation of Quality Function Deployment in construction works can

be grouped into three categories which is implementation of Quality Function

Deployment before the design stage, implementation of Quality Function Deployment

during design stage and implementation of Quality Function Deployment after the

design stage (Dikmen et al, 2005).

. Implementation of QDF before design stage

Implementation of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) before design

stage is used in assessment of corporate service quality performance of

design and build contractors. Dikmen et al (2005) mentioning Arditi and Lee’s

(2003) research discussing utilization of QFD in measuring design and build

construction companies’ corporate service quality by owners who want acomplete information on quality performance of the potential construction

companies on their bidding list. Project owners also used QFD as mechanism

to rank for the design and built construction companies selection process.

Besides that, QFD also could be implemented during civil engineering capital

project planning (Dikmen et al, 2005)

Implementation of QDF during the design stage

During the design stages in construction works, Quality Function

Deployment (QFD) can widely applied in all area. According to Dikmen et al

(2005), applicability of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) methodology in

design of a hypothetical renovation project is proven to be effective (Mallon

and Mulligan, 1993) while, QFD can be utilized in finalizing the industrial

building’s structural design (Huovila et al, 2001) and can be applied to

determine the characteristics of internal layout design of a building complex

(Serpell and Wagner, 1997).


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Implementation of QFD after design stage

Benefits from implementing Quality Function Deployment (QFD) after design

stage or after construction stage can still be exploited. Quality Function Deployment

used after the construction stage is in decision making aid during marketing (Dikmen et

al, 2005). QFD also can be used in comparing competitors and to acquired information

on expectations of customers to be used in the upcoming projects. Level of customer

satisfaction can be increased by applying knowledge acquired from the current project

in upcoming projects, for example in repetitive project such as housing sector.

A construction company involved in a housing sector construction implement

QDF to formulate strategies to sell the units after the construction phase over. QDF

adopted by the construction company is for marketing strategy establishment by

identify target customer’s expectations and comparing strength and weakness of their

housing complex to alternative housing projects. The company also facilitate

decision-making in upcoming projects using QDF exercise and formulate a systematic

procedure to help decision making process in all construction stages, thus giving a

competitive advantages through “quality differentiation” (Dikmen et al, 2005).

Section I: Customer needs and requirements (voice of customer, VOC)

Section II: Technical measuresSection III: Planning matrix

Section IV: Relationship matrix

Section V: Correlation matrix

Section VI: Weights, benchmarks and targets

Figure 1.5: Basic House of Quality matrix (Dikmen et al, 2005 and Hauser, 1988)

The construction company involved in high-rise housing project implementing

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) by constructing the House of Quality (HOQ) matrix.


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First, the company identify the target customer expectations from the project by

conducting surveys, face to face interview with potential customers and complaints to

establish a database. The company also form an interdisciplinary research team consist

of engineers and the academicians for providing expert opinions through brainstorming

and utilisation of QFD tools (Dikmen et al, 2005)

Next step is by identification of technical measures corresponding to

recognized customer needs. The selected solutions must be reflected in technical

measures to fulfil customers’ need. Technical measures are identified through

brainstorming session and listed in the HOQ matrix.

Relationships between customers’ requirement and needs and technical

measures have to be identified and filled in Section 4 of HOQ matrix. Understanding the

contribution of technical measures in satisfaction of customer is crucial in this step.

Next, the team compared their company performance on fulfil each customer’s

requirement with performance of rivals.

Improvement necessary for customers’ need is identified and the company set

up goals to fulfil those requirement. Best alternative for each customers expectation

after being compared against the rivals will accounted in goals establishment. The team

will calculate improvement ratios for each customer need by dividing the goal to the

current performance. This calculation will help to emphasize specific unfulfilled

customer needs in development team.

Technical measures interaction have been examined and assigned in the roof

of HOQ matric. Each customer need’s revised weight is multiplied with relationshipscore on the same row and same row is added in finding the weights of the technical

measures. Then, after each technical measures is calculated, analyzation of the

weights will be done to identify the most important ones. Rank order of measures

needing improvement will be available through the identification process and this will

aid in fulfilment of the customers expectation in final stage of project (Dikmen, 2005).

Performances of rival companies will be evaluated and best performance is

benchmarked as target level in deciding the specific target of technical measures


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Figure 1.6: HOQ matrix for the construction company (Dikmen et al, 2005)


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Documents

TQM and QFD