Summary Literature Seminar week 5

Question 1

Lengnick-Hall(1996) explain 5 distinct roles of a customer. which?

Answer 1

Customer oriented outputs:

• Customer as user: Built on relationship with the customer, expectations and experience. Know the product.
• Customer as product: Testing new product. Perceiving change in products.
• Customer as buyer: Potential customer into actual customer, how customer feel when purchasing the product.

Input focused customer contributions:

• Customer as resource: Input on the products, i.e through surveys, interviews.
• Customer as Co-producer: Know how to use the product in order to get most out of it. Active in the value-creating-process.

Taking quality into account, it´s good to listen to the customer, maybe use customer as a resource.

Question 2

Discuss how customer focus can be used to enhance continuous improvement and teamwork e.g by using broadend view in Lengnick-Hall or EBCD in Gremyr et.al

Answer 2

Possible to view the customer as a co-producer and resource. Focusing more on the customer input could improve quality.
EBCD discuss how its possible to use focus groups, interview and compare experience with each other. Management select experiences that can improve the service or product for improvement.

Question 3

Drivers of customer satisfaction based on Gremyr et.al and relate to the role of provider in relation to customer will change using Grönroos view on value generation

Answer 3

Drivers:
Image - View on brand/company
Expectation - Before purchase, shaped by i.e marketing material/campaigns
Product Quality - Experience quality of the product
Service Quality - experienced quality of the services associated with the “product”, e.g after market services.
Percieved Quality - Benefits the customer perceive they get for the money spent

The provider and customer meet in the joint sphere to create value.
The service providers goal is to facilitate the customers creation of value in use by providing value supporting resources as potential value in use, which this customer may convert into realized value in use in their own sphere.

Question 4

Describe QFD and RDM

Description should include concrete illustrations from care centre.

Answer 4

QFD translate in a systematic way from customer needs to tangible qualities. Purpose: to create a red thread from product development to production.
To use QFD you first identify customer needs and expectations,
Then rank the identified needs and expectation
Then Sketch on target profile for the company
Then Decompose needs to: product characteristics, product function, process operation, product requirements

RDM is used to understand why variation is important in product development. and what causes variation in the performance of products. And understand when noise factor should be taken into account. example från Cochlear lecture, large variation in transducer resonance frequency creates reliability and quality problems.

Question 5

Challenge and benefit of using QFD for the care centre

Answer 5

Since QFD is a long process it is criticised to be slow. However advantage is improved communication between teams. improved knowledge and unity in the group. Also more rational design decisions.

Question 6

Discuss one challenge and one benefit of using RDM for the care centre.

Answer 6

Understand noise factor and the variation in the RDM process for the care centre. Slow?

Question 7

Give two concrete advices for the care centre on how to start implementing QFD and RDM in a way that support their overall Quality Management effort.

Answer 7

Understand customer needs and expectations. What does not work and what can be improved. Use the HoQ to save time and compare alternatives. RDM can be implemented as soon as we are done with choosing the design and minimise the variations.