The Leading Edge In Quality Function Deployment

The leading edge in QFD: pushing the boundaries. QFD or, to use its full title, Quality Function Deployment, was originally developed in the 1960s in Japan. The first application was at Bridgestone Tire in 1966. It was mainly aimed at ensuring that all those actions needed to be done to ensure the quality of a product were done and, moreover, that scarce resources were focused on the most important areas. In the 1980s with the discovery of ‘‘Japanese management’’ in the West, QFD was discovered and adopted enthusiastically around the world. Seminal articles such as Hauser and Clausing’s (1988) Harvard Business Review article ‘‘The house of quality’’ and King’s (1997) book Better Designs in Half the Time among many others catalysed and fuelled the widespread adoption. The QFD Institute was formed in the USA in 1993. An annual USA QFD symposium is now in its 15th year. In Japan, the Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) ran the first International QFD Symposium in 1995, and a year later the International Council for QFD was formed. The Council has sponsored subsequent International QFD Symposia each year since 1995, in the USA (twice), Sweden, Australia, Brazil, Germany and in Tokyo again. The 2003 Symposium will be held in the USA, and the 2004 Symposium will be held in Mexico. The QFD Institute also instituted the Akao Prize in 1996 (in honour of Professor Yoji Akao, one of the co-founders of QFD) for outstanding contribution to the development of QFD. To date 25 eminent scholars and practitioners have been awarded this prestigious prize. The German QFD Institute was founded in 1996. Both the German and the US QFD Institutes have recently begun training programs in QFD. QFD principles have been applied to the development and realisation of physical goods, intangible services, software, systems, and strategy, for both internal and external stakeholders and customers, and in a wide range of industries in both public and private enterprises. It is timely to take stock, ask and document, what is the current ‘‘leading edge in QFD?’’ In judging the appropriateness of the submitted papers it was pleasing to see that eight eminent experts in QFD were prepared to act as Expert International Editorial Board and do the double blind reviewing. Practically all members of this editorial board are past winners of the prestigious Akao Prize. This prize is awarded to individuals around the world who have demonstrated excellence in their practice and dissemination of QFD. It takes into consideration research, authorship, teaching, practical applications and service to the QFD community world-wide. Selection follows the model of the Deming Prize. See www.qfdi.org/akaoprize.htm for more information on the Akao Prize. The insightful comments of the reviewers have helped the individual authors of the selected papers – and of those that were not selected – to improve their