House of Quality template

aka Quality Functional Deployment Matrix

QFD House of Quality template with all the power and familiarity of Microsoft Excel

The first thing that most people notice about the

Systems2win QFD template

is that it can be huge or tiny; easily scaling to the size you need

Sample House of Quality QFD Example

This QFD Excel template

for quality function deployment

is easily scaled to analyze up to 50 customer demands, 50 performance measures, 4 customer segments, and 5 competitors on a single chart.

In the rare event that you need more than that, you can use multiple sheets (perhaps for different customer segments) to analyze unlimited customer demands and performance measures for unlimited customer segments and competitors.

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Training

Training Videos for your

House of Quality Excel template

These videos are helpful to watch together when you launch your team

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before

Before getting started using your

House of Quality template

Are you sure this deserves QFD analysis?

The bottom line question answered by QFD analysis is:

"Which Performance Measures will the design team select to improve?"

Launch your team

Launch your team

using the same methods and templates that you use to launch any team for any type of process improvement.

Before taking on an advanced six sigma tool like this House of Quality template,

every team member should complete the foundational New User Training to learn the basic features that are common to every one of your 150+ Systems2win templates for process improvement.

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start

How to get started using your

House of Quality QFD template

Find and open your template

If you don't yet own a license, you can download your free trial now.

This is one of the only Systems2win templates that requires you to enable macros.

Save your working document

following the usual document storage and naming conventions established by your leaders

Open a Blank Sheet

Rename your new sheet.

Personalize your drop down lists

Even if your leaders have already personalized the DV sheet in your master template so that you are starting with typical drop down lists for YOUR company,

you still might want to edit some of those drop down lists for your unique QFD.

Personalize your master template

If you find that your teams are making the same changes to your template every time that they start a new QFD project,

then your leaders can personalize your master template in ways that your personalizations will be automatically found and transferred to your new upgraded master template every time that you upgrade.

(In the same ways that you can personalize every one of your Systems2win templates, that all have consistent, standardized features for faster learning, and less wasted time)

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phases

How to use your

House of Quality template for all 4 phases of QFD

In the Systems2win menu in the Excel Ribbon bar...

When you select '4 Phase QFD Wizard', it automatically...

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phase1

House of Quality Template

QFD Phase 1) Performance Requirements

The first phase of QFD
(which is often the only phase deployed by a design team)

provides a system for translating potentially vague customer desires into prioritized, observable, measurable functional requirements for design specifications for a deliverable product or service.

Start by gathering Voice of the Customer Data

Your Systems2win templates include an entire suite of tools that your team will find useful for

• Getting ideas for how to listen to your customers
• Gathering Voice of the Customer data
• Translating vague customer comments into actionable engineering terminology

Learn more about your Voice of the Customer templates

Translate Voice of the Customer

Translate the Voice of the Customer into "engineering speak" functional requirements

using your Voice of the Customer Translation template (VOC-Kano.xlsx)

Transcribe your Voice of the Customer data

Transcribe your data from your Voice of the Customer Translation template to your QFD Phase 1 worksheet.

Demanded Qualities

This is the Voice of the Voice of the Customer translated into Demanded Qualities

Enter your Demanded Qualities into the header cells for each row in the primary section of your QFD template.

Do not use word wrap; so that your charts will stay aligned with your rows.

Performance Measures

These are your functional requirements, translated into Performance Measures

Enter your Performance Measures into the header cells for each column in the primary section of your QFD template.

Desired Direction of Measure

Use the drop down list to clarify for each Performance Measure:

▲ Higher number is better
▼ Lower number is better
O Target is best

resize

Resize

To resize your House of Quality template, simply select 'Change # Rows and Columns'

in your Systems2win menu in the Excel ribbon bar

Yes, it will even resize the roof of the house for your desired number of columns!!!

To move, add, or remove rows or columns, see Advanced Training.

Complete the left wing: Importance for Typical Customer

Note: It is important to complete the left wing section of your QFD first,

because some bottom wing calculations require a non-blank value for Composite Importance

Description of Typical Customer

Use the text box to clarify how your team defines your "typical customer".

Tip: In addition to your typical customer, you can also optionally analyze additional customer segments in the Competitive Analysis section (in the right wing of your House of Quality template)

Customer Satisfaction

The Customer Satisfaction Rating System that you define on the DV sheet, will be used in the drop down lists for both:

1. Customer Evaluation of Our Offering

   Typical customer's current level of satisfaction with our offering

2. Target Level of Satisfaction

   Design Team's decision for the level of customer satisfaction to design the product to meet

Again... you can define any scale that you want,
(as long as higher numbers are better)
but most teams use the default scale of:

0 Disappointed
to 5 Extremely Satisfied

Be sure that your scale numbers and descriptions match the numbers and descriptions that you used in your customer survey.

Or if you did customer interviews, make sure that they match the scale numbers and descriptions that you defined when your team prepared for those interviews using your Operational Definitions template (Op_Def.xlsx).

Ratio of Improvement

"How much do we need to improve?"

Ratio of Improvement = Target Level of Satisfaction / Customer Evaluation of Our Offering

Sales Points

Usually leave blank

Some companies allow Sales to skew the weighting factors for no more than 3 rows:

1.5 = Demanded Qualities that will differentiate this product from the competition.

1.2 = Important selling point

Composite Importance

Composite Importance = Importance * Ratio of Improvement * Sales Points

Composite Importance %

This auto-calculates, so that the sum always equals 100%

Complete the center section: Relationships

Weighted Total Importance

Weighted Total Importance = The sum of the column's Relationship Correlation Ratings x Composite Importance ratings (rounded up to the nearest whole number).

Tip: If Composite Importance is blank, that row will not be included in this calculation!!!

% Total Importance

This auto-calculates, so that the sum always equals 100%

Complete the roof: Correlations

Roof Correlation symbols

Tip: Yes, your team can replace these drop down choices on the DV sheet, but why? These are pretty visual and intuitive symbols, aren't they?

Optional right wing: Customer Types and Competitors

Complete the bottom section: Performance Analysis

Optional Data

You can have unlimited rows and columns of optional data,

and you have all the power of familiar Microsoft Excel to add your own optional formulas, analyses, and/or charts.

Measured Performance

Use this section to validate

that scientifically observed results for each Performance Measure produce results that match up with customer ratings of our offering vs. competitors.

If they don't match,

then maybe tests aren't measuring what the customer really wants.

Desired Targets

To choose which targets are worthy of engineering resources,

take into consideration the weight of importance, Kano Analysis, difficulty, and current capability as compared to competitors

Difficulty

Difficulty to get from the current level of performance to your desired level of performance.

Your team can define any scale that you want,
(as long as higher numbers are more difficult)
but most teams use the default scale of:

0 Almost no effort required, to
5 Huge, time-consuming, expensive project

Capability

Current capability to deliver your chosen level of target performance.

The higher the number, the more capable you are to deliver.

There are several popular scales for Capability.

Perhaps use simple 0-5 scale.

Perhaps use Cp index. (ratio of specification to manufacturing sigma)

Perhaps use Cpk index. (process sigma to nearest spec / 3)

Selected to Improve

The very bottom row of your House of Quality Template is where your team makes it's final decisions.

Drop down choices for these bottom line decisions:

X = Selected to improve
(conditional formatting will highlight the X in bold red)

. (period) = No special effort planned for this column of Performance Measure

(blank) = The team has not yet decided

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advanced

Advanced Training

to move, add, or remove rows or columns

It is important to understand that when you use the feature to

'Change Number of Rows & Columns'...

in the Systems2win menu in the Excel ribbon bar

it hides rows and columns; it does not delete them.

There are always 50 rows and 50 columns in the main section.

To avoid messing things up...

it is very important to never insert or delete rows or columns in the main section of your QFD workbook.

You must instead follow these special instructions... (below)

To Remove a Row between existing rows in the main section

Never add or delete rows or columns in the main section

1. Unprotect the sheet
2. Select the row(s) you want to remove, then use Shift Down and Move to move entire rows
   to the bottom of the main section
3. To reduce the number of rows, use Systems2win menu > Change # Rows and Columns

   This will also delete the data from the bottom rows that get hidden, and will reprotect your sheet.

To Move a Column in the main section

Do not move an entire column

1. Back up your workbook (just in case)
2. Select all of the cells in the column beneath the red roof

   (starting with the thin gold line just below the red roof,
   and ending with the thin gold line at the very bottom, just below the 'Selected To Improve' row)

3. Copy (Ctrl+C)
4. Select the cell in the thin gold line just below the roof for the column where you want to paste
5. Paste (Ctrl+V)

Tips:

You might need to 'play the shuffle game'... temporarily copying to a blank column.

You can copy & paste more than one column at a time, as long as you don't try to paste within any portion of the same highlighted area from which you just copied.

To Add a Column between existing columns in the main section

Never add or delete rows or columns in the main section

1. To increase the number of columns, use Systems2win menu > Change # Rows and Columns
2. Use the special instructions (above) to move columns where you want them

To Remove a Column between existing columns in the main section

Never add or delete rows or columns in the main section

1. Use the special instructions (above) to move your unwanted columns to the right end of the main section
2. To reduce the number of columns, use Systems2win menu > Change # Rows and Columns

   This will also delete the data from the columns on the far right that get hidden, and will reprotect your sheet.

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phase2

House of Quality Template

QFD Phase 2) Product or Service Design

The purpose of Phase 2 is to evaluate and choose between alternative product designs to meet the Performance Requirements chosen in Phase 1.

When you have completed your Phase 1 worksheet,

click the button in the Systems2win menu

for '4 Phase QFD Wizard', and select Phase 2.

This will auto-generate a new sheet that is formatted for Phase 2 QFD:

• The new sheet will be correctly named to end with -P2
• The Performance Requirements from the columns of your Phase 1 worksheet have been transcribed to serve as the starting point for your rows in your Phase 2 worksheet.
• The columns are now for Product Design Characteristics
• You won't be doing Competitive Analysis for any phase other than phase 1, so those columns and charts have been deleted.

Decision Making

Phase 2 is when your team might also use your decision making templates

Most popularly, you might use your Decision PICK Matrix template

perhaps with the special rating scale of a Pugh Matrix

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phase3

QFD Phase 3) Process Design

The purpose of Phase 3 is to define the Critical to Satisfaction parameters needed to physically produce and/or deliver the product or service in ways that reliably meet or exceed the design specifications.

This will auto-generate a new sheet that is formatted for Phase 3 QFD:

• The new sheet will be correctly named to end with '-P3'
• The Product Design Characteristics from the columns of your Phase 2 worksheet have been transcribed to serve as the starting point for your rows in your Phase 3 worksheet.
• The columns are now for Process Design Parameters.
• You won't need the roof of the house,
  so it has been deleted from this Phase 3 worksheet.

Tip: In this phase, you will want to allow extra time for Hansei

to think, ponder, and reflect,

perhaps using some of your other tools for process improvement

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control

QFD Phase 4) Process Control and Quality Control

The purpose of the fourth phase of QFD is to define process and quality controls for each step of the process.

When you have completed your Phase 3 worksheet,

click the button in the Systems2win menu

for '4 Phase QFD Wizard', and select Phase 4.

This will auto-generate a new sheet that is formatted for Phase 4 QFD:

• The new sheet will be correctly named to end with -P4
• The Process Design Parameters from the columns of your Phase 3 worksheet have been transcribed to serve as the starting point for your rows in your Phase 4 worksheet.
• Phase 4 is a much simpler spreadsheet and will look very different for any given industry or product family.

 

Tips

Every company has very different measures for Phase 4 QFD process controls.

You can use everything you know about familiar Microsoft Excel to personalize your template for your unique column headers.

Some teams choose to use their Control Plan template to serve as the 4th phase of QFD.

 

Illustration courtesy of Strategic Quality

Learn more about FMEA.

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Reading

Suggested Reading and Resources for

QFD House of Quality

• Step by Step QFD, by John Terminko
• Quality Function Deployment QFD, by Yoji Akao

Tip: The FMEA Control Plan can often serve as the 4th phase of QFD

More Suggested Reading

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This House of Quality Excel template comes with many other useful DFSS Tools, Voice of the Customer Tools, and DMAIC Tools

to empower every team member to improve every process