Gemba Success Story

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) Case Study: Standardizing Custom Parts

This case study shows how Quality Function Deployment can be applied to improve product standardization and significantly reduce costs due to customization.

Background
Until the late 1990s, the Communication Satellite industry was dominated by five large payload/satellite manufacturers and a significant degree of customization took place on a satellite-by-satellite basis. Much of this customization was due as much to changes in application (environment, operating frequency) affecting the test program as actual product changes.

In a hierarchical structure, the payload and system engineers would write technical specifications to which suppliers could respond. For component and subsystem suppliers, this translated into multiple (similar) designs being manufactured and tested.

Solution
The first step was to develop and deliver a Quality Function Deployment seminar to engineering and procurement representatives from the five satellite manufacturers and one service provider (the end user).

A training session on QFD facilitated the clear definition of the difference between the customers’ deemed quality requirements and the technical implementation and how they were mapped in a House of Quality matrix.

After a mapping exercise, the participants discovered:

· Almost half of the specified requirements were identical.

· Almost half of the requirements were different (manufacturer-to-manufacturer, program-to-program), resulting in the same product being manufactured under different part numbers and subjected to different test programs.

· Three requirements were specified differently resulting in different parts being manufactured. On analysis it was found that these three requirements could easily be standardized.

· Some of the technical requirements did not make sense in terms of meeting the customers’ actual need. Some technical specifications were based on a misunderstanding of the required technology.

Results
From the QFD exercise, it became clear that by specifying technical requirements rather than a customer need, customers were causing a proliferation of part numbers resulting in significant cost impacts.

After the exercise, a significant degree of standardization took place in product design and test programs resulting in:

For the supplier

· Reduced inventory

· Simpler manufacturing and test flow

· Reduced Engineering/Program Management effort

For the customer

· Reduced engineering time on specific programs

· Ability to substitute common parts across programs

· Reduced lead-time

· Reduced cost