CTQs represent the product or service characteristics that are defined by the customer (internal or external). They may include the upper and lower specification limits or any other factors related to the product or service. A CTQ usually must be interpreted from a qualitative customer statement to an actionable, quantitative business specification.
To finding the CTQ, we can use tools:
- Brainstorming
A method to generate ideas. Ground rules such as -no idea is a bad idea- are typical. Benefit of brainstorming is the power of the group in building ideas of each others ideas.
A problem solving approach/technique whereby working members in a group are conducting a deductive methodology for identifying possible causes of any problem, in order to surmount poor performance in any process or activity pursued by the group members and facilitator.
With that, here are four key ground rules that are useful when conducting a brainstorming session:
· There are no dumb ideas. Period. It's a brainstorming session, not a serious matter that requires only serious solutions. Remember, this is one of the more fun tools of quality, so keep the entire team involved!
· Don't criticize other people's ideas. This isn't a debate, discussion or forum for one person to display superiority over another.
· Build on other people's ideas. Often an idea suggested by one person can trigger a bigger and/or better idea by another person. Or a variation of an idea on the board could be the next 'Velcro' idea. It is this building of ideas that leads to out of the box thinking and fantastic ideas.
· Reverse the thought of 'quality over quantity.' Here we want quantity; the more creative ideas the better. As a facilitator, you can even make it a challenge to come up with as many ideas as possible and compare this team's performance to the last brainstorming session you conducted.
Other brainstorming preparation questions:
· Who will lead or facilitate the brainstorming session?
· Who will participate in the brainstorming session?
· Who can write very quickly to record the brainstormed ideas without slowing down the group?
· Where will the brainstorming session be held?
· What materials are needed for brainstorming (easel, paper, white board, pens, etc.)?
· What is my brainstorming session desired outcome?
There are some Brainstorming methods:
- Free
The participants present their idea freely regardless of order
- Round Robin
The participants present their idea in order.
- Card Method
The participants present their idea by means of writing down without discussion.
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Picture D.6 Collecting Idea by Brainstorming
Pareto Chart is a statistical method that uses a bar chart that displays by frequency, in descending order, the most important defects. Proper use of this chart will have the cumulative percentage on a second y-axis (to the right of the chart). The Pareto principle states that 80% of the impact of the problem will show up in 20% of the causes. (Originally stated: 80% of the wealth is owned by 20% of the people.). This chart-type is used to identify if the Pareto principle is evident in the data. If the Pareto principle is evident, about 20% of the categories on the far left will have about 80% of the impact on the problem.
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Picture D.7 Simple Pareto Chart
Then, the 80% of the impact of the problems could be chosen as the CTQ of the projects.
How the 80/20 rule can help you be more effective
In 1906, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country, observing that twenty percent of the people owned eighty percent of the wealth. In the late 1940s, Dr. Joseph M. Juran inaccurately attributed the 80/20 Rule to Pareto, calling it Pareto's Principle. While it may be misnamed, Pareto's Principle or Pareto's Law as it is sometimes called, can be a very effective tool to help you manage effectively.
Where It Came From
After Pareto made his observation and created his formula, many others observed similar phenomena in their own areas of expertise. Quality Management pioneer, Dr. Joseph Juran, working in the
As a result, Dr. Juran's observation of the "vital few and trivial many", the principle that 20 percent of something always are responsible for 80 percent of the results, became known as Pareto's Principle or the 80/20 Rule. You can read his own description of the events in the Juran Institute article titled Juran's Non-Pareto Principle.
What It Means
The 80/20 Rule means that in anything a few (20 percent) are vital and many (80 percent) are trivial. In Pareto's case it meant 20 percent of the people owned 80 percent of the wealth. In Juran's initial work he identified 20 percent of the defects causing 80 percent of the problems. Project Managers know that 20 percent of the work (the first 10 percent and the last 10 percent) consume 80 percent of your time and resources. You can apply the 80/20 Rule to almost anything, from the science of management to the physical world.
You know 20 percent of you stock takes up 80 percent of your warehouse space and that 80 percent of your stock comes from 20 percent of your suppliers. Also 80 percent of your sales will come from 20 percent of your sales staff. 20 percent of your staff will cause 80 percent of your problems, but another 20 percent of your staff will provide 80 percent of your production. It works both ways.
How It Can Help You
The value of the Pareto Principle for a manager is that it reminds you to focus on the 20 percent that matters. Of the things you do during your day, only 20 percent really matter. Those 20 percent produce 80 percent of your results. Identify and focus on those things. When the fire drills of the day begin to sap your time, remind yourself of the 20 percent you need to focus on. If something in the schedule has to slip, if something isn't going to get done, make sure it's not part of that 20 percent.
There is a management theory floating around at the moment that proposes to interpret Pareto's Principle in such a way as to produce what is called Superstar Management. The theory's supporters claim that since 20 percent of your people produce 80 percent of your results you should focus your limited time on managing only that 20 percent, the superstars. The theory is flawed, as we are discussing here because it overlooks the fact that 80 percent of your time should be spent doing what is really important. Helping the good become better is a better use of your time than helping the great becomes terrific. Apply the Pareto Principle to all you do, but use it wisely.
Manage This Issue
Pareto's Principle, the 80/20 Rule, should serve as a daily reminder to focus 80 percent of your time and energy on the 20 percent of you work that is really important. Don't just "work smart", work smart on the right things.
Failure Modes and Effects Analysis (FMEA) is methodology for analyzing potential reliability problems early in the development cycle where it is easier to take actions to overcome these issues, thereby enhancing reliability through design. FMEA is used to identify potential failure modes, determine their effect on the operation of the product, and identify actions to mitigate the failures. A crucial step is anticipating what might go wrong with a product. While anticipating every failure mode is not possible, the development team should formulate as extensive a list of potential failure modes as possible.
The early and consistent use of FMEAs in the design process allows the engineer to design out failures and produce reliable, safe, and customer pleasing products. FMEAs also capture historical information for use in future product improvement.
Design of FMEA involves of the Severity, Occurrence and Detection. Severity is an assessment of the seriousness of the defect/failure effect on the customer. Occurrence is an assessment of the frequency with which the defect/failure cause occurs. While Detection is an assessment of the likelihood that your current controls will detect each defect/failure before products deliver to customer.
FMEA Usage
Historically, engineers have done a good job of evaluating the functions and the form of products and processes in the design phase. They have not always done so well at designing in reliability and quality. Often the engineer uses safety factors as a way of making sure that the design will work and protected the user against product or process failure. As described in a recent article:
"A large safety factor does not necessarily translate into a reliable product. Instead, it often leads to an overdesigned product with reliability problems."
Failure Analysis Beats Murphey's Law
Mechanical Engineering , September 1993
FMEA's provide the engineer with a tool that can assist in providing reliable, safe, and customer pleasing products and processes. Since FMEA help the engineer identify potential product or process failures, they can use it to:
· Develop product or process requirements that minimize the likelihood of those failures.
· Evaluate the requirements obtained from the customer or other participants in the design process to ensure that those requirements do not introduce potential failures.
· Identify design characteristics that contribute to failures and design them out of the system or at least minimize the resulting effects.
· Develop methods and procedures to develop and test the product/process to ensure that the failures have been successfully eliminated.
· Track and manage potential risks in the design. Tracking the risks contributes to the development of corporate memory and the success of future products as well.
· Ensure that any failures that could occur will not injure or seriously impact the customer of the product/process.
Benefits of FMEA
FMEA is designed to assist the engineer improve the quality and reliability of design. Properly used the FMEA provides the engineer several benefits. Among others, these benefits include:
· Improve product/process reliability and quality
· Increase customer satisfaction
· Early identification and elimination of potential product/process failure modes
· Prioritize product/process deficiencies *)
· Capture engineering/organization knowledge
· Emphasizes problem prevention
· Documents risk and actions taken to reduce risk
· Provide focus for improved testing and development
· Minimizes late changes and associated cost
· Catalyst for teamwork and idea exchange between functions
*) The priorities of the FMEA will be shown of the value of the RPN (Risk Priority Number), calculation among severity, occurrence, and detection. The highest of RPN could be chosen as the CTQ of the project.
How to deploy the FMEA will be detailed on the Tools Categories in this site.
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a systematic process for motivating a business to focus on its customers. It is used by cross-functional teams to identify and resolve issues involved in providing products, processes, services and strategies which will more than satisfy their customers. A prerequisite to QFD is Market Research. This is the process of understanding what the customer wants, how important these benefits are, and how well different providers of products that address these benefits are perceived to perform. This is a prerequisite to QFD because it is impossible to consistently provide products which will attract customers unless you have a very good understanding of what they want.
When completed it resembles a house structure and is often referred to as House of Quality. The House is divided into several rooms. Typically you have customer requirements, design considerations and design alternatives in a 3 dimensional matrix to which you can assign weighted scores based on market research information collected.
Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a methodology for taking the Voice of the Customer and using that information to drive aspects of product development. QFD aim to fulfill the customer need and in the term of positive meaning. Its mean, QFD focuses how to deploy new value of customer needs.
QFD is not just the House of Quality--matrix 1. It involves much more and matrices that are connected together using priority ratings from the previous matrix. The highest rating could be chosen as the priority of improvement and as the CTQs.
(Detail can be seen on Tools QFD)
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