QFD vs. Customer Metrics
Some New Product Development practitioners contend that QFD has been made obsolete, having been replaced by a set of "customer metrics" that identify outcomes sought by a customer, and express them in non-technical language that a customer might use. As an example, consumers might seek a shaving razor that "minimizes the risk of nicks and cuts" or "minimizes the number of strokes needed for a smooth shave".
As useful as such metrics may be, they are simply not enough for the design team. It is one thing to identify how customers might measure a need - assuming that they can make such a measurement at all - and quite another to develop technical measurements that affect the design of new products. The customer metrics in this example do not identify real engineering characteristics like the inclination of the blade, the hardness of the stainless steel used, or initial sharpness of the razor's edge. Yet engineers must understand how each of these specifications relates to satisfaction of important customer needs - in this case, "fewer nicks and cuts." Only a process like QFD will deliver these metrics to the design team.
For more information on how QFD can help your team, please contact us.
