Quality Improvement Concepts
DISCOVER
DISCOVER – The Voice of the Customer (VOC)
VOC analysis is a powerful mechanism to get in-depth information to inform your product and service developments. Voice of Customer acquisition typically involves a combination of both explicit and implicit findings about customer needs, uses and expectations that can affect your development vision.
VOC seeks to answer questions like:
What are my customer’s business issues?
What are my customer’s most pressing problem / need?
What would be an ideal solution of constraints were not at issue?
What are the priorities of the needs uncovered?
What’s most important to the customer in making a buying decision?
How could my product or my service solve the problem/need uncovered?
What are the strengths and weaknesses of our solution?
How do customers view our firm or its product/services in relation to our competitors?
The first step in the process is to identify customers to understand. These should be users that are representative of our eventual market. We could isolate the right people to study based on market segment characteristics/dimensions. Our firm’s Marketing and Sales specialists could help identify potential customers for whom we will seek their Voice of Customer input. Consider competitor’s customers, current customers and also potential customers. Make sure you consider users of substitute goods and services too. Use company contacts, channels and your network to locate and pursue input. Don’t forget to pursue a broad section of users, including direct users, purchase decision-makers, support, data centers, complaint histories etc.
While many firms perform in-depth interviews, a simple way to get Voice of Customer input is with web based survey. IDEACore’s WEBMine is geared to do this. Use the power of the web to reach customers that may be globally dispersed. WEBMine will not only help you collect qualitative input, it will help you prioritize or quantify the importance of your findings. It can even perform KANO Analysis in order to pinpoint those customer needs which the market considers excitement performance. Also, IDEACore has created a very powerful text-mining system to organize and tag the in-depth interviews and other verbose data which may have been assembled through your Voice of Customer recordations. Ask about this powerful new software to assist with in-depth interview analysis.
Design
DESIGN – With Quality Function Deployment (QFD)
To be successful in today’s marketplace, it is vital to know what the customer is thinking and what their true root needs are. However, this information usually comes in a form that you should not use directly. It might even appear as though what the customer is telling us is not of great value. The problem is not one of value of the voice of the customer, but in the proper interpretation of that information. QFD gives the tools to restructure the information into a valuable form. For example, knowing the root needs of the customer you can design new breakthrough solutions to meet those needs. QFD gives you the tools and methods necessary to listen to the customer words and restructure that information into root customer needs. These root customer needs can then be understood by the entire development team using IDEACore’s Catalyst System which combines WEBMine, QFD Designer and TRIZContrasolve.
QFD unlocks the door to differentiating by helping you meet customer needs better. It is the flexible tool that unlocks your ability to sell more and achieve higher satisfaction in the outcomes of your projects whether they be product, service or strategy related.
Uses of QFD and adjunct methods include:
Developing Strategic Plans
Developing Balanced Scorecards
Performing Market Segmentation
Analyzing the Voice of Customer (VOC)
Developing Customer-Driven, Market Winning Products & Services
Evaluating and Choosing New Concepts
Analyzing Costs (including cost of quality)
Specifying Product Parts
Developing or Re-engineering Processes
Developing Process Plans & Production Controls
Achieving new ISO9000:2000 Certification
Performing Six Sigma Analysis, DMAIC and DFSS
Managing Product-Line Portfolios
TS 16,949 – ISO 9000:2000
KANO – uncover the WOW factors, marketplace delighters
Streamlining FMEAs
Using QFD Software, you will communicate better, you will understand marketplace needs better, you win big on the competitive landscape! Your design will crush the humdrum, me-too products and services of competitors. Your designs emerge in lockstep with customer needs. Your raise is a no-brainer! Our software tools help thousands worldwide boost profits and business success through stellar planning. You won’t believe how many uses you will find.
QFD methods are the secret weapon your competitors don’t want you to learn about!
A Black and Decker executive customer of IDEACore told us that QFD was a primary cause behind their success in small motors.
The American Society for Quality (ASQ) designates QFD as a necessity for DFSS (Design for Six Sigma).
Complementary Methods
Pugh Concept Selection
Design for Six Sigma (DFSS)
QFD helps you insure customer focus in your DFSS and DMAIC Six Sigma projects to double the payoff of defect reductions. Optimize resources by fixing defects with direct customer impact! Find your Critical to Quality (CTQ) success factors using web-based Interact tools. Then, import directly into QFD Designer’s powerful graphic business model where your can build your prioritized action plan.
Innovate - TRIZ
INNOVATE – With TRIZ for Inventive Problem Solving
Have Designers with Idea Blocks?
Would you like to..
Generate ideas faster?
Overcome technical contradictions?
Save time and money?
A technical contradiction occurs when two design factors work against each other. In other words, when you try to solve one design challenge you make another design issue worse. Think of a car… If you increase Horsepower you reduce Fuel Economy. If you increase Fuel Economy you reduce Horsepower. This contradiction stumps designers that need to improve both. Most companies try to respond to the problem with expensive and time-consuming research and development efforts. That is not always the answer.
Focused creativity lightens the burden and helps you avoid spending time and money reinventing the wheel. You can leverage “tried and true” design principles.
What if the solution builders at your company had a tool to ignite the creative thinking process? It’s TRIZ!
With TRIZ, you can brainstorm on the fly and IDEACore’s TRIZContrasolve is the way. With it, you can review TRIZ inventive principles gleaned from over 200,000 patents. It addresses over 1,500 technical contradictions. Colorful drawings of the inventive principles spur innovation.
More About TRIZ from the Technical Innovation Center
More About TRIZContrasolve