


House of Quality

House of Quality Go to Index So labeled because its visual representation resembles the roof of a house, the "House of Quality" is often incorrectly used as a synonym for "quality function deployment" (QFD). The House of Quality is the first of four matrices in the QFD process; it converts customer expectations into "critical to quality" features, compares those features with existing performance, and identifies changes needed to bring performance into alignment with customer expectations. The House of Quality comprises six components+B186:
1) customer requirements, obtained from actual customer feedback;
2) technical requirements of the product or service, defined in specific and measurable ways;
3) a "planning matrix," usually derived from market research, that includes measuring the relationship between customer preferences and both the company's performance and competitors' performance;
4) an "interrelationship matrix," which measures perceived relationships between customer requirements and technical requirements;
5) a "technical correlation matrix," which identifies correlations or conflicts in technical requirements and highlights opportunities for improvement (also known as the "roof" of the House of Quality); and
6) a matrix illustrating and measuring technical priorities, benchmarks, and targets or objectives; the results in this final matrix should fulfill the customer requirements outlined in the first component.