Enhancing the quality function deployment conceptual design tool

The quality function deployment (QFD) conceptual design tool has been of significant benefit to customer satisfaction, while reducing the associated design time and cost. Observation of novice designers in tertiary engineering design courses identified a range of impediments to the robust transfer of QFD capabilities to the novice designers. These impediments appear to limit the perceived merit of QFD in novice designers and stymie its subsequent practical application. Given the improved design outcomes associated with QFD, a series of enhancements has been developed to overcome these impediments and assist the robust transfer of QFD capabilities to novice designers. The traditional QFD tool does not engage with customer requirements that constrain the feasibility of a design solution. This limitation restricts the applicability of QFD as an overarching design reference because an additional repository is required to document design constraints and may result in confusion in novice designers and flawed design outcomes if design constraints are used. A novel differential assessment method has been developed to overcome this limitation by enabling the inclusion of design constraints. The outcomes of this paper contribute to design education by facilitating the robust transfer of QFD capabilities and providing novel enhancements that expand the useful outcomes associated with QFD.