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Quality Function Deployment
Quality function deployment (QFD) a method developed in Japan beginning in 1966 to help transform the voice of the customer into engineering characteristics for a product.Larson et al. (2009). p. 117. Yoji Akao, the original developer, described QFD as a "method to transform qualitative user demands into quantitative parameters, to deploy the functions forming quality, and to deploy methods for achieving the design quality into subsystems and component parts, and ultimately to specific elements of the manufacturing process." The author combined his work in quality assurance and quality control points with function deployment used in value engineering. House of quality The house of quality, a part of QFD, is the basic design tool of quality function deployment. It identifies and classifies customer desires (What's), identifies the importance of those desires, identifies engineering characteristics which may be relevant to those desires (How's), correlates the two, allows for ve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Voice Of The Customer
In marketing, the voice of the customer (VOC) summarizes customers' expectations, preferences and aversions. A widely used form of VOC market research produces a detailed set of customer wants and needs, organized into a hierarchical structure, and then prioritized in terms of relative importance and satisfaction with current alternatives. VOC studies typically consist of both qualitative and quantitative research steps and are generally conducted at the start of any new product, process, or service design initiative in order to better understand the customer's wants and needs, and as the key input for new product definition, Quality Function Deployment (QFD), and the setting of detailed design specifications. Much has been written about this process, and there are many possible ways to gather the information – focus groups, individual interviews, contextual inquiry, ethnographic techniques, conjoint analysis, etc. All involve a series of structured in-depth interviews, whi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Fuzzy Logic
Fuzzy logic is a form of many-valued logic in which the truth value of variables may be any real number between 0 and 1. It is employed to handle the concept of partial truth, where the truth value may range between completely true and completely false. By contrast, in Boolean logic, the truth values of variables may only be the integer values 0 or 1. The term ''fuzzy logic'' was introduced with the 1965 proposal of fuzzy set theory by Iranian Azerbaijani mathematician Lotfi Zadeh. Fuzzy logic had, however, been studied since the 1920s, as infinite-valued logic—notably by Łukasiewicz and Tarski. Fuzzy logic is based on the observation that people make decisions based on imprecise and non-numerical information. Fuzzy models or sets are mathematical means of representing vagueness and imprecise information (hence the term fuzzy). These models have the capability of recognising, representing, manipulating, interpreting, and using data and information that are vague and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Product Management
Product management is the business process of planning, developing, launching, and managing a product or service. It includes the entire lifecycle of a product, from ideation to development to go to market. Product managers are responsible for ensuring that a product meets the needs of its target market and contributes to the business strategy, while managing a product or products at all stages of the product lifecycle. Software product management adapts the fundamentals of product management for digital products. History The concept of product management originates from a 1931 memo by Procter & Gamble President Neil H. McElroy. McElroy, requesting additional employees focused on brand management, needed "Brand Men" who would take on the role of managing products, packaging, positioning, distribution, and sales performance. The memo defined a Brand Man's work as: * Study carefully shipments of his brands by units. * Where brand development is heavy ... examine careful ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Business Terms
Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit." Having a business name does not separate the business entity from the owner, which means that the owner of the business is responsible and liable for debts incurred by the business. If the business acquires debts, the creditors can go after the owner's personal possessions. A business structure does not allow for corporate tax rates. The proprietor is personally taxed on all income from the business. The term is also often used colloquially (but not by lawyers or by public officials) to refer to a company, such as a corporation or cooperative. Corporations, in contrast with sole proprietors and partnerships, are a separate legal entity and provide limited liability for their owners/members, as well as being subject to corporate tax rates. A corporation is more complicat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sloan Management Review
The ''MIT Sloan Management Review'' is a research-based magazine and digital platform for business executives published at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The print edition is published quarterly; the digital edition is updated daily. Background The magazine (originally known as the ''Industrial Management Review'') was established in 1959 by the MIT Sloan School of Management. In 2001, the magazine added the university (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) to its official name and the magazine has been called ''MIT Sloan Management Review'' since then. It has transformed from its original, print-only, form to a multi-format platform. The magazine distributes content on the web, in print, on mobile platforms, in podcast format, and via licensees and libraries around the world. Sections Content is presented in five main sections: * Editor's Column: A one-page article from the editor-in-chief exploring a topic of current interest for business executives. * Frontiers: S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modular Function Deployment
Modular Function Deployment (MFD) is a method for creating modular product architectures, based on research performed at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in the 1990s. As a result of said research, the companModular Managementwas registered in 1996, offering consultancy services centered on the MFD method. With a modular product architecture, companies can offer a wide range of products and services without increasing complexity, since modules and module variants, like blocks of LEGO, can be configured in many different ways. The MFD method ensures that each module has functional, strategic and customer-centric value and can be combined with other modules through standardized interfaces. A modular product architecture can enable mass customization In marketing, manufacturing, call centre operations, and management, mass customization makes use of flexible computer-aided systems to produce custom output. Such systems combine the low unit costs of mass production processes with th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pugh Concept Selection
The decision-matrix method, also Pugh method or Pugh concept selection, invented by Stuart Pugh,S. Pugh (1981) Concept selection: a method that works. In: Hubka, V. (ed.), Review of design methodology. Proceedings international conference on engineering design, March 1981, Rome. Zürich: Heurista, 1981, blz. 497 – 506. is a qualitative technique used to rank the multi-dimensional options of an option set. It is frequently used in engineering for making design decisions but can also be used to rank investment options, vendor options, product options or any other set of multidimensional entities. Definition A basic decision matrix consists of establishing a set of criteria and a group of potential candidate designs. One of these is a reference candidate design. The other designs are then compared to this reference design and being ranked as better, worse, or same based on each criterion. The number of times "better" and "worse" appeared for each design is then displayed, but not sum ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaheuristic
In computer science and mathematical optimization, a metaheuristic is a higher-level procedure or heuristic designed to find, generate, or select a heuristic (partial search algorithm) that may provide a sufficiently good solution to an optimization problem, especially with incomplete or imperfect information or limited computation capacity. Metaheuristics sample a subset of solutions which is otherwise too large to be completely enumerated or otherwise explored. Metaheuristics may make relatively few assumptions about the optimization problem being solved and so may be usable for a variety of problems. Compared to optimization algorithms and iterative methods, metaheuristics do not guarantee that a globally optimal solution can be found on some class of problems. Many metaheuristics implement some form of stochastic optimization, so that the solution found is dependent on the set of random variables generated. In combinatorial optimization, by searching over a large set of feas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Multiple-criteria Decision Analysis
Multiple-criteria decision-making (MCDM) or multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) is a sub-discipline of operations research that explicitly evaluates multiple conflicting criteria in decision making (both in daily life and in settings such as business, government and medicine). Conflicting criteria are typical in evaluating options: cost or price is usually one of the main criteria, and some measure of quality is typically another criterion, easily in conflict with the cost. In purchasing a car, cost, comfort, safety, and fuel economy may be some of the main criteria we consider – it is unusual that the cheapest car is the most comfortable and the safest one. In portfolio management, managers are interested in getting high returns while simultaneously reducing risks; however, the stocks that have the potential of bringing high returns typically carry high risk of losing money. In a service industry, customer satisfaction and the cost of providing service are fundamen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Engineering
Engineering is the use of scientific principles to design and build machines, structures, and other items, including bridges, tunnels, roads, vehicles, and buildings. The discipline of engineering encompasses a broad range of more specialized fields of engineering, each with a more specific emphasis on particular areas of applied mathematics, applied science, and types of application. See glossary of engineering. The term ''engineering'' is derived from the Latin ''ingenium'', meaning "cleverness" and ''ingeniare'', meaning "to contrive, devise". Definition The American Engineers' Council for Professional Development (ECPD, the predecessor of ABET) has defined "engineering" as: The creative application of scientific principles to design or develop structures, machines, apparatus, or manufacturing processes, or works utilizing them singly or in combination; or to construct or operate the same with full cognizance of their design; or to forecast their behavior under speci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nonfunctional Requirement
In systems engineering and requirements engineering, a non-functional requirement (NFR) is a requirement that specifies criteria that can be used to judge the operation of a system, rather than specific behaviours. They are contrasted with functional requirements that define specific behavior or functions. The plan for implementing ''functional'' requirements is detailed in the system ''design''. The plan for implementing ''non-functional'' requirements is detailed in the system ''architecture'', because they are usually architecturally significant requirements. Definition Broadly, functional requirements define what a system is supposed to ''do'' and non-functional requirements define how a system is supposed to ''be''. Functional requirements are usually in the form of "system shall do ", an individual action or part of the system, perhaps explicitly in the sense of a mathematical function, a black box description input, output, process and control functional model or I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
