Quality Alchemist (品質煉金術師): Seminar on QFD and Service Quality

The seminar on "QFD and Service Quality" was hosted by Hong Kong Quality Fuction Deployment Association (HKQFDA) and Spanish Association for Quality (AEC) on 21st Feb 2012. QFD is a product development methodology originated in Japan since 1960. QFD has quickly spread to the servicing industry such as banking, insurance, logistics, tourism, hotel and medical in the 1980s.

Dr. Catherine Chan (President, HKQFDA) gave an introduction of QFD. QFD had been developed since 1960. It aimed to assure quality from design to product.

Founders of QFD (Prof. Shigeru Mizuno and Prof. Yoji Akao) were introduced.

Then the main use of QFD in quality planning, product/service development and process improvement were discussed. The following organizations in service industry were employed QFD.

Then Catherine introduced the second speaker - Dr. Palmira Lopez-Fresno who established Spain QFD Association in 2011.

Dr. Palmira Lopez-Fresno (Vice President of AEC and President, Service Quality Committee of AEC) presentation topic was "QFD & Service Quality".

Firstly, Dr. Palmira introduced the concept of quality. On of famous descriptions of quality was "Meeting and/or exceeding customers expectations", which was quoted from Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1985). The following diagram showed the service quality in term of Moments of Truth.

Customer satisfaction and loyalty are related to the organziations' ability to meet or exceed customer needs and expectations in a consistent, sustainable and trusting way. The following model demonstration the relationship between customer and organziation. The strategy to employ QFD from expected quality to objective quality was mentioned.

There were two dimensions in service quality that one was procedures and the other was people. For procedures dimension, "Do the right things" (Effectiveness) and "Do the things right" (Efficiency) were both important. It could be combined to be "Do the right things right"! (Effectiveness & Efficiency). For people dimension, it included attitudes, behaviors and skills.

Then Dr. Palmira introduced Service Quality Management using PDCA circle as diagram below.

Service quality management included the following elements:

- Customer (internal and external) oriented

- Good knowledge of customer needs and expectations

- Good planning on strategic and operative

- Good deployment and alignment of objectives and specifications

- Effective and efficient processes

- Continuous improvement and innovation

- Consistency of service quality throughout service channels

- Take care of all tangible and intangible details

- Effective reaction to fails

She concluded that planning was a critical step to assure service quality and QFD assisted organziation to identify and understand customer needs and expectations and translate them into product specifications.

Lastly, She quoted Steve Jobs statement to conclude the important of decision on new product.

Dr. Catherine Chan gave the last talk entitled "An Example of Applying QFD on Understanding Patients' Satisfaction with Surgery".

The study was conducted by Ms. Yukie Kozawa (Akao's PhD student) at a hospital in Japan and reported at the International Conference on ISO9000 & TQM at Shanghai in 2005.

Understanding of patients' needs (not only being cured but also treatment) were important. QFD was employed to define the qualities demanded by patients for surgery services, and then to translate the demanded qualities of patients into the quality elements of surgery services.