A fuzzy group decision-making method in the relationship between customer requirements and technical measures of quality function deployment

Quality function deployment (QFD) was developed in Japan and used extensively by Toyota and its suppliers. The process results in a matrix, referred to as the "house of quality," for a particular product that relates customer requirements to technical measures. Determining the relationship between customer requirements and technical measures is a typical group decision-making process in QFD by a cross-functional team. Generally, different and/or even subjective opinions are happened often in a group decision-making process due to the limitations of experience and vagueness. Obviously, the relationship between customer requirements and technical measures are determined by a group of people with imprecision and vagueness. Under such circumstances, a fuzzy group decision-making method can be applied in the relationship between customer requirements and technical measures of QFD to deal with a group decision-making process when the information is filled with imprecision and fuzziness. Moreover, an example is presented as well as the procedures to show how this fuzzy group decision-making method can be effectively used in QFD to make decisions with imprecision and vagueness. Significance: Quality function deployment (QFD) provides aframework for translating customer satisfaction into identifiable and measurable conformance specifications for product or service design. The application of a fuzzy group decision-making method in ranking the importance for each technical measure of QFD is studied in this paper.