This book explains the what and how of Quality Function Deployment (QFD), and shows how Six Sigma can be used to apply QFD. It connects two significant methods for managing quality, and shows how they strengthen each other and can help you to plan and manage quality, enabling you to satisfy the need of your customer.

The book starts with briefly explaining QFD and Six Sigma, including some history of the two methods and their background. It then describes QFD techniques in detail, and shows how Six Sigma techniques fit into QFD. A side step is taken to describe which part of the Product Development Lifecycle is covered by QFD, and to show how QFD relates to different functions in a company. Part IV of the book is actually a QFD handbook, which explains how to implement QFD and deploy Six Sigma techniques. The last part of the book gives information on what to do after the House of Quality has been build, to keep the focus on the customer during the remainder of the product life cycle.

The book puts much emphasis on deploying the two methods. It highlights how QFD can be used as a common language by customer representatives and development teams, by helping them to set priorities and assure that those requirements which bring the most benefits to customers are developed first. Communication is key, the book describes how QFD support the communication between stakeholders, and how the resulting agreements can be documented. It also shows how popular Six Sigma techniques like Affinity Diagrams, FMEA and Design of Experiments can be used to support QFD. At some occasions when reading through the book you are not even aware if the technique describe is actually from QFD, Six Sigma, or both. The author have done an excellent job in blending the two methods.

Six Sigma and QFD are both quite complex methods. They use a lot of specific terms, have an extensive set of techniques, and may request a significant investment on first usage. So what about the combination? My impression is: Given that several techniques from the two methods can be combined easily, there is only a limited increase of the needed investment, if any. First, several Six Sigma techniques were already deployed in QFD. And the two methods also support each other a lot, e.g. Six Sigma helps setting the high level business needs, which eases filling in prioritization matrixes of QFD. So my expectation is that the initial investment when using both can be somewhat higher, but then also the benefits will be higher. Also since the book provides lots of information on how to deploy the two methods, it helps you to select and deploy what helps you in your specific situation. And that could actually save money, and at the same time help you to become more effective in deploying these methods.

Give the focus of QFD, the Six Sigma parts of the book are mostly on Design For Six Sigma (DFSS), and not on other Six Sigma methods like DMAIC and IDOV, so readers expecting information about these methods could be disappointed when reading the book. But if you are involved in on New Product Development, or in a need for a method that helps you managing customer requirements, this book will certainly be useful for you.
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