The QFD Handbook

Rating:
Summary: Lead author wins "Akao Prize" for excellence in QFD writing
Review: The lead author, Dr. Jack B. ReVelle, was selected to receive the 1999 "Akao Prize" for excellence in QFD writing, research, and practice at the International QFD Symposium in Brazil in August.

Rating:
Summary: Doing QFD Right
Review: The QFD Handbook is a great surprise. A surprise for what it actually delivers compared to similar books. This book is not another mechanics "how to" book. Rather, it is an applications "how to" book. It does not tell you how to form and quantify QFD matrices. It tells you how and where to apply QFD and how to integrate it with other valuable tools of advanced quality. That approach creates enormous added value.

The QFD Handbook is also a surprise because its contributors are among some of the most respected practitioners in the world. These experts provide insight into the integration of many Quality Improvement tools into QFD. The result is an approach that provides guidance to the concurrent use of these tools which, when used in the proper context, produce an output far greater than QFD alone.

In addition to the text, facilitating software is included. QFD/Pathway provides exactly what it says, a pathway through the planning and performance of the QFD process. If one considers the knowledge base provided by the book's contributors alone, it is an excellent buy. When one adds in the software, it is invaluable.

Rating:
Summary: Doing QFD Right
Review: The QFD Handbook is a great surprise. A surprise for what it actually delivers compared to similar books. This book is not another mechanics "how to" book. Rather, it is an applications "how to" book. It does not tell you how to form and quantify QFD matrices. It tells you how and where to apply QFD and how to integrate it with other valuable tools of advanced quality. That approach creates enormous added value.

The QFD Handbook is also a surprise because its contributors are among some of the most respected practitioners in the world. These experts provide insight into the integration of many Quality Improvement tools into QFD. The result is an approach that provides guidance to the concurrent use of these tools which, when used in the proper context, produce an output far greater than QFD alone.

In addition to the text, facilitating software is included. QFD/Pathway provides exactly what it says, a pathway through the planning and performance of the QFD process. If one considers the knowledge base provided by the book's contributors alone, it is an excellent buy. When one adds in the software, it is invaluable.

Rating:
Summary: Doing QFD Right
Review: The QFD Handbook is a great surprise. A surprise for what it actually delivers compared to similar books. This book is not another mechanics "how to" book. Rather, it is an applications "how to" book. It does not tell you how to form and quantify QFD matrices. It tells you how and where to apply QFD and how to integrate it with other valuable tools of advanced quality. That approach creates enormous added value.

The QFD Handbook is also a surprise because its contributors are among some of the most respected practitioners in the world. These experts provide insight into the integration of many Quality Improvement tools into QFD. The result is an approach that provides guidance to the concurrent use of these tools which, when used in the proper context, produce an output far greater than QFD alone.

In addition to the text, facilitating software is included. QFD/Pathway provides exactly what it says, a pathway through the planning and performance of the QFD process. If one considers the knowledge base provided by the book's contributors alone, it is an excellent buy. When one adds in the software, it is invaluable.

Rating:
Summary: A Complete Treatise on QFD!
Review: This book is not for the faint of heart. But if you really want to understand the concept and benefits of Quality Function Deployment and learn how to effectively implement it in your business, this book will cover everything you will need to know. Your time and money investment will be returned to you tenfold when you discover what your customers are truly looking for from your company after following the guidelines outlined in this book.

Rating:
Summary: A Complete Treatise on QFD!
Review: This book is not for the faint of heart. But if you really want to understand the concept and benefits of Quality Function Deployment and learn how to effectively implement it in your business, this book will cover everything you will need to know. Your time and money investment will be returned to you tenfold when you discover what your customers are truly looking for from your company after following the guidelines outlined in this book.

Rating:
Summary: A good topics handbook assuming you know the basics
Review: This book serves as a good starting point for QFD topics. "How many areas can you apply QFD to deploying customer needs?" is the theme of this text. Applications to software, Lean/Six Sigma, obtaining management support, and TRIZ are found here. And, most importantly, this book serves as a resource for generating ideas on how to apply QFD to strategic and daily tasks. As with all QFD books that I have seen, there are no real-life examples - you will find but one example that an author (Mazur) applied to a Japanese translating business.

The chapters on management support of QFD are good. I disagree with some advice found here on getting top-management support before you start a QFD exercise, especially if applied to a large organization. To have initial top management support for any new process or technique, then have the initiative actually live up to original expectations without some retrenching is not very realistic, especially in most larger organizations. A more realistic approach would be to pilot QFD on a succession of smaller applications, then gain wider support from upper management as success is achieved over time.

It would be very helpful to have a resource on actual QFD case studies, even if the results were changed in order to protect organizational secrets. In particular, I would like to see case studies as applied to common applications such as public education or city services. I also would have liked to see more "how to" on TRIZ and design for six sigma. These subjects are widely reuseable and very intuitive for readers to absorb. I would also like more discussion on cultural issues and its effect on using QFD. For instance, a common American cultural bias toward quick results and inserting individual opinion into the process. Contrast this with perhaps an foreign (say, for instance, Japanese, where the technique originated) cultural bias toward group harmony, then you might find a big difference in the way that QFD is effectively employed.

Overall, I recommend this as a resource text, but I recommend that you first learn the mechanics of collecting the customer's voice and the building house of quality. Cohen's book is a good starting place for this, among others.