Customer Focus: Matrix Diagram

Q:To complete this part of the project, select one of the following QFD tools, analyze the business problem using the selected tool, and develop the QFD analysis for the company and product you selected for this project:

· Affinity diagram

· Interrelationship digraph

· Tree diagram

· Matrix diagram

 

Ans:

Apple has been so successful in these last year thanks to his fresh, imaginative way to think and do its business: a winning combination of exceptional products, great style and design, great strategy, innovative marketing, sleek and enticing communications.

IPad Marketing Strategy.

The iPad, the new Tablet from Apple seems like an unnecessary product. Basically the iPad looks like a bigger iPhone, an iPhone with just a bigger display. Actually, the iPad display is a lot smaller than the device physical dimensions, there is a fairly thick black border around each side.It's a bulky device compared to an iPhone, of course it doesn't fit in your pocket, it is less functional and has far less features than a netbook or a laptop computer.

Apple is proposing the iPad as a mobile device to read e-books, browse the web, write and receive emails, view movies and photos on a screen that is 30% smaller than the screen of a laptop and weighs 700 grams. The iPad is touch screen operated - similarly to the iPhone and the iPod Touch - and has a virtual keyboard, obviously larger than the iPhone virtual keyboard.

QFD steps:

Usually, the QFD process starts with listing the key customer requirements. As a team-ready software PathMaker allows to use itsbrainstorm tool to collect customer requirements. The affinity diagram tool can be used to sort these requirements and build group of requirements. The step also serves to raise a discussion about the customer requirements which often leads to a better understanding of these.

Rating the importance of the key customer requirements continues the discussion of the previous step. PathMaker contains a tool named Consensus Builder which is of great use to end up with a suitable analysis of the importance of the customer requirements.

It is important to understand the position of the own product in the market against competitive products. Again this rating can be assisted by the Consensus Builder as solutions are differently perceived by different people.

The big next step in QFD is the entire team asking for each customer requirement, what product feature or performance will serve this requirement. Further the team needs to measure the success of the feature or performance to meet the requirement. There is a huge need for discussion which can be done excellently within PathMaker. Even more, PathMaker allows for virtual teams which means that the team members do not need to meet on a specific time at a determined location. This way you even can build teams where the team members are located in different time zones.

Then the team needs to analyse the relationship between customer requirements and features/performances. PathMaker contains aCause and Effects tool that can assist to visualise such relationships. Further the Consensus Builder can be employed to assign a relationship value, i.e. strong, weak or no relationship.

Finally, the team can list the technical or performance data for each feature.

Benefits of QFD

•Shorter development cycles

• Trade-offs are made in design, strategically,rather than in the market, tactically.

•Lower costs, increased productivity

•Documentation orientation

•Team involvement and commitment at thedesign stage

I use the Matrix diagram method and apply to Apple Computers and The iPad.

Planning Matrix

–Customer requirements

–Design requirements

–Target values

–Competitive performance

There are eight step for maqtrix planning

1Product planning - voice of the customer

2Prioritise and weight the voices of the customer

3Competitive evaluation (Benchmarking)

4Design process - what capabilities do we have?

5Design - how do our capabilities match the customers’ needs?

6Design - what trade-offs do we make in design?

7Process planning - key processes identified from the planningmatrix

8Process control - output from step 7 provides the basis for process control.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD)-Matrix

So far we were concerned with single steps within the QFD process. Of course, the results need to be recorded somewhere. PathMaker provides forms on QFD that enable you to create a QFD matrix. This QFD matrix then can be included into your project pathway on which you define your QFD process. The QFD matrix provided comprises the seven tasks above. However, you are free to edit this form in apple form tool and make it suitable to your specific needs:

· List the Key Customer Requirements

· Rate the importance of the Key Customer Requirements

· List competitive products and your own current and planned products.

· Rate products (competition and own ones) against customer requirements.

· Translate customer requirements into product features or technologies

· Rate the relationships between requirements and features

· List the technical or performance data for each key feature or technology, for yourselves and your competition.

Results of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) Matrix

Though the QFD process and creating the matrix are a major effort, this is hardly the end of the QFD process. This only was preparation to learn from the results. Typical questions can be responded after preparing the QFD matrix such as:

· Are we focusing our energies in the high leverage areas?

· Is your planned product a lot more competitive?

· Which technologies or features will have the most impact?

· Highlight the gaps or new ideas that have promise, especially in highly rated columns.

QFD Matrix of apple

QFD Matrix of apple

The most important customer requirements are identified by completing the of Quality matrix and then prioritizing the requirements.The technical requirements related to the customer requirements were also identified.  Attention is then given to the technical requirements which should be improved upon to satisfy the "voice of the customer."

QFD (Quality Function Deployment) is nothing that is done just for itself. It is the objective to use the results of QFD to make decisions and introduce changes to products and processes.

QFD Matrix can be included into projects such as strategic planning, product improvement or process improvement. This way PathMaker is not just a QFD tool but integrates the QFD process into an overall project.apple is that helps you to systematically create a better organisation.

we can use apple for much more management projects than just QFD, e.g. planning a strategy, solving problems, improving processes, driving out waste, balanced scorecard, benchmarking.