Design for Quality

Question 1

Explain the concept of Six Sigma and Design for Six Sigma

Answer 1

Six Sigma

• Strategic initative with an aim to reduce cost of poor quality and customer dissatisfaction emphasizing varuation reduction.
• Toolbox of statistical/qualatative methods that can identify causes and solutions to quality problems
• Project model: DMAIC

Design for Six Sigma

• Goal: to satisfy customer expectation and needs
• Focus on robustness
• Identification of Critical to Quality characteristics (CTQs)
• Enable Six Sigma levels in production

Question 2

Explain the Kano model and the different qualities related to it.

Answer 2

Explicit qualities

• Expected quality: Expected attributed by customers
• Reverse quality: Unwanted attributes by customer

Implicit qualities

• Indifferent quality: Attributes that do not affect satisfaction
• Attractive quality: Attributes that isn’t expected but creates (often high) satisfaction
• Necessary quality: Attributes that are taken for granted. Absence creates dissatisfaction

Question 3

Different needs are collected through different methods. Categorize and state some of these methods

Answer 3

Direct methods

• Interviews
• Focus groups
• Customer complaints
• Questionnares/survers

Indirect methods

• Observation in Gemba
• Experiments

Question 4

What is QFD? Give and overview of steps in QFD. What critisism has it recieved?

Answer 4

Description
A systematic process that translation of customer needs into goals and measurements that a company can work with in all parts of the development process.

Overview

• Identify customers’ needs and expectations
• Rank the identified needs and expectations
• Sketch on a traget profile for the company
• Decompose needs to:
  
  • Product characteristics
  • Product function
  • Process operations
  • Production requirements

Critisism

• Time consuming
• Resource demanding
• Extent of use is questioned

Question 5

Describe the four parts in the QFD process and all of the houses that are included

Answer 5

Four parts in a QFD process

1. Market analysis
2. Competition analysis
3. Identification of key factors (e.g customer attributes)
4. Translation of key factors into product/process characteristics
   5.

Question 6

What is necessary of customer needs and product characteristics?

Answer 6

Customer needs

A customer need should:

• Be applicable to an identified problem
• Have the possibility to generate a number of differentiated technical solutions

Product characteristics

Connected to customer needs should be:

• Measurable
• Controllable
• Concept independent

Question 7

What is the Pugh concept and what are it’s benefits? How is it constructed?

Answer 7

Explanation

A method to develop, evaluate and select various alternatives

• Based on pre-defined criteria
• Preformed in groups
• Qualatitive approach

Benefits

• Structured evaluation
• Selecting best concepts & elimination weaker ones
• Helps identify opportuinities for combination

Construction a Pugh matrix

1. Chose/develop criteria for comparision (customer input)
2. Select alternatives to compare
3. Generate scores (+ / – / S)
4. Compute total score

Question 8

What is Robust Design Methodology? Describe the commonly used models in RDM

Answer 8

Explanation

• RDM entails systematic efforst to achieve insensitivity to noise factors through a set of principles, practices and tools.
• These efforts are founded on awareness of variation and can be applied in all stages of product design
• Key principles:
  
  • Awareness of variation
  • Insensitivity to noise factors (sources of variation)
  • Continous applicability

Question 9

Explain the different customer rolls that Lengnick-Hall discusses

Answer 9

Customer os resource:

• Use customer feedback to increase quality.
• Tools: Suverys, market analysis, focus groups, interviews

Customer as co-producer

• Let the customer be a part of the process
• E.g: IKEA furniture assembly
• Tools: Cross functional groups

Customer as buyer

• External communications can affect potential buyers to become actual buyers
• Tools: Marketing & branding

Customer as user

• Users of the product/service, customer satisfaction can be met by determining and managing expectations -> decrease gap of expectation vs expereince
• Tools: observation of customers, product communication

Customer as product

• Customer is a part of the product
• E.g: patient in healthcare, gym member or creating brand association