Identifying customer requirements for product design in the wood industry: An QFD application

The quality function deployment method known as QFD is one of the TQM techniques and seeks to understand how we need to understand quality to meet customer expectations. The QFD technique is a systematic process for identifying and understanding the needs of customers. From the designers' point of view, customer needs can seem vague, qualitative, incomplete and sometimes contradictory. Customers say only what they want (WHATs). Designers need to understand how these things can be accomplished with a product or service (HOWs). Designers need HOWs to design. There is a clear gap between WHATs and HOWs. Customers WHATs are usually expressed in the language of the customers themselves and need to be translated into designers HOWs that have measurable, measurable, and feasible engineering features so that they can be used by designers in design. QFD is one of the techniques that bridge this gap and helps translate customers WHATs to designers HOWs. The subject of this study is the implementation of the QFD method in the wood industry, which is done in order to increase the quality and pay special attention to the needs of customers. Since the products manufactured in this industry are different, this project tries to implement QFD for a product group. Based on the results of this study, requirements such as suitable color combination of MDF, beauty and luxury of the design, product guarantee demand, product resistance to heat and humidity, the presence of showcase and decoration in the design, and drawer implementation, are the most important customer demands. By considering these customer demands in the product, while increasing its quality, customer satisfaction will increase and customer loyalty to the organization will enhance.

Keywords:

Quality function deployment , Wood industry , House of quality , Voice of customer , Engineering features , Sustainable product design