As an organization, meeting the wants and needs of your ideal customer is your primary focus.

You need to ensure that every decision you make within your company is centered around turning vague customer wants into high-performing, market-leading products and services.

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a way for companies to make sure they're building products or services that truly meet customer needs.

QFD originated in Japan in the 1960s and is best known for its primary tool, the "House of Quality," which visually maps customer expectations to internal processes and specifications.

It starts by listening carefully to what customers want, then turns that feedback into clear, measurable design and development goals.

The goal is to keep the customer's voice at the center of every decision, from the first idea to the final product.

QFD also brings different teams—like marketing, engineering, and quality control—together to work in sync.  Everyone helps figure out what features matter most, how to build them, and how to balance trade-offs.

This approach not only improves quality but can also save time and reduce costly changes later.  Plus, everything is documented so the team can learn and improve over time.

Let’s break down the specific phases within QFD.

1 Customer Focus

This is where the process begins. It gathers the Voice of the Customer (VoC)—their desires, expectations, needs, and complaints.

These are qualitative inputs, often captured through surveys, interviews, feedback, or focus groups.

Each of these customer statements (also called "What’s") is crucial for aligning the product or service development with actual user demands.

It ensures the design process is grounded in real customer expectations, not assumptions. Capturing this early prevents misalignment later in development.

• Purpose: Ensure development is market-driven.

• Output: List of customer requirements.

2 Quality Deployment

This section translates the customer requirements into technical descriptors or measurable criteria (also known as "How’s").

Engineers and designers use this to determine what internal specifications must be achieved to satisfy customer needs.

These are the measurable product or service characteristics that can be engineered to meet customer needs (e.g., battery life, material strength, size).

• Purpose: Bridge between customer language and technical language.

• Output: List of product/service design features.

3 Functional Deployment

The central matrix matches each customer need (from section 1) to the relevant technical requirement (from section 2).

Relationships are rated (e.g., strong, medium, weak), helping prioritize efforts and spot key impact areas.

This highlights which technical features have the most impact on customer satisfaction. It helps prioritize design efforts where they matter most.

• Purpose: Show how well technical features fulfil customer needs.

• Output: A visual map of strong/weak relationships guiding design focus.

4 Simultaneous Development

The roof represents the correlation matrix among the technical descriptors themselves. It shows where features support or conflict with each other.

For instance, improving one feature might worsen another, so trade-offs are managed here.

For example, making a device lighter might reduce durability. Knowing this helps balance conflicting goals.

• Purpose: Reveal interdependencies between design elements.

• Output: Synergy/conflict analysis for optimization.

5 Teamwork

Cross-functional collaboration is emphasized here. Different departments, e.g. Marketing, design, engineering, manufacturing. Contribute to ensure all aspects are considered early in the development cycle.

QFD brings a unified culture of bridging the gap between company products/services to customer wants/needs.

• Purpose: Foster multi-disciplinary alignment.

• Output: Balanced input across company functions, reducing rework later.

6 Documentation

Every decision, change, and justification made throughout the QFD process is recorded here.

It creates a traceable knowledge base for future projects and helps with audits, training, and continuous improvement.

• Purpose: Ensure clarity, traceability, and repeatability.

• Output: Comprehensive project documentation.

Let’s break down the QFD Matrix known as the “House of Quality”.

WHATs – Customer Requirements

• These are the voice of the customer.

• Qualitative expressions of what the customer wants.

• Often gathered via surveys, interviews, or feedback.

Example:

For a smartphone:

• Long battery life

• Lightweight

• Easy-to-use interface

HOWs – Technical Requirements

• These are measurable product characteristics or features that address the WHATs.

• Defined by engineers or technical experts.

Example for the same smartphone:

• Battery capacity (mAh)

• Device weight (grams)

• Number of UI steps to perform a task

Correlation Matrix (Roof of the House)

• Assesses the interrelationship among HOWs.

• Identifies synergies or conflicts between technical requirements.

Example:

• Increasing battery capacity (mAh) might increase weight → Negative correlation.

• Simplifying UI might reduce the number of steps and lower training needs → Positive correlation.

Symbols:

• ⊕ Positive correlation

• ⊗ Negative correlation

• Blank/0 = No relationship

Relationship Grid (Relationship Matrix)

• This is the main body of the HoQ.

• Shows how strongly each HOW supports or relates to each WHAT.

• Typically uses symbols or numerical scores (e.g., 9 = strong, 3 = moderate, 1 = weak, 0 = none).

Customer Ratings (Importance Ratings)

• Customers rank or rate the importance of each WHAT, typically on a scale (e.g., 1 to 5 or 1 to 10).

• These ratings prioritize design efforts.

Correct Target Values

• These are quantified goals for each HOW, set based on:

  • Customer expectations

  • Benchmarking

  • Technical feasibility

Example:

If customers want “long battery life,” the target value for mAh might be 5000mAh.

Competitive Assessment

• Compares how your product performs on the WHATs against competitors.

• Helps identify gaps and opportunities.

• Usually shown in two tables:

  • Customer perception of your vs competitors’ performance.

  • Technical benchmarking on HOWs.

Let’s break down an example.

Customer Wants/Needs and Their Ratings

Each row in the left column represents a customer want or need (e.g., “Long battery life”, “Fast application loading”), and the number next to it (1–5) shows how important that need is to the customer.

For example:

• Long battery life = rated 5 (critical)

• Affordable pricing = rated 5

• Voice control support = rated 2 (less important)

Supplier Actions and Relationship Ratings

Each column represents a supplier initiative/action (e.g., "Battery capacity", "Lightweight casing", "High-performance processor").

Inside the grid:

• Numbers like 9, 3, 1 represent how strongly a supplier action meets a customer need:

  • 9 = strong match

  • 3 = medium match

  • 1 = weak match

  • 0 = no relationship

For example:

• “Battery capacity” has a 9 under “Long battery life” → strong contribution.

• “Battery optimization” has a 3 under the same → medium contribution.

Calculating Total Scores

To find out how important each supplier action is, we multiply each relationship score by the importance rating of the customer need, then add all the values for that column.

Example – Battery capacity:

• Long battery life (Importance 5) × Relationship (9) = 45

• Lightweight (4) × 1 = 4

• Affordable pricing (5) × 1 = 5

• Total score = 54

This process is repeated for all supplier actions.

Prioritizing Supplier Actions

The total scores are used to rank the actions:

• Higher total score = higher priority.

• The column with the highest score gets priority 1.

Top priorities from your QFD:

1. High-performance processor – Score: 60 → Priority 1

2. RAM capacity – Score: 58 → Priority 2

3. Battery capacity – Score: 54 → Priority 3

These are the most critical actions to focus on because they contribute most significantly to highly rated customer needs.

Why Should You Implement QFD?

One of the biggest advantages of QFD is that it keeps the focus firmly on the customer.

By translating customer needs into clear design requirements, teams can develop products that truly solve real problems and meet expectations.

This alignment often leads to higher customer satisfaction, fewer design revisions, and better market success.

QFD also improves cross-functional collaboration. It brings together people from different departments early in the process, encouraging shared understanding and better communication.

This helps identify potential issues or conflicts sooner, shortens development time, and ensures that decisions are based on a full range of perspectives.

Additionally, the structured and documented approach of QFD supports better traceability and continuous improvement across future projects.

Summary

QFD is a valuable tool for organizations because it helps turn customer needs into clear product features. This ensures everyone, from design to production, is on the same page.

By using tools like the "House of Quality" matrix, QFD breaks down communication barriers between teams, aligning efforts toward what customers truly want.

This leads to better products, faster development, and fewer costly mistakes. Ultimately, QFD helps organizations deliver high-quality products that meet customer expectations while optimizing resources and efficiency.