CTQ trees (
critical-to-quality trees) are the key measurable characteristics of a product or process whose performance standards or specification limits must be met in order to satisfy the customer. They align improvement or design efforts with customer requirements.
CTQs are used to decompose broad
customer
In sales, commerce, and economics, a customer (sometimes known as a client, buyer, or purchaser) is the recipient of a good, service, product or an idea - obtained from a seller, vendor, or supplier via a financial transaction or exchange for ...
requirements into more easily quantified elements. CTQ trees are often used as part of
Six Sigma methodology to help prioritize such requirements.
CTQs represent the product or service characteristics as defined by the customer/user. Customers may be surveyed to elicit quality, service and performance data. They may include upper and lower specification limits or any other factors. A CTQ must be an actionable, quantitative business specification.
CTQs reflect the expressed needs of the customer. The CTQ practitioner converts them to measurable terms using tools such as
DFMEA
Failure mode and effects analysis (FMEA; often written with "failure modes" in plural) is the process of reviewing as many components, assemblies, and subsystems as possible to identify potential failure modes in a system and their causes and effe ...
. Services and products are typically not monolithic. They must be decomposed into constituent elements (tasks in the cases of services).
See also
*
Business process
A business process, business method or business function is a collection of related, structured activities or tasks by people or equipment in which a specific sequence produces a service or product (serves a particular business goal) for a parti ...
*
Design for Six Sigma
*
Total quality management
*
Total productive maintenance
External links
Six Sigma CTQ
References
* Rath & Strong Management Consultants, ''Six Sigma Pocket Guide'', p. 18.
* George, Michael L., ''Lean Six Sigma'', p. 111.
Business terms
Quality management
Design for X
Engineering failures
Reliability engineering
Systems engineering
Software quality
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