A comprehensive review on recent developments in quality function deployment

Originally developed in Japan in the late 1960s and based on the concepts of quality control and value engineering, quality function deployment (QFD) has been considered a useful tool for product development. It can effectively translate customer requirements into appropriate engineering characteristics for each stage of product development and production such as planning, product design, production process development and manufacture. This paper aims to provide a more balanced review of QFD that exhibits enough depth to be useful to researchers as well as enough breadth to cater for amateur readers. The focus is on materials published between 2005 and 2009. Previous reviews on QFD are commented and followed by reviews on recent developments of new methodologies, technical improvements and integration of QFD with other tools. The reviewed methodologies include fuzzy set theory, multicriteria decision analysis model, artificial neural network and hybrid approaches. Resource allocation, Kano's model, failure mode and effects analysis, robust design and an assortment of other recently developed tools are reviewed and evaluated in the context of their integration with QFD in an effort to improve the effectiveness and applicability of QFD in product design.