Quality Function Deployment Template

What quality function deployment is

Quality function deployment is a structured way to connect what customers say they need to the technical and functional decisions that shape a product. Instead of treating customer requirements and design specifications as separate lists, you work through them side by side: first capturing the customer's voice, then documenting the design parameters that will satisfy it, and finally judging how strongly each requirement and specification is connected. This quality function deployment template is a simple, free tool for doing that work. It supports organizations of all sizes in listing and visualizing the competitive and technical data needed to enhance product development and planning stages.

Why it matters

Product development and planning decisions are only as good as the links between customer needs and the design choices intended to meet them. When those links are explicit, you can see which requirements drive which specifications and where the design must be tightened. The template keeps that picture in one place by asking you to record customer qualified requirements, your market research findings, technical and functional design specifications, the relationships between them, and the target values you are aiming for.

What a good quality function deployment process covers

- **Customer qualified requirements.** The needs you have gathered and refined from the customer's perspective. - **Market research findings.** The competitive and market evidence that informs those requirements. - **Technical and functional design specifications.** The concrete design parameters you plan to work with. - **Relationships between customer requirements and design specifications.** How strongly each requirement maps to each specification, expressed through a rating. - **Correlations between design specifications themselves.** Where specifications support or pull against one another, again expressed through a rating. - **Target values in design.** The levels you want each design specification to reach.

Carrying out the deployment

1. Begin by recording the date conducted, who prepared the exercise, and the location. 2. Gather your customer requirements and write them up as qualified requirements, following the template's instructions for gathering customer requirements. 3. Conduct market research and document the findings, following the template's instructions for conducting market research. 4. Document your technical and functional design specifications using the template's instructions for documenting design specifications. For each design specification, select a corresponding rating from 1 to 5. 5. Analyze the relationships between customer requirements and design specifications, using the template's instructions for analyzing relationships. Select a rating from 1 to 5 that reflects the degree of relationship or correlation. 6. Correlate the design specifications with each other, following the template's instructions for correlating design specifications. Again select a rating from 1 to 5 that reflects the degree of relationship or correlation. 7. Set target values for your design specifications, using the template's instructions for setting target values, and select a corresponding rating. 8. Close the exercise with a signature, the finished time, and the real start and end dates of the inspection.

How the ratings work

The template relies on three 1–5 rating scales. You use the first to give a corresponding rating for a design specification, the second to express the degree of relationship or correlation between a customer requirement and a design specification, and the third to express the degree of relationship or correlation between design specifications. Higher or lower ratings are a matter of your team's own convention; the template gives you the scale and keeps every judgment consistent across the exercise.

Frequently Asked Questions

This template supports a Quality Function Deployment exercise, which translates customer requirements into technical and functional design specifications. It walks through the customer's 'voice', market research, design specifications, the relationships between customer needs and design choices, and setting target values.

Quality Function Deployment matters because it links what customers ask for to the design decisions you make. By relating each customer requirement to a design specification and then setting target values, you can weigh competing priorities before committing resources to product development and planning.

You gather customer requirements, conduct market research, document technical and functional design specifications, analyze the relationships between customer requirements and design specifications, correlate design specifications with each other, and set target values for the design parameters.

You use three rating scales to evaluate the material you collect. Each scale runs from 1 to 5, covering how a design specification is rated, how strongly a customer requirement relates to or correlates with a design specification, and how design specifications relate to one another.

You record the inspection and preparation details, including the date conducted, who prepared it, and the location. You also capture the quality function deployment instructions, the ratings you select for design specifications and their relationships, a signature, and the finished time along with the real start and end times of the inspection.

Written by

Arne Reis

Founder

Process optimizer with 25 years of expertise, focused on operational excellence in quality, maintenance, EHS, and commissioning. Emphasizes innovative solutions and top-quality standards.

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