Review By: Marcus Makaiwi
04/26/2004”Quality Function Deployment; How to Make QFD Work for You” explains a systematic methodology for capturing and organizing the “desires of the customers” into tangible software design, hardware architecture, and related services. This book provides clear instructions for completing the House of Quality, which is the most frequently used QFD matrix for relating customer needs to technical solutions. It describes concrete steps for gathering the Voice of the Customer from which to build the House of Quality. The House of Quality is further delineated into tangible “quality tables,” which serve as launching points for designing subsequent phases within the product lifecycle.

Lou Cohen, explains the QFD process, including a brief but rich history of how the QFD evolved within quality circles. The author brings together a chronology of significant events in the U.S. that served to advance the popularity of QFD. It
provides a good orientation for those investigating QFD, and is a concrete reference for QFD implementers. Cohen elaborates on practical issues like time estimates and QFD group facilitation topics, which are factors that contribute to successful implementation of the QFD.

The book enlightens readers about developing strategies for introducing QFD into their organizations. It provides insight for managing the cultural and strategic changes necessary for successful execution of a QFD. The author communicates his own experiences by including personal examples to clarify key principles. The book serves to sharpen the skilled QFD facilitator and equips the novice QFD user with information that entices them to promote the benefits of QFD.

The book does a good job of explaining the chronology of events that led to the current application of QFD. The QFD, in and of itself, is a very practical tool for translating customer desires into technical design elements. This book sufficiently explains how QFD fits into the organization and why it is vital to the product development lifecycle. More than simply articulating QFD at a high level, the book explains in detail how a QFD practitioner would plan, schedule, and prepare to do a QFD. Moreover, it provides a good synopsis of organizational challenges QFD users should anticipate. The Interrelated Matrices section effectively demonstrates how each matrix (or quality table) with in the House of Quality is derived, and how each quality table serves as a building block for the next. The word processing example used through out the book to explain the QFD tool is relevant and served as a good case study.

Published in 1995, this book is lacking up-to-date references and links to online spreadsheets now available to avid QFD practitioners. Future publications should include real-life examples of successful QFD experiences. This would enhance the dull, textbook-like feel of the book. It would be helpful to have a CD with the book that contains electronic spreadsheets with predefined computations that can be easily modified by users. Although the book does address scheduling, it does not adequately communicate how time-consuming a QFD can be on organizational resources in the real world, or the difficulties of scheduling customers and subject matter experts away for several days to complete the initial House of Quality.