Advanced Manufacturing Systems

In order to do this assignment, you will need to read the QFD extract from:

Besterfield, D.H.; Besterfield-Michna, C.; Besterfield, G.H.; Besterfield-Sacre, M. (2003). Total Quality Management, 3rd edition, Prentice Hall.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a structured approach to defining customer needs or requirements and translating them into specific plans to produce products to meet those needs. The “voice of the customer” is the term to describe these stated and unstated customer needs or requirements. In this assignment, you will need to deploy the ‘house of quality’ methodology to capture the voice of the customer, and how you are going to meet their demands.

Scenario

Imagine that you are a designer in a start-up company that manufactures baby carriers, called ChesterCarry Co.

Examples of baby carriers as a product are shown in the pictures below:

It’s a competitive market, which lots of manufacturers involved with the production of different styles and types of baby carrier, including makers such as:

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Baby Björn (https://www.babybjorn.co.uk/)

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ErgoBaby (https://ergobaby.co.uk/)

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Stokke (https://www.stokke.com/GBR/en-gb/baby-carriers)

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Chicco (http://www.chicco.co.uk/outabout-and-travelling/baby-carriers.html)

Mothercare, Tesco and other superstores also offer their own choices, and pram manufacturers often see it as a useful sideline. There are small companies that offer niche product offerings too.

Baby carriers may be differentiated by baby age range suitability, baby body support, material type and colour, front, side or back carrying capabilities, etc. The list of variations in baby carriers is very high, and so different customers are looking for different things in a baby carriers for their baby.

As a designer with ChesterCarry Co. you have been asked to prepare QFD study focusing on a new baby carrier to be produced and marketed by the firm. Initial design ideas from the design team are suggesting a conceptual design that is roughly similar to the best-seller in the market (https://www.babybjorn.com/baby-carriers/baby-carrier-original/), but with significant differences allowable to cater for updated customer needs. You may assume that ChesterCarry Co. has a wide range of manufacturing capabilities to suit any design eventually chosen.

Create a report with the items described below. State carefully who your customer is. What are they seeking in terms of the product? The report should be coherent and professionally produced, and should be legible and understandable to the rest of the design team working on the new baby carrier.

You are required to prepare a ‘house of quality’ for the QFD study for the new baby carrier. Only one house of quality diagram needs to be created. As a guide, please follow the sections in the QFD reading taken from: Besterfield, D.H.; Besterfield-Michna, C.; Besterfield, G.H.; Besterfield-Sacre, M. (2003). Total Quality Management, 3rd edition, Prentice Hall.

As part of your solution, and in order to explain to the reader your house of quality, you must outline the reasoning behind the following items (percentages represent the marks for each section):

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Choice of customer requirements for the baby carrier (tip: outline your focal customer. A good source of customer feedback is from sling libraries such as: http://chesterslinglibrary.weebly.com/) (15%)

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Technical descriptors that affect the chosen customer requirements (15%)

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Explain the relationship between the above two items (10%)

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Explain the relationship between the technical descriptors (10%)

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Describe the reasoning behind the customer/technical completive assessment that you create as part of the house of quality (provide references for the best-selling competitive items) (15%)

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Develop and explain prioritized customer requirements (see the reading above), complete with scale up factor and absolute weights, if relevant (15%)

·        
Develop and explain prioritized technical descriptors (see the reading above), complete with all scales and factors (15%)

Report presentation, professionalism and neatness will be graded at 5%.

Explanations may be kept brief and to the point, but should succinctly explain the decisions taken in the house of quality diagram that you produce.

 

Word limit: 1,500 words, not including the words used in the house of quality diagram. No appendices.

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