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Chrysler must be doing something right because the U.S. car
division of DaimlerChrysler recently resurged posting the
fourth-quarter operating income of 386 million euros, while the
group's luxury division Mercedes saw a significant drop in profits.
Some 20 years ago, the American engineers and managers at then
Chrysler Corporation were among the first to embrace QFD in North
America, along with the rest of the automotive industry.
Chrysler's first major QFD project took place in 1988. The LH
powertrain project utilized QFD beginning at the total vehicle design
level and then to the manufacturing process. The major benefits of QFD
not only came from the time spent on upfront planning, but in the
execution of those critical design requirements that were related to
the most important customer needs for a powertrain system.
By incorporating the critical design requirements that related to
the customers' needs, the LH project team was able to ensure that the
Voice of the Customer was properly deployed into the product
development cycle. The success of the project led Chrysler to more
product developments using QFD, some of which were subsequently
reported in the annual Symposia on QFD.
In this issue, we take a brief look at this early QFD example,
which was presented at the 1992 Symposium on QFD. In the next issue,
we will compare it with a more recent application.
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Identifying Key Customer Attributes for Mid-size Sedan |
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The LH powertrain project was one of five
strategically identified areas requiring detail analysis to ensure
overall customer satisfaction. Chrysler formed a cross functional
team representing Brand Management, Design Office, Program
Management, Engineering, Process Engineering and Finance, to
identify the key customer attributes for a mid-size sedan.
Marketing research data were used for this, mainly from customer
interviews, dealership visits, and review of marketing data and
automotive literature.
Being able to properly determine the Voice of the Customer is
one of the most important steps in QFD and was the cornerstone of
the project. Using KJ(TM)-like method affinity diagram technique,
actual verbatim of the customers were sorted into attribute groups
representing their underlying needs for the LH vehicle.
The team then focused on the most important customer
requirements and established an overall priority with
consideration of these elements: 1. Customer Weighting, 2.
Things-Gone-Wrong, 3. Sales Points, and 4. Customer Competitive
Benchmarking.
(source:
Transactions from The 4th Symposium on QFD)
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Articulating Customer Needs in Engineering Language |
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The preceding study enabled the team to identify four critical
subsystems of the LH powertrain as important study areas. The
challenge to the engineers was to understand what these powertrain
attributes meant to the customers. The LH Powertrain Excellence
team was formed to identify the customers' desires for a
powertrain system in more details and how the engineering
community should meet those requirements.
A major marketing research was conducted for the second time,
using a corporate vehicle and five competitive target vehicles for
the Ride and Drive evaluation. The information gained was used to
establish design requirements which more realistically correlated
to how customers truly evaluate a vehicle's powertrain performance
characteristics. Some of the major findings from this evaluation
indicated:
- Customers rarely go to wide open throttle; the maximum seen
during launch was XX%
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Launch hesitation was
deemed to be undesirable. Hesitation perceived if the car did
not move within YYY ms.
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Customers preferred
linear engine response.....
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Customers wanted
smooth acceleration with a minimum of jerk between gear changes.
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Customers wanted
effortless launch, shifts not to occur at perceived high PRM.....
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Customers accept some
engine noise if appealing but wanted quiet idling.....
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Driving the Voice of the Customer throughout Product Development
Process |
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In this design
deployment phase of QFD, the goal was to further drive the Voice
of the Customer throughout the product development process by
determining the critical part characteristics relating to the
important customer derived design requirements. Design Development
Teams were formed for each of four critical subsystems.
Design requirements were selected from the House of Quality
matrix. Critical part characteristics were identified by
completing the Design Deployment matrix. The relationships of
these part characteristics were identified and target values were
selected. The values of the critical characteristics were also
identified on detailed part drawings so that they could be the
input for the next process of Process Planning which involved
determining the manufacturing operations most critical to creating
the desired part characteristics.
Positive comments and favorable ratings of these vehicles
during executive and media evaluations strongly indicated that the
QFD process was indeed working. In addition, upper level
management support and a dedicated cross-functional team further
guaranteed the success of the LH program.
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