Quality Alchemist (品質煉金術師): HKSQ Webinar on A Framework of Use for QFD

The Hong Kong Society for Quality (HKSQ) organized a webinar on “A Framework of Use for QFD” on 19^th March 2022. The webinar aimed to introduce a framework for addressing the issue of “use” in a more holistic manner so that QFD teams could draw up well-thought-out plans to collect data and customer/user voices when making projects with product and service development. Dr. Catherine Y.P. Chan was the guest speaker and she is president of Hong Kong QFD Association and also HKSQ exco member, as well as, 2019 Akao Prize®Recipient.

Firstly, Dr. Catherine Chan briefed the importance of comprehensiveness of need list and introduced two fundamental steps for operating the interpretation deployment of QFD as i) Draw up the list of explored needs and ii) Find out the importance of the explored needs.

Then she identified the need list through user, co-user and non-user.

And then Dr. Chan proposed the framework of QFD included four level and they are Product, Market, Society and Globe.

After that she explained each level in details and major forms of voice of collect using Observation and Listening. Some companies would use free web forum and mounted video recording that ensure to quantity of data and efficiency of collection. However, dialoguing with customers could ensure the quality of data and effectiveness of collection.

For society level, she mentioned to manage Co-User and introduced two major forms of Co-User that are sequential form (e.g. Bike sharing) and simultaneous form (e.g. Urban rail).

Finally, Dr. Chan discussed views of product level to market level to society level and then to globe level. She explained the manufacturer-customer relationship that supply chain and consumption chain joined in a loop like circular economy. Lastly, Dr. Catherine Chan concluded that four aspects of the framework were not independent but intertwined.