A Fuzzy Quality Function Deployment QFD Approach To Determine Customer Needs For Driving Mirror

The limited resources and increased market competition and product complexity require a customer-driven quality management and product development system achieving higher customer satisfaction. Quality function deployment (QFD) is used as a powerful tool for improving product design and quality, and obtaining a customer-driven quality system to maximize customer satisfaction. The engineering design characteristics related to product performance and quality are specified for this purpose. In this context, both qualitative and quantitative factors must be considered. The fuzzy QFD is used to convert qualitative information into quantitative parameters. The study starts by identifying the features that the purchased product should have (customer requirements-„„WHATs‟‟) in order to satisfy the company‟s needs, then it continues to establish the technical requirements („„HOWs‟‟) to meet customer requirements. In this study, fuzzy numbers which allows the company to define by means of linguistic variables are used in order to determine the relative importance of the „„WHATs‟‟, the „„HOWs‟‟–„„WHATs‟‟ correlation scores, the resulting weights of the „„HOW‟‟. Special attention is paid to the various subjective assessments in the house of quality (HOQ) process, and symmetrical triangular fuzzy numbers are suggested to capture the vagueness in people‟s verbal assessments. This approach is used in the development of driving mirror of a car according to customer requirements.