S/QFD
Small /Quality Function Deployment
Few organizations are immune to the disruption and high costs caused by warranty claims and service calls. Recent studies show that these costs can typically absorb as much as 50% of the company’s profits. A condition that is further aggravated by extended warranty and guarantee periods – without even mentioning the dire consequences associated with safety recall campaigns and potential law suits.

The S/QFD technique has been specifically developed to eliminate these issues by systematically analyzing existing customer complaints and implementing remedial design actions to prevent recurrence on both current and future products.

The S/QFD Approach

The QFD process is often used to achieve product excellence. In the “true” QFD approach information from customer surveys is applied to help direct the design process for new programs. But this is often very time consuming and not always easy to justify for small projects – even though warranty complaints make no distinction!

The Small QFD is an adaptation that is focused on customer complaints using warranty and service data from existing products – reflecting the issues that need to be resolved for the new program.
In this approach warranty concerns are examined and evaluated; realistic projections are set for new quality targets; these are correlated against the elements of the design that are responsible for the problem; and corrective actions are taken to eliminate customer complaints in the future.

The S/QFD process recognizes that many problems can only be fully resolved by taking actions that are ideally implemented at the early design stages. So the best timing for the S/QFD is at the concept stages of a new program – even though the corrective actions are often transferable to existing “mature” products.

FMEA and Six Sigma

Ideally the Six Sigma approach is applied to achieve “zero defects” and eliminate warranty concerns. But even diligent application has rarely managed to achieve the levels projected.



Two factors contribute to this.
While the use of FMEA’s with the Six Sigma technique has managed to reduce warranty rates, they still remain excessively high. Studies show that defects often occur at the interfaces between parts and these are often difficult to identify when the FMEA’s are conducted at a detailed part or process level.
A more holistic approach to the FMEA is needed to identify these non-conformances.

Secondly, many problems are the result of human errors (mistakes ) that are often sporadic and difficult to predict or eradicate using SPC and normal statistical methods.

Prevention & Detection

To date the most common way of protecting the customer from defects has been by the use of detection strategies. Typically these take the form of visual inspections at various stages of the production cycle. It is now recognized that
a far better result are achieved by using techniques to prevent mistakes from happening in the first place - through the use of mistake-proofing strategies.

The primary aim of the S/QFD process is to help identify the most appropriate prevention/detection strategies that can be applied to eliminate customer complaints, and to ensure that appropriate remedial actions and appropriate follow-up procedures are successfully implemented. For expert consultation, training and facilitation please contact:

For expert consultation, training and facilitation in this field contact:

Lou Travella
Design 4 Excellence
Ph/Fx: 61 3 5221 6413
EMAIL: INFO@DESIGN4EXCELLENCE.COM.AU