QFD Basics - Guía Usuario Soft PDF

Quality Function Deployment
Business Improvement Software
User Guide
725 S. Adams Road, Suite 70

Birmingham MI 48009
248.433.3380 Voice
248.433.3384 Fax
Copyright © 2000 Qualsoft LLC support@qualisoft.com
User Guide
725 S. Adams Road, Suite 70

Birmingham MI 48009
248.433.3380 Voice
248.433.3384 Fax
Copyright © 2000 Qualsoft LLC support@qualisoft.com
Notice to U.S. government end users. The software and documentation are
"commercial items," as that term is defined at 48 C.F.R. §2.101, consisting of
"commercial computer software" and "commercial computer software
documentation," as such terms are used in 48 C.F.R. §12.212 or 48 C.F.R.
§227.7202, as applicable. Consistent with 48 C.F.R. §§227.7202-1 through
§§227.7202-4, as applicable, the commercial computer software and
commercial computer software documentation are being licensed to U.S.
government end users (A) only as commercial items and (B) with only those
rights as are granted to all other end users pursuant to the terms and
conditions set forth in the Qualsoft, LLC standard commercial agreement for
this software. Unpublished rights reserved under the copyright laws of the
United States.
© 2000 Qualsoft LLC. All rights reserved

CONTENTS
Chapter 1
Profit Potential.
Potential . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Market Power . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Leadership and Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
A Purposeful Mission . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Problem Definition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
What is Your Business Improvement Problem? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Boosting Revenues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Lowering Costs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
Business Improvement Applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
Identifying The Customer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Executive Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Cause and Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
Quantifying Cause and Effect . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
Matrix Power - Modeling Interactions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Matrix Power- Creating a Knowledgebase . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Team Oriented Business Improvement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22
Establishing Your Team . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Business Improvement Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Implementation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
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Chapter 2
Implementation Overview . . . . . . . . . 27
Two-Dimensional Thinking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Rich Data Expression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
Boosting ROI. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Simplify Redesign . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Exploring “What If” Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Enhancing Teamwork . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Leverage the “Paper Effect” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Learning The Software . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Chart Region Building Blocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Data Collection and Recording . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Business Improvement Steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Quality Elements (HOWs Checklist) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Leveraging Supporting Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
QuickStart Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Chapter 3
Software Basics.
Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Beginning a Project. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
Adding A Chart To The Project . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Entering a Chart Title . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
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Formatting Text . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Entering WHATs and HOWs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Sizing Chart Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Inserting Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Deleting Levels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
“Zooming” to Scale The Chart View . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
Inserting a List of Text or Numbers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Entering Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Splitting the Chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Setting Chart Position . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Organizing and Grouping Entries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
“Drag and Drop” to Quickly Move Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
Cut, Copy & Paste. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Entering Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
The Symbol Bar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Entering Symbols in Rooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
Deleting Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Entering Matrix Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Marking and Displaying Reviewed Items . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Entering Data in Custom Rooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Entering Symbol Room Data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
Entering Numeric Room Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Refreshing Chart Numbers with Recalc . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
Entering Assessment Room Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
Entering Text Room Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
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Printer Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Printing with “Fit to Page” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Print Preview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Printing “As Displayed” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Printing Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Exporting the Chart Image . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
Chapter 4
Customizing Charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Configuring Chart Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

Numeric Rooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Configuring Symbol Regions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
The Chart Legend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Replacing Symbols . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Leveraging Supporting Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Configuring AppLinks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
Placing An AppLink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Playing An AppLink . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Weblinks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Videolinks and Audiolinks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Inserting Custom Chart Rooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
Deleting Rooms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Hiding and Unhiding . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Entering Text in the Relations Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
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Chapter 5
Power Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Creating Templates. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 119
Organizing Templates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
Sorting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
The High Priorities Report . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Phase Progression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
The Power of Linked Charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127
Viewing Links . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Cascade Delete. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Creating Subset Charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Comparing Assessments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Duplicating/Copying an Entire Chart. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 134
Showing Blanks and Fill % . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Copying Data to Another Application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
Clearing the Relations Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137
Appendix A - Templates.
Templates. . . . . . . . . . 139
House of Quality I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
House of Quality II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141
House of Quality III . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Simple Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
Market Segmentation Matrix. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
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Customer Voice Table I . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Customer Voice Table II . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146
Phase I - House of Quality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147
Pugh Concept Selection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 148
Phase II - Parts Deployment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
Phase III - Process Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
Phase IV - Production Planning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Hoshin Audit - Policy Deployment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
Executive Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153
Managing Executive Strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154
Management Factors to Operations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155
Design Failure Mode & Effects Analysis - DFMEA . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Process Failure Mode & Effects Analysis - PFMEA . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
Best Practices Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Quality Matrix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Appendix B - File Conversion.

Conversion. . . . . . 161
Converting Version 3.15 Files - Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
Running “Convert V3 Data” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161
INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
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Chapter 1 "640K ought to be
Profit Potential enough for anybody."
Bill Gates, 1981
Market Power
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n today’s rapidly evolving marketplace, needs are in a constant state of flux.
They ebb and flow with the winds of the competitive environment, often
changing rapidly and dramatically. Lately, the internet and sheer momentum of
technological evolution have begun shifting market preferences.
? Facing the challenges of ever evolving marketplace needs, how will

your business respond . . .
To assure mediocrity, simply ignore changing marketplace needs. To prevent it,

seek a profound understanding of the cause and effect relationship between
company actions and the achievement of business requirements.
* Without
It is imprudent to ignore the benefits of understanding your market.
such an understanding, your company will flounder in
response to inevitably evolving market needs.
Indeed it is difficult to be anything but average unless you obtain this knowledge of
cause and effect. Lacking such knowledge places you at a disadvantage from those
companies that assemble it and synthesize it. The market share winners in your
industry not only have and use this key information, they continually leverage it.
They find new ways to use the data to make better business decisions and increase
market share.
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* Market leaders proactively seek market knowledge.
Followers just passively react.
Mediocre businesses are seldom able to justify their product1 offerings. They often
waste valuable resources as a result of a misguided strategy; “let’s just build it then
sales can take a crack at selling it.”
If you wait till the competitive environment has shifted to begin on the road to gaining
comprehensive market knowledge, you will be on the defensive. Your company will
be treading water while your proactive competitors swim shark-like into new
markets.
Get on track now and establish a business improvement framework. Record critical
success factors and interrelationships to form a knowledgebase that can be refined
and made more accurate with time. Build such an internal knowledgebase and you
will reap the benefits of improved quality, increased market share and high profits
for years to come!
You can generate market power. Start by cultivating good leadership through
planning.
1. For brevity, the word product will be used throughout the text. It implies any market offering of
your company including processes, services or other project deliverables.
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Leadership and Planning
? How can you lead in your market without planning?

No time to plan . . . are you too busy “fighting fires?”
Has the ripple effect of poor planning caught up with you? Are
problems occurring due to “diving in” without a plan in the past?
Without a corrective plan, what makes you think those same
problems won’t just reoccur in the future?
Perhaps you have a short-term focus. Try to focus longer-term. Sometimes, the ROI
(Return on Investment) boost from planning and coordination takes a little time to
materialize but it inevitably does.
Planning affects the individual and collective outcome of the many internal activities
necessary to complete a project. Planning brings about a “reinforcement” between
internal activities and a subsequent positive profit impact.
Conversely, uncoordinated project activities often work at cross purposes and tend
to have the reverse effect, driving profits down. Profit damage results from
misaligned actions that squander effort and cause schedule extensions. In addition,
the lost opportunities due to missing critical market timing can incur even more
injurious results.
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What is most insidious is that these misaligned actions chip away at the bottom line
covertly and usually undetected as everyone works furiously harder not smarter.
* It is an endless cycle. . .
Without planning, you will never gain the efficiencies and optimiza-
tions that free resources and boost profits.
But, you will never have enough time to plan if you don’t start
planning!
To create a plan which you can lead by, start with a purposeful mission statement.
A Purposeful Mission
? Can you lead without a clear focus of the intended results?

How can you draft a plan if you do not have a mission with a very
clearly and accurately defined purpose?
“An army of deer led by a lion is more to be feared than an army of lions led by a deer.”
Philip II of Macedon
This is a powerful quote. It refers to the impact of purposefulness. You may beat
your competitors in the market with even an average team if you are a strong leader
with a clear mission and keen direction.
To be like the proverbial lion, you must know which way to turn. To turn correctly,
you must know where you want to go. Your decisions must be swift, accurate and
purposeful, not muddled and scattered.
The business world is no different. To lead the way for your team or company, you
will need to develop a concrete, tangible definition of the accomplishment required
at the outset of your project.
Create a focused project mission statement. Here are a few examples:
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“We will boost sales of the xyz product 10% in the Northern U.S. sales
region by year end”
“We will increase customer satisfaction ratings 30%+ for service sector
product users by year end”
“We will satisfy our internal customers, reducing scrap rates 15% by end
of quarter, without impacting current throughput levels”
It is important that your statement be general but still objective enough that you can
measure the attainment of success. It must capture the essence of your goal. Strive
to include a completion timeframe and the definition of the target customers
(internal or external) for whom you are working to increase satisfaction.
* definition
Strong leaders draft comprehensive plans starting with a focused
of success.
After creating your vision of success, you can begin outlining and defining those
problems which must be overcome. Determine which ones are obstacles to your
achievement of success.
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Problem Definition
? How many times have you attempted to solve a problem only to be

stumped at the outset trying to define it?
Have you ever thought you solved a problem only to discover you
did not fully understand it and did not get at the problem’s root?
Was that because you were originally unclear on project require-
ments?
You can be more effective solving a big problem by breaking it down into smaller
elements to simplify it. Expressing a complex problem as a compilation of smaller
subtasks can work wonders. Smaller tasks are easier to grasp and easier to act
upon. A seemingly overwhelming problem can suddenly become manageable.
* problem
Without a detailed problem description, you will likely solve no
or the wrong problem, wasting resources in the process.
Most business problems can be defined as financial performance problems whose

requirements are a list of financial achievements. The next section describes how
most of these problems can be reduced into their financial components. It presents
some tools which can be employed to help solve them.
What is Your Business Improvement Problem?

Most business improvement problems are profit increase problems. Profit increases
are sought via one of the two profit components
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Revenue The goal is usually either to boost
revenues by selling more or
reduce costs by improving
Cost efficiencies.
Boosting Revenues
On the revenue side, it is well accepted that high revenues accrue from high market
shares. So then, how can you drive up market share?
A strong link has been found between high customer satisfaction and quality
(relative to competition) and higher market share.
And, one factor, above all others, drives market share the strongest. It is quality. It
has been shown that high quality levels and superior market share virtually
guarantee profits.1
The quote below from John F. (Jack) Welch, Jr., Chairman and CEO of GE
demonstrates his recognition of high quality as the only path to sustained profits.
“Quality is our best assurance of customer allegiance, our strongest defense against foreign
competition and the only path to sustained growth and earnings”1
Jack Welch, CEO General Electric
Increasing quality to drive higher customer satisfaction is a business improvement

goal of paramount importance. It has a major profit impact.
1. Robert Buzzel & Bradley Gale, The PIMS (Profit Impact of Market Strategy) Principles (The Free
Press, 1987), p.103.
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Lowering Costs
On the cost reduction side, applying good planning techniques to your product or
service development coordinates company activities to optimize expenditures and
reduce duplicate efforts. That encourages cost reduction.
Software Implications
QFD Designer helps you develop better products and communicate more efficiently.
Its use can lead higher customer satisfaction which in turn drives higher profits. It
uses two major approaches to do so.
To enhance the positive quality attributes of your product or service, it helps you to
record, analyze, prioritize and deploy those elements which you have control over
and that drive up satisfaction.
It does this primarily by using QFD (Quality Function Deployment) methodology to
analyze and address the positive performance “drivers” in your product or service.
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No other tool allows you to visually model your business problems and explore the
interactions between goals and factors like QFD Designer. You can even use it to
create strategic business plans then “drill down” into the detailed requirements
necessary to make those plans actionable. You may have heard of that use of the
software referred to by any of several names; Policy Deployment, Policy
Management, Hoshin Kanri or sometimes “Catchball.”
To minimize the detractors of quality, performance failures that drive satisfaction
down, it allows you to perform Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA). Using
FMEA, you anticipate failures which might occur in your design then prioritize how
risky they are. Then, you redesign as necessary to reduce the risk of those failures.
Using FMEA, you can adjust your design or planning to preempt major dissatisfiers
before they hit the market and affect your sales.
These two disciplines (QFD and FMEA) only scratch the surface of the capabilities
of the software. There are a myriad of applications for which you can use QFD
Designer. You are only limited by your imagination and motivation to improve.
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Business Improvement Applications
The table below highlights some common business problems and improvement
methods, which you can perform with the software, to help solve them.
? Can you spot a business problem below that you need to address?
For These Problems Try This Method To Get These Results
Profits Low QFD High priority product or
service design measures;
Market Share Low those that drive satisfaction,
Quality Function
Deployment are focused upon and
Sales Revenue Low improved. Products or
A powerful systematic services are redesigned.
Satisfaction Low
approach to deploy the “Voice
of the Customer” throughout Higher satisfaction drives
Profits generated by
company products and/or the design and manufacturing higher sales and market
process. share.
services are lackluster.
Profits increase.
Product and Service market
offerings don’t satisfy
customers.
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Corporate Strategies are Hoshin Kanri Link strategies to
not actionable actionable tasks which
can be deployed to any
Company actions do not Policy Deployment corporate level or
support strategies. functional group.
Corporate strategies are Policy Management Form a powerful

formulated but deploying communication system
them to management roles
Brings a strategic focus to which transmits changes in
and subsequently to tactical strategies to stakeholders
daily work. A planning,
implementors is difficult.
implementation, and review within the corporation
There is misalignment in fostering alignment of
system for managed
company activities wasting internal activities. Reduces
change (Akao, 1991).
time and resources, driving costs and optimizes
costs up. A framework for successful business effectiveness.
total quality management
There is a failure to link
(TQM).
the achievement of top
management goals with
TQM initiatives at
operational levels. This is
often a cause of loss of
momentum in change
management.
•
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•
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•
Product or Process failure FMEA Resulting implementations
related costs too high (Failure Mode and Effects are more reliable, safer from
Analysis) dangerous defects and
May include: generate higher sales.
• Warranty Reliability Deployment

• Service/support
Anticipates failures and their
• Returns associated risks. Drafts action
• Litigation plans that preempt and reduce
high priority risks.
Products sales revenue Designs get changed before

lackluster due to poor problems occur.
satisfaction.
Company’s market
reputation diminishes.
Customer needs are Voice of Customer Generate product and
misunderstood service designs that achieve
(VOC) Deployment
high satisfaction levels and
Product or service designs high sales volume.
fail to satisfy consumers. Uncovers true customer
Sales revenue is lackluster. needs through analysis of
spoken and unspoken
requirements and context of
use.
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Competitor’s products Competitive Get a better picture of where
achieve better results our market offerings stand
Benchmarking
than ours relative to competition.
Competing products or Identify high priority customer Explore opportunities to

services achieve higher needs which require strong imitate key techniques of
satisfaction levels than competitive positioning. our competitors (those
ours. This leads to which have netted high
competitors winning the Benchmark our performance market and/or performance
sales and market share versus our competitors along ratings).
contest. market dimensions and along
our internal product/process
Need a method to analyze performance dimensions.
competitive environment
along actionable
dimensions.
Product/Process concept Pugh Concept Choose and implement the
is outmoded best choice of the
Selection alternative design concepts.
A framework is needed to
compare alternative design Allows comparison of
concepts to choose which alternative design concepts to
one best implements a datum/benchmark. Tallies
required performance. “better” and “worse” entries for
each alternative rated against
design criteria.
Product development is Manufacturing Optimize manufacturing
not coordinated well with procedures including
Deployment
manufacturing adherence to product
specifications.
There is no mechanism for Developers specify
developer to transmit the components of design, facility
manufacturing implications requirements and vendor
of their design decisions. selection criteria for
manufacturing planners.
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•
Production Costs are too Production Costs are reduced and
high, yields are too low production yields improved.
Deployment
Resources are being
allocated to processes that Critical production process
are not crucial to requirements are determined
production. along with quality procedures,
standard operating
procedures, start-up settings
etc.
Tasks are taking too long Task Deployment Design and development
to accomplish and are gains from planning are
inefficient Breaks down service and implemented to increase
business processes (including efficiencies.
Action plans need to be
job descriptions) and
created to get product
standardizations.
developed or service
launched.
Software templates for the methods in the table above will be described in further
detail later in this document.
“The formulation of a problem is far more often essential than its solution, which may be
merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.”
Albert Einstein
What is important to know now is that in general, each method above is matrix
based and has as its input, an itemized statement of goals. These goals are typically
derived from customer’s requirements and/or other internal business needs.
So, to begin using most of those methods, you begin by identifying the “customers”
of your business, be they external or internal, and set out to assemble the list of their
needs.
These assembled requirements become the inputs to your analysis and the
formulation of your problem is really to deliver on the itemized list of requirements.
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Identifying The Customer
Any person or company that receives the outputs or results of your labor is a
“customer.” There is no business without them, they are everywhere if you look
close.
Try to envision the “deliverables” or outputs which need to be provided upon your
project’s completion. Whomever receives these deliverables is a customer. Indeed,
there may be more than one type or group of customers that you serve. Identify as
many as possible for they may all have differing needs.
You should be able to envision these deliverables even if you are in a service
business.
Even businesses with a non-physical product like “...compiled information on an
internet website” can think about their deliverables in this way. Their customers are
the browsers of their “delivered” information on the internet. Their customer’s
satisfaction is directly tied to the perceived quality attributes of that information (e.g.
is it timely, accurate, comprehensive etc.).
Suppose you are a doctor, lawyer or a governmental agency employee. This need
to identify the customer and deliverables still applies.
As you can see, regardless of your business or organization type, there are
customers on the receiving end somewhere in the process.
If you are creating a product for the external market or end-user, you will need to
define who the targeted customers are for your product or service and solicit their
requirements. Often, these requirements are obtained and prioritized via marketing
surveys or focus groups.
* their
Most people immediately think of their customer as the end-user of
product or service.
Do not use too narrow a definition of customer. Remember,
customers may be either ‘internal” or “external.”
If you forget the internal ones, you risk missing important opportu-
nities to improve an intra-company project.
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If you are working on an internal project, survey the needs of company personnel to
obtain a clear list of the desired outcomes.
These internal applications are often untapped sources of potential profit
improvement. Don’t lose sight of the fact that fixing internal problems adds to the
bottom line just like fixing projects with marketplace deliverables.
When you are faced with an internal project, clearly define who the key internal
consumers of your deliverable product or service will be. Round them up and survey
them for their needs. For example, engineering may be customers of marketing
since marketing may have to deliver to them a report or analysis. Or, accounting
may have as its customer a manager who makes decisions based upon compiled
accounting information.
You may benefit from creating a process map detailing the inputs and outputs of the
development process at the point you want to improve it. This will help define those
input factors that directly affect success and help you see the “big picture”; how your
project fits into the overall process.
* isGenerating a solution in a process vacuum can hinder success. It

often imperative that you know how your solution will interact or
integrate with existing business functions and processes.
Executive Planning
Are you an executive or strategic planner?
If so, you are an internal customer with some very important requirements. You seek
to satisfy your plans for the company or entity. You have become a proxy or
substitute for your organization’s internal needs and the executive level or strategic
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goals which you are advancing should represent them. This assumes you have
solicited and synthesized stakeholder’s needs. If you have not, there’s no better
time to start than now!
? Isn’t the management and satisfying of stakeholder requirements

your executive “deliverable?”
If you represent several constituencies or stakeholders, record their requirements

and, don’t forget stockholders as important customers in the planning process.
Increasing shareholder value is a key business improvement driver.
While this section has set out to get you to begin thinking about these issues, we
have left the implementation details for later. The framework described later,
actually an incarnation of QFD called Hoshin or Policy Deployment will assist you
greatly. It allows you to arrange stakeholders into groups and categorize their
issues. Add them together with your organization’s internal issues and you have the
group of requirements which will be used as inputs to drive your improvement
process.
If you have identified the customers, you will need to assemble their requirements
or needs. Those are the desired effects that you want to accomplish. You need to
understand what will cause those results and to what degree.
Cause and Effect

To succeed in your business improvement projects, you need to identify the desired
effects1 and causes2. In the model used by the software, the marketplace demands,
project goals or customer requirements (sometimes known as WHATs) are the
desired effects. They are your project inputs.
1. Effects are Goals - WHAT the external market or our company wants to accomplish.
2. Causes are Measures - HOW we can get the desired outcome through controllables.
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You may need to take a broad view of the effects in order to understand how to
gather them. For example, consider the case of an attorney for a moment. She may
record desired effects to begin framing a successful outcome.
A lawyer arguing in front of a jury has to deal with cause and

effect. To succeed, she must convince the jury. That may
mean causing cognitive effects in each juror like the
following:
• “believes lawyer is credible”
• “understands lawyers presentation of the law”
• “perceives lawyer as fair”
The list of causes may include:
• “a clear coherent argument”
• “using understandable vocabulary”
• “appealing to juror’s emotions”
• “addressing each element of the law”
The degree to which those causes are satisfied dictates who wins in the courtroom.
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Start with the end in mind. Record customer’s needs then you can generate a list of
controllable causes which affect the delivery of those needs.
? Can you identify which causes play the greatest role in achieving
the desired effects? How can you insure they get most of the
allocated resources?
How can you make sure that you identify causes for each need
without overlooking anything?
How can you visually show the interactions between causes and
effects?
Business problems can be very complex as they are brimming with so many
interactions between causes and effects.
Business improvement would be simple if a company could do “A”, and “B” would
result all the time.
In the example, only “Damaged Material” causes the

Material problem. Business problems are rarely that simple.
Damaged
Material
Problem
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•
To solve such a problem in the real world, you will probably need to fix the material
and a whole host of other causes, all to varying degrees at different times and
possibly even for different customer groups or profiles.
A more realistic view with multiple causes
Measurement Method Material
Stored too
long
Incorrect
Wrong Sequence
Bad Material
Specification Poor
Planning Damaged
Material
Problem
Poor
visibility
Worn Cutter
Insufficient
Excessive Poor Light
Wear Training
Machine Personnel Environment
In some cases, after determining the WHATs of your project, you may be able to
quickly generate a list of measures or HOWs which will affect their outcomes. But,
stopping there and taking action could lead to misappropriation of resources.
Quantifying Cause and Effect

Undoubtedly, the graphic above is helpful in identifying the measures or causes and
effects. What is missing is information about the strengths of their relationships to
one another.
To be able to prioritize, you need to go further to find out how those measures “stack
up against one another”, to determine which ones play the stronger roles in driving
your project’s successful outcome.
* toKnowing the relationships between causes and effects is essential

problem solving and assessing the strengths of these relation-
ships is the key to prioritized solutions.
Using a matrix with special weighting calculations is a perfect model!
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Matrix Power - Modeling Interactions
The matrix format provides a framework whereby you can not only record cause
and effect relationships, you can assess the strengths of those relationships.
It can visually express interactions and by applying weighting calculations, it will
illuminate and prioritize those key factors which more strongly affect the outcome of
your goals.
It highlights those measures you should concentrate on first.
? What can you do about talent “walking out the door”, the risk you
face when key employees and their specialized knowledge become
unavailable?
Consult your matrix library filled with a treasure of specialized design information.
Matrix Power- Creating a Knowledgebase
As you create matrices to define and study your problems and design challenges,
you are generating a great base of knowledge which can be consulted in the future.
The matrices express and quantify the cause and effect relationships critical to your
design. They are a repository of useful information.
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They can often represent rich formulations of the problems facing your company
and the solutions used to tackle those problems.
They are your knowledgebase.
Employees can consult these repositories of knowledge to find out how your
company has addressed market challenges in the past. A library of matrices
becomes a powerful resource and can help you avoid “recreating the wheel.” Some
companies even use them to educate new employees.
When you set out to create a new product, service, or strategic plan, or redesign an
existing one, use your knowledgebase to dramatically increase your productivity.
You can start from a more informed position and then adjust from there if market
preferences or requirements have changed.
Team Oriented Business Improvement

Now, you have a good overview of a customer-driven problem solving framework.
Let us delve into more specific implementation tasks.
The Business Improvement Steps which are coming up outline actions which you
can take to improve your business and become a more proactive customer-driven
company. And, the steps are representative of a thinking style which can be applied
to solve most any size problem or issue.
You may be setting corporate strategies, designing a product or subsystem, or
designing a better process. The basic procedure is the same. As you will soon learn,
QFD Designer software helps you manage and accomplish all the Improvement
steps we are about to discuss. The benefits which you can achieve are enhanced
by doing your improvement analysis in a team setting. So, before you begin taking
the steps in the next section, make sure you have a good team in place.
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Establishing Your Team
? Ever develop a good workable idea only to be foiled by people in

your company that would not support or implement the solution?
You may have underestimated the importance of participation and consensus

building. The steps below are very powerful. Doing them alone is valuable but if you
work in a team, problem analysis will likely be more accurate and generate better
results. In addition, members that participate gain broader understanding and are
often more willing to implement solutions which they helped generate.
* buy-in
Generating solutions in a people vacuum, without participation and
from key stakeholders, can backfire. It can lead to outright
rejection of good ideas. Or something worse known as “lip
service”, agreeing to implement but never taking action.
And, you can tap the collective intelligence of your organization. Some of the best
solutions generated often come from sources which were unanticipated. It is
suggested that you form a cross-functional team especially if you are trying to
improve a product or process with cross-functional implications.
For example, in product design, you will probably benefit greatly by including
diverse members on your team like Finance, Process Engineering, Product
Engineering, Manufacturing and Marketing.
Please keep in mind that the steps below should be performed as a team if at all
possible.
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Business Improvement Steps
Step Description
Gather WHATs
These are the desired effects you are trying to bring about. Usually these are
obtained and summarized from a survey of customer’s needs.
1
• If a project for external customers, this takes the form of target
market customer requirements analysis.
• If a project for internal customers, it still works. They become your
target customers, analyze their requirements.
Quantify WHAT Importances

2
The importance of each summary need is ranked or rated by customers
Gather Competitive Ratings
3 You need to obtain external (customer) ratings of your product or service’s current
performance and that of competitor’s offerings for each need.
Determine Required Improvement
4 Armed with customer importances and market competitive ratings, you can add
company goals into the mix to arrive at a final aggregate importance rating for each
need.
Brainstorm HOWs (causes)
5 • Ideally, these are controllable, measurable, objective factors that cause

or influence the desired effect.
• These should be global in nature, not solutions but measures.
Determine relationships (HOWs vs. WHATs)

6
Rate how strongly each factor leads to each goal.
Make Internal Competitive Ratings
7
Rate performance of your product vs. competitors for each measurable factor or HOW
Establish Performance Targets
8 Performance targets are usually established by considering competitive
performance positioning and company performance goals.
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Step Description
Enter Correlations between HOWs (factors)
9 Evaluate intersections between each HOW pair to determine if the HOWs are
correlated positively (they are supportive) or negatively (they are contradictory).
Sort HOWs by Importance
10 Locate and focus on the top tier factors, those which most strongly drive customer
needs and requirements. Allocate resources on those highest priority measures first
and lower priority measures later.
Refine your design. Focus on high priorities.
• As time and resources permit, enter the high priority measures from the
step above as the inputs into a new matrix and repeat the analysis.
• In this way, you establish a more detailed comprehensive
improvement plan with a new breakdown of more specific
downstream causes that lead to the measures.
Do as much of the above planning as possible to optimize your plan “on paper” before
committing resources and investing in hard assets.
Follow the steps above and you MUST improve your business results!
Successful businesses do. They implement these steps in one form or another,
offering products and services geared towards satisfying marketplace
requirements.
They work up-front to develop an accurate understanding of their customer’s
requirements and relative importances of each. Some forward thinking companies
even try to anticipate “latent” or unspoken market needs. Those are things that
customers want even though they are unable to verbalize them as needs.
They survey the market to obtain external benchmark data (obtained from
customers). This benchmarking, or measuring of customer perceptions, helps
determine how customers view the company’s performance versus its competitors.
It helps uncover successful competitive practices so that they may be emulated. In
addition, sales points may be uncovered where the company is doing far better than
competitors. In that case, a louder marketing message should be sent about how
the company’s products or services shine over those of its competitors.
Internal benchmarking and testing is employed to uncover performance gaps for
each measure or factor. All this data gets recorded on the matrix.
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The successful business will benefit by timing and optimizing its expenditures. It can
expend its resources on the high priority factors first, saving the less important
elements for later. It can allocate more resources on those factors which will yield
the “biggest bang for the buck.”
Some creative individuals use this method of problem solving for their own personal
goals. After all, in your life, you are the most important customer. And hey, getting
your importance ratings is quite straightforward!
Implementation
While the benefits you can obtain by taking these structured steps should be
obvious, you may be wondering about how to actually record, analyze and use data
generated at each step.
? What framework can be used to implement these steps?

How should a business begin?
Can the information be recorded in a meaningful format?
How should the information be analyzed so that it is actionable?
The unique matrix problem solving capabilities of QFD Designer is the answer. It is
the software that will help you do it!
The next chapter explores the method and implementation in more detail.
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Chapter 2
Implementation Overview
Two-Dimensional Thinking
QFD Designer visually models business problems in two dimensions,
Goals vs. Factors. The ability to express and quantify the interactions
between goals and factors makes the software unique. No other
software allows you to create information packed diagrams in such a
concise form. Only your imagination limits how you model your
business problem.
Rich Data Expression

Real world problems need to be expressed with real world data. The
software provides a unique set of tools to let you do that. With it, you
can record and interrelate an incredibly rich catalog of data:
• Video
• Audio
• Weblinks (internet/intranet)
• AppLinks (applications)
• Numbers
• Calculations
• Bar Charts/Histograms
• Symbol Graphics (including custom)
• Text
• Competitive Assessments
Use the rich data set to make your problem formulation more
concrete. You now have a way to express and model virtually any
business improvement challenge. The software will help you achieve
higher investment returns from your business projects.
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Boosting ROI
Not only can you create comprehensive matrix charts, you can link
them together. With this linkage, the diagrams become much more
than prioritization tools, they are communication conduits that
increase design decision coordination.
Change data in an upstream matrix and see the downstream effects
on your design. Use these linked matrices to help align company
actions more coherently with strategies resulting in higher project
Return on Investment (ROI). The ROI boost stems from enhanced
coordination and market satisfaction.
This is most evident when the software is deployed over a corporate
intranet where design decisions and priorities are disseminated to
the project team members dynamically in real time. They are thus
immediately actionable by all regardless of their geographic location.
Simplify Redesign
The software is an especially great time and money saver when you
are charged with redesigning. In that case, leverage your
knowledgebase of previous designs. You may begin with your
previous analysis, perhaps last model’s design charts. They should
already embody the basic cause and effect relationship of your
problem. Then, you can restructure the charts as needed with new
market data and design data to make them “state of the art.” Once
current, you can begin exploring “what if” scenarios.
Exploring “What If” Scenarios

When you adjust the requirements list and/or the importance values
of market demands, the effects will ripple through to the downstream
linked charts. There, you may note some rank reversals of the
priorities of your controllable factors. In this way, you can quickly
explore the changes in business strategy or design priorities which
are necessitated by these shifts in market needs.
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Wastefully misapplying resources is a thing of the past. Now, you can
eliminate the “noise” that clouds decision making and execution.
Spotlight key issues and optimize your resources.
Enhancing Teamwork
Usually, best results are obtained through a high degree of people
involvement. By creating your analyses with your development team,
you will improve communication and the coherence of team actions.
You can leverage the graphical interactive interface to do so.
Many users employ the software in a team meeting setting while
using a computer display projecter. That allows you to complete
studies dynamically with your business team, fostering
communication and consensus in the process. The result is a deeper,
more profound understanding of market requirements by all and
usually a much greater commitment by those involved. In addition,
the objective presentation of problems and improvement
opportunities helps remove personality conflicts from the mix. It
reduces subjectivism and clearly identifies the highest priority work
that needs to be done.
Leverage the “Paper Effect”

QFD Designer leverages the “paper effect.” This notion of “learn
while you plan” has you making many of your improvement and
design activities on paper where they can be improved and optimized
at little or no cost.
The “paper effect” minimizes the expensive proposition of “learning
while doing”, avoiding wasteful hard asset investments made out of
intuition or poor planning rather than facts.
If you have to scrap anything, make it an inexpensive business
improvement diagram, not tooling, equipment or an improperly
deployed workforce.
Let us now delve into the specific concepts you need to understand
to use the software most effectively.
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Implementation Overview 29 •
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Learning The Software
To get the greatest benefit from the software, you should understand
the following concepts:
• Chart Region “Building Blocks”
• Data Collection and Recording
• Leveraging Supporting Data
• QuickStart Templates
To use the software most effectively, you will need to know how to
insert custom regions like Numeric, Symbol, Text and Assessment to
hold the data specific to your problem. It is easy to arrange these
regions on your charts. They are the chart “building blocks.”
Understanding when and how to add these regions to your charts will
enable you to easily customize any chart you create. It also enables
you to more effectively use the template charts provided with the
software.
Opening a template is a great way to begin your analysis quickly
since you can probably find a template that relates to your particular
business problem. If you can customize charts, you can then make
the template even more effective by modifying it for your purpose.
Additionally, you can get further benefit from customized charts by
saving them as templates for future reuse. To do this, you simply use
the menu choices “Save As Template” to save it and “Organize
Templates” to categorize it.
This helps greatly to standardize improvement methods within your
organization. When you develop and validate a chart layout that
works well for your organization, you can publish its template to team
members for reuse. This will allow teams to assess new problems
using the framework generated and validated in previous analyses.
Such templates can even be grouped and structured to embody your
company’s Best Practices.
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Chart Region Building Blocks
Let’s explore how charts are composed. The various regions which
comprise charts and the types of data each region can express will
be described.
A basic chart or matrix is often referred to as the House Of Qual-
ity(HOQ) because it looks like a house with its triangular roof
region at the top of the diagram. Expanding upon that analogy of
building a “house”, the various regions of these charts are
referred to as “rooms.”
A basic House of Quality chart is shown on the next page.

The various room types that make up the chart are labeled.
•
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•
•
Typical House of Quality (HOQ) Chart with Rooms Labeled
Top Roof
W HOWs
S
R
R W
S
SYMBOL Direction of Improvement K K K I K I K K K I
Technical Attributes
Customer Importance
Chart Tools Data Mgt. Links Customer Assessment
Copy Chart Capability

Rapid Drop Symbols
AppLink Hyperlinks
Relational Database
Multimedia capable
32-Bit Architecture
Continuous Zoom
WHATs House of Quality (HOQ)
Work on chart
Linked charts
N
Drag & Drop

Competitor A
Software Analysis O Competitor B
Q QS/FF Services
0 1 2 3 4 5
Allows us to model our business problems 8.00 C A D E D D N O

Q
Relevant
Provides relevant templates 7.00 C B O N Q

Helps us deploy business goals 9.00 E D E B C O N Q
Can link to web data 7.00 B D E D E E O Q

N
Powerful
R V
Side Roof
R V Integrates with other software 7.00 E E E D E O N Q

R S
R Can coordinate changes projectwide 8.00 D E D E C E O N
W
W R Easy to learn 9.00 E D D C C C B B N O Q
Flexible
V R
R Easy to customize layouts 7.00 C E A C N Q
O
Can export results 7.00 A A C O N Q
8.00 C D B D D B O
N Q
Advancing
Can allow web collaboration
Created with a "state of the art" architecture 9.00 A A D C C C B BN

O Q
Is supported by a forward thinking company 9.00 C
Microsoft Compatible D E E N Q
To any Windows App
Audio, Video, Web

30% to unlimited
WHATs & HOWs
Links Deletions
Win 95, 98, NT
TEXT
Any .EXE file

Ass't Rooms
Performance Targets
Any region
Relations Matrix
Organizational Difficulty
N Competitor A 6 Q Q Q Q Q
O Competitor B 5 O Q O Q O N
Q Q O
Q QS/FF Services
4 N O Q O O O
ASSESSMENT Technical
Assessment
3
2 N O N N N O N
1
N N N
0
116.00
135.00
185.00
484.00
322.00
342.00
459.00
426.00
458.00
72.00
Weighted Importance
NUMERIC
Relative Importance
Your chart will always have WHAT and HOW rooms though either
can be hidden from view.
WHATs, which are usually expressed hierarchically, are the row
entries on the left where your goals are listed. HOWs, also expressed
hierarchically, are the column entries on the top where the factors or
measures are normally listed.
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In addition, you may use a Side Roof left of the WHATs and a Top
Roof above the HOWs. These roof regions allow you to explore
interactions between items of the same type like (WHATs vs. WHATs)
or (HOWs vs. HOWs) to find positive and negative effects. Most
users employ the Top Roof more often than the Side Roof so, on
many templates, the Side Roof is hidden.
Every chart, no matter how basic, has a Relations Matrix between
WHATs and HOWs.
The table below provides more details about these rooms which are
at the core of all charts.
Mandatory Chart Rooms
ROOM DESCRIPTION
There is always a WHAT room on each chart. It is
mandatory though it can be hidden if desired.
In this region you enter “WHAT you want to

WHATs accomplish.” WHATs are the goals of your
improvement effort, usually needs voiced by
customers. They are the “effects” you want to
obtain.
This optional triangular region allows you to compare
the WHATs to each other to see if they reinforce or
hinder one another.
Normally you will look for either positive (reinforcing)

Side Roof or negative (contradictory) correlations. WHATs that
are positively related may be reflecting the same
requirement. In addition, if you are able to provide a
WHAT to a high satisfaction level, check for other
positively correlated WHATs as you may get a
performance bonus.
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ROOM DESCRIPTION
There is always a HOW room on each chart. It is
mandatory though it can be hidden if desired.
Here, you enter “HOW you will accomplish the

HOWs WHATs.” It is a list of the factors or causes which
will lead to your goals. HOWs should be
measurable objective design or technical factors
that affect the outcome of the WHATs.
This optional triangular region allows you to compare
the HOWs to each other to see if they reinforce or
hinder one another. Sometimes, improving one HOW
improves other ones. In the roof, this would be
expressed with a positive correlation symbol. If
improving one HOW negatively affects another HOW,
this would be noted as having a negative relationship
and the corresponding symbol would be entered in the
roof.
Consult the top roof if the HOWs are modified.

Especially check negatively correlated items. These
are factors which may be at odds with your design
objectives. As such, negative symbols are a sort of
Top Roof
“red flag” to the designer to encourage a thorough
assessment of the implications of design changes.
An example of a negative relationship may be

between “Fuel Economy” and “Horsepower.” As one
goes up, the other goes down. If you change
Horsepower in your design, you had better double-
check that you can still meet Fuel Economy
performance.
Negative relationships can suggest the need for

innovation or invention. You may wish to desensitize
your design to eliminate or at least reduce the effect of
negative relationships.
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ROOM DESCRIPTION
Since every chart has a WHATs region (formed of row
entries) and a HOWs region (formed of column
entries), there is always a Relations Matrix. It is the
intersection region where every WHAT and HOW
intersect.
This region records the relationships between all the

WHAT and HOW pairs. Usually, the WHATs and
HOWs are compared to find the strengths of their
relationship to one another. That strength is entered
symbolically.
To determine the strength of the relationship, consider
“If the design requirement (HOW) is met

at the right target value, how strong will
the effect be on the customer’s perception
Relations Matrix that the WHAT (at the intersection) has
been accomplished?”
Usually, one of three classic relationship symbols is

inserted at the intersection of the WHAT and HOW or,
it is left blank.
Additionally, text can be entered into the matrix or any

number can be typed in.
This is the classic use for the matrix though you may
define and enter custom symbols to use it for most
any analysis of WHAT vs. HOW interactions.
•
•
•
•
•
You now know the core chart rooms. Sometimes, this basic matrix
with just the core rooms, WHATs vs. HOWs and the Relations Matrix
and roofs may suffice but most likely, you will need more. No
problem, just insert one or more custom rooms.
Custom or “user-defined” rooms add the specific types of data that
you need to help you solve your problem. You need to understand the
types of rooms you can insert to customize. Chart customization is
key to getting the most meaningful results.
It is very easy to insert any of the following custom rooms on your
charts.
Custom Rooms
Room Type Data Expressed

User-entered numbers or
NUMERIC
calculated numbers.
TEXT User-entered, free format text.
User-entered symbols which can
SYMBOL have any user-defined meaning
including numeric
User entered symbols for
benchmarking either
ASSESSMENT marketplace (external) perceived
performance or testable
(internal) performance.
All charts are just the basic core rooms combined with one or many
of the room types above.
For example, a basic House of Quality (shown on a previous page),
is comprised of the core rooms and some custom rooms which are
described below. You will see the rooms below, or similar ones, on
many charts and templates.
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Typical Custom Rooms (from HOQ)
ROOM DESCRIPTION
Customer A User Entry NUMERIC room that records the
Importance importance of each WHAT.
A User Entry NUMERIC room that usually records an
Organizational evaluation of concerns within the organization.
Difficulty Usually, the difficulty level of the organization to
achieve a new or difficult design objective (HOW).
A calculated NUMERIC room that multiplies
Customer Importance by each symbol weight and
Weighted
sums vertically. It is a measure of how strongly each
Importance
HOW relates to satisfying the WHATs or chart
objectives.
A calculated NUMERIC room that shows percent
Relative Technical
contribution of each HOW’s Technical Importance to
Importance
the overall Technical Importance.
A TEXT room that shows the target or amount of each
HOW necessary to achieve customer satisfaction.
HOW MUCH Should include objective “units” which can be tested
(i.e. volts, lbs., market penetration rate, market share
% etc.)
A SYMBOL room which displays graphics that
Direction of
represent if “more is better”, “less is better” or
Improvement
“nominal is best” for each HOW.
An ASSESSMENT room listing a survey or
Customer
benchmark of performance for each WHAT as stated
Assessment
from the customer or “market” perspective.
An ASSESSMENT room listing a benchmark of
Technical
performance for each HOW obtained from “in-house”
Assessment
testing or other objective measurement methods.
•
•
•
•
•
Now that you understand the various regions that comprise charts,
you can begin building them yourself. You can follow the steps below
to collect and record the data for your charts.
Data Collection and Recording

Now that you have covered basic chart organization, let us focus on
the steps of data acquisition and recording. We will focus on the
Business Improvement Steps described in an earlier chapter and
show how each step can be accomplished with the software.
Business Improvement Steps

Step Description
Gather WHATs
These are the desired effects you are trying to bring about. Usually these are
obtained and summarized from a survey of customer’s needs.
1
• If a project for external customers, this takes the form of target
market customer requirements analysis.
• If a project for internal customers, it still works. They become your
target customers, analyze their requirements.
Quantify WHAT Importances

2
The importance of each summary need is ranked or rated by customers
Gather Competitive Ratings
3 You need to obtain external (customer) ratings of your product or service’s current
performance and that of competitor’s offerings for each need.
Determine Required Improvement
4 Armed with customer importances and market competitive ratings, you can add
company goals into the mix to arrive at a final aggregate importance rating for each
need.
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Step Description
Brainstorm HOWs (causes)
5 • Ideally, these are controllable, measurable, objective factors that cause

or influence the desired effect.
• These should be global in nature, not solutions but measures.
Determine relationships (HOWs vs. WHATs)

6
Rate how strongly each factor leads to each goal.
Make Internal Competitive Ratings

7
Rate performance of your product vs. competitors for each measurable factor or HOW
Establish Performance Targets
8 Performance targets are usually established by considering competitive
performance positioning and company performance goals.
Enter Correlations in Roof

9 Evaluate intersections between each HOW pair to determine if the HOWs are
correlated positively (they are supportive) or negatively (they are contradictory).
Sort HOWs by Importance
10 Locate and focus on the top tier factors, those which most strongly drive customer
needs and requirements. Allocate resources on those highest priority measures first
and lower priority measures later.
Refine your design. Focus on high priorities.
• As time permits, enter the high priority measures from step above as the
inputs into a new matrix and repeat the analysis.
• In this way, you establish a more detailed comprehensive
improvement plan with a new breakdown of more specific
downstream causes that lead to the measures.
“Gather WHATs”
“WHATs” is a broad term. The WHATs are really just the goals or
effects you are trying to obtain. But, the method you take to go about
assembling them is critical. You not only need to assemble an
accurate list of them, you need to quantify their importances.
•
•
•
•
•
As they are usually driven by customer’s needs (either internal or
external), to gather them, you will need to first identify who your
customer or market segment is. Then most likely, you will survey
potential and/or actual customers in that segment to obtain their
detailed requirements. This is usually called obtaining the “Voice of
the Customer” or VOC.
In determining the market segment, you can employ a Market
Segmentation Matrix. This matrix helps you analyze the market
segments you will pursue. One is shown below.
Market Segmentation Matrix
Market Segmentation
Segment 1 Segment 2 Segment 3 Segment 4
Matrix
Demographics (Age, Sex,

Education Level, Marital Status,
Family Composition)
Want are there key wants?
What products or services do

they currently buy?
Market Factors
Which companies compete for

their business?
If they are current customers

already, what do they like in our
company?

already, what do they dislike in
our company?
Percent of total customers
(should add to 100% across)
Percent of total Sales Volume
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•
•
•
Once you’ve decided upon the key segment or segments of
customers for which you want to increase satisfaction, you will need
to obtain the Voice of the Customer (VOC) for that segment.
Often, observational techniques are employed to obtain the VOC. It
is critical to see firsthand, the actual “use cases” of your product or
service. You need to determine exactly what it is about your product
or service that is most valued by the customer.
A technique that will help you gain a broad understanding of these
“use cases” is to observe customers using your product or service
firsthand and record what you see. The compiled info is qualitative in
nature. It is usually entered into a Voice of the Customer matrix.
Templates for this are included with the software.
Essentially, the Voice of Customer analysis is done by collecting and
recording answers to the “five Ws and the H.”
Voice of Customer Analysis
Five W’s and one H Described

Why do you need or want this
WHY?
product?
WHAT? What will it be used for?
Who uses it now and who will use it

WHO?
in future?
When does the customer use it or

WHEN?
when will the customer use it?
WHERE? Where will it be used?
HOW? How is or will the product be used?
•
•
•
•
•
A Voice of the Customer template is shown below.
Voice of Customer I Template
Socio-Economic
Internal/External
WHEN?
Reference #
Group WHY? WHAT? WHO? WHERE? HOW?

When does the
Customer Voice Table customer use it?
Why do you need or What will it be used Who uses it now? Where will it be How is or will the
want this product? for? Who will use it? used? product be used?
When will the
customer use it?
1.00
2.00
3.00
Customer Verbatims
4.00
5.00
6.00
7.00
8.00
9.00
Try to record “verbatims”, the word-for-word statements made by

customers during interviews or focus groups. Then, for each
verbatim, you can address the five Ws and one H in the template.
You may consider the following methods of helping obtain and refine
VOC data:
• Focus Groups
• Interviews (telephone, one-on-one, mail, e-mail etc.)
• Product Clinics
• Customer Contact Database
• Direct Observation
• Primary and Secondary Market Research
Once you have completed the Voice of Customer I table, you can
transfer verbatims into the Voice of Customer II table. There, you can
reword customer verbatims to summarize the root wants that have
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•
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•
been uncovered. From the reworded data, you will try to consolidate
the root wants into Demanded Quality items. These are a
transformation of the VOC into statements that you and your
company understand enough that they can be designed against.
Another Voice of Customer Table is show below.
Voice of Customer Table II
Reference #
Product/Process
Customer's Customer's Product/Process Design Design Design Design
Voice of Customer Table Customer's
Reworded Problem
II Need Company
Data Addressed Function or Task Cost Reliability Technologies Failure Modes Project Social Organizational
Measure
3
Customer Verbatims
Using VOC Table II, you can further analyze the reworded
summarized customer needs.
“Quantify WHAT Importances”
When you are finished and you have a summarized list of needs, go
back to your customer group and ask them to prioritize those
requirements. You may use any of the following methods to prioritize:
•
Rank each need
•
Rate each customer need on a scale (1-10, 1-5 etc.)
•
Percentage allocate needs
•
Use the Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) to “pairwise
compare” needs.
“Gather Competitive Ratings”
• Rate your product vs. competitor’s products for each
customer need on a scale (1-10, 1-5 etc.)
•
•
•
•
•
“Determine Required Improvement”
Then, once you’ve assembled these ratings, you can enter these into
a Pre-Planning Matrix. A template for this is provided with the
software and is shown below.
This template includes pre-defined calculations which derive an
Improvement Ratio. That is, how much you need to improve your
performance for each marketplace need. It then applies a rating of
the sales and marketing benefit of higher performance and calculates
a final Absolute Weight for each marketplace need.
Pre-Planning Matrix
Competitor Y Performance
Competitor X Performance
Our Performance NOW
Our Performance Goal

Customer Importance
Improvement Ratio
Absolute Weight
Sales Point
Item #
Pre-Planning Matrix
1 0.00
2 0.00
Customer Need
3 0.00
4 0.00
5 0.00
6 0.00
7 0.00
8 0.00
9 0.00
Once you have finished your pre-planning analysis, you have

actually reached an important milestone. You have converted the
VOC into summarized needs and applied competitive judgements
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•
and company improvement goals. It is suggested that you then sort
the needs in descending order based upon the resulting “Absolute
Weight” Numeric room from the Pre-planning chart.
Then, to optimize your resources, you may want to focus on only a
subset of all listed needs.
This is essential!
You are about to perform your first prioritization by only transferring the
most important needs into your House of Quality chart. Keeping the needs
list short will reduce downstream analysis. The number of relationships
you will have to eventually consider is reduced. In addition, it keeps your
analysis focused on delivering those needs most critical to success.
Once sorted, transfer the subset needs list into the House of Quality
chart. Make sure to also enter the Absolute Weightings from the Pre-
Planning analysis into the Customer Importance room.
“Brainstorm HOWs (causes)”
Now, you can begin to brainstorm a list of controllable factors or
causes which will provide the WHATs. You can enter them into the
HOWs region of the chart. You can group them into meaningful
categories as you enter them. It’s easy to regroup them anytime, just
drag and drop them into the desired categories.
A very helpful list of potential HOWs is shown below for your review.
These are guidelines that you can use when drafting HOWs to
stimulate thought and discussion.
•
•
•
•
•
Quality Elements (HOWs Checklist)
Category Elements
• Exterior characteristics (size, length, weight,
thickness)
• Dynamic characteristics (speed, pulling force,
strength, brittleness)
• Physical properties (air permeability, heat
retentiveness, thermal stability, elasticity)
• Optical properties (transparency, opaqueness,
luminosity)
Physical Property
• Acoustic properties (tone, sound-blocking
capability, audio output, signal-to-noise ratio)
• Information-related properties (redundancy,
quantity of information, accuracy)
• Chemical properties (corrosion resistance, non-
flammability, explosion resistance)
• Electrical properties (insulation properties,
conductivity, induction)
• Efficiency (energy efficiency, ease of handling,

automation)
• Safety (freedom from harmful effects, foolproof
design)
Mechanical • Versatility of function (multi-functionality,
diversification through combining functions)
• Portability (portable, fixed)
• Experience of users (amateur level, professional
level)
• Image (high quality, name brand)

• Uniqueness (custom-made, imported, natural)
• Familiarity (traditional, newfangled)
Human • Sensory qualities (finish, feel, taste)
• Sense of fulfillment (intellectual fulfillment,
emotional fulfillment)
• Trend toward super quality (service, features not
found in other products)
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• 46 Chapter 2
•
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•
Category Elements
• Resistance to the elements (resistance to cold,
humidity, dust)
• Effects of time (continuity of effect, immediate
Time effect)
• Durability and maintenance (useful product life,
failure rate, repairability)
• Disposability
• Advantages (low price, low maintenance cost)

Economic
• Premiums, extras
• Operation factors (man-hours minimized, rework

minimized, no special skills required, flexibility of
operating standards)
• Raw materials (flexible quality tolerance, storability,
Production inspectability, adaptability to process)
• Yield (high yield, ease of reworking, convertibility to
other products)
• Timeliness (fashion, seasonality)

• Product variety (wide selection)
• Trust
Market • Reason for purchase decision (personal criteria,
opinion leaders, third-party evaluations)
• Life cycle (long life cycle, short life cycle but
utilitarian)
Source: Mizuno & Akao, “QFD: The Customer-Driven Approach to Quality

Planning & Deployment ”, APO 1994.
While you are developing the HOWs, keep these things in mind:
1 Use the type of language that your company uses.
2 Do not enter solutions! Enter controllable, measurable factors that can
be worked on to satisfy the customer need. Enter factors that are
“global” in nature (do not imply any specific design intent).
3 You do not have to enter too many HOWs for each WHAT, try to keep the
ratio of HOWs to WHATs in the range of 1 to 1.5.
4 Try to draft HOWs that can be measured by calculation or simulation.
That eliminates the need to create prototypes or samples.
•
•
•
•
•
You can use the default room called “HOW MUCHs” to record the
units of measurement for each HOW. This is done in preparation for
the Internal Assessment.
For example, if you entered a HOW like
• “Temperature Loss Over Time”,
then record something like the following in the HOW MUCHs
• “Degrees/Minute”
as a measurement unit. This will be the criteria for measurement of
your performance versus competitors in your internal assessment.
“Determine relationships (HOWs vs. WHATs)”
Next, you can rate how strongly each factor leads to each goal. This
is done by entering a numerically weighted symbol which expresses
the relationship strength at each intersect between a HOW and
WHAT entry.
Symbols available by default are shown below.
For more choices, you may consider “configuring” the Relation Matrix
to customize the group of valid symbols to those below.
You can decide which entry to make by considering this question

If we achieve our performance target for the HOW (column
entry), how strongly will that create customer satisfaction for
the WHAT (row entry)?
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The strong symbol in this
example is worth 9 points.
It means that the HOW
item “strongly” causes the
“WHAT” to occur.
Of course, if there is no relationship, leave the intersection blank.

“Make Internal Competitive Ratings”
In this next step, you will make internal performance ratings. You will
need to use objective testing methods. The tests must be capable of
analyzing the performance of your company’s product or service
against competitor’s performance for each factor.
Remember that you must test performance along the dimension of
the measurable “UNITS.”
Using the example shown earlier,
If you analyze the HOW below
• Temperature Loss Over Time
then you will create a test to measure the Units below
• Degrees/Minute
“Degrees/Minute” is the performance measure.
“Establish Performance Targets”
Performance targets are usually established by considering
competitive performance positioning and company performance
goals. Enter your performance targets into the HOW MUCHs room.
•
•
•
•
•
“Enter Correlations between HOWs (factors)”
Evaluate intersections between each HOW pair to determine if the
HOWs are correlated positively (they are supportive) or negatively
(they are contradictory).
Normally, you will use the symbol set below to establish these
correlationships.
Working to improve some HOWs will automatically improve others

that are positively correlated. If they are negatively correlated, an
improvement in one will harm the other one’s performance.
The recording of these relationship is done in the chart Roof.
There is a strong negative

correlation expressed in this
roof intersection. That means
that improving HOW1 may
actually harm performance of
HOW4.
The data in the roof can be particularly important in the case where perfor-
mance levels have to be adjusted. If your team needs to adjust a perfor-
mance target for a HOW, you should consider the effect it will have on
other HOWs with which it is correlated.
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“Sort HOWs by Importance”
Locate and focus on the top tier, most important factors. The high
importance items are those which most strongly drive customer
needs and requirements. This can be seen easily by the Relative
Importance Histogram. Additionally, you can employ a numeric room
using the Rank function to rank the HOWs by their technical
importance ratings.
Allocate resources on those highest priority measures first and lower
priority measures later.
Charts before and after Sorting HOWs by Technical Importance
R
W W
S
R W
R W S S
R
S
Customer Importance
Customer Importance
Chart Tools Data Mgt. Links Customer Assessment

Customer Assessment
AppLink Hyperlinks
Multimedia capable
AppLink Hyperlinks
Multimedia capable
Work on chart
Linked charts
Drag & Drop

Software Analysis N Competitor A
Work on chart
Linked charts
Drag & Drop
HOW 3
HOW 4
HOW 1
HOW2
Competitor A
Software Analysis O (Sorted) O Competitor B
HOW 1
HOW 3
HOW 4
HOW2
Competitor B
Q QS/FF Services Q QS/FF Services
0 1 2 3 4 5
0 1 2 3 4 5
Direction of Improvement K K K K K K K K K K
Allows us to model our business problems 8.00 C A D E D D N O

Q
Allows us to model our business problems 8.00 C E D D D A N O
Q
Relevant
Relevant

Helps us deploy business goals 9.00 E E C B D O N Q

Helps us deploy business goals 9.00 E D E B C O N Q
B D E D E E O Q
N
Can link to web data 7.00 D D E E E B O Q
N
Powerful
Can link to web data 7.00
R V
Powerful
R V R V Integrates with other software 7.00 E E D E E O N Q

R V Integrates with other software 7.00 E E E D E O N Q R S
R S R Can coordinate changes projectwide 8.00 E E E C D D O N
R Can coordinate changes projectwide 8.00 D E D E C E O N W
W W R Easy to learn 9.00 B B C C C D E D N O Q
W R 9.00 E D D C C C B B N O Q
Flexible
Easy to learn
V R
Flexible
V R R Easy to customize layouts 7.00 A C E C N Q

O
O
Can export results 7.00 A C A O N Q
Can export results 7.00 A A C O N Q
C D B D B D N
O Q
Advancing
Can allow web collaboration 8.00

C D B D D B N
O Q
Advancing
Can allow web collaboration 8.00

Created with a "state of the art" architecture 9.00 C C B B C D A AO
N Q
Created with a "state of the art" architecture 9.00 A A D C C C B BN
O Q
Is supported by a forward thinking company 9.00 C D E E N Q
Is supported by a forward thinking company 9.00 C D E EN Q
Microsoft Compatible
To any Windows App

To any Windows App
Audio, Video, Web

Audio, Video, Web
30% to unlimited
WHATs & HOWs
Links Deletions
30% to unlimited
WHATs & HOWs
Win 95, 98, NT

Links Deletions
Any .EXE file

Win 95, 98, NT
Ass't Rooms
Performance Targets
Any .EXE file
Ass't Rooms
Any region
Performance Targets
Any region
N Competitor A 6 Q Q Q Q Q
N Q Q Q Q Q
Q Q O N O O Q O
Q
Competitor A 6
O Q O Q O N
Q Q O O Competitor B 5
O Competitor B 5
Q QS/FF Services
O O O O N Q
Q
4
Technical
QS/FF Services
4 N O Q O O O Technical 3
3 Assessment N N O N N N O
Assessment 2 N O N N N O N
2
1 N N N
1 N N N 0
0
484.00
459.00
458.00
426.00
342.00
322.00
185.00
135.00
116.00
72.00
116.00
135.00
185.00
484.00
322.00
342.00
459.00
426.00
458.00
Absolute Importance
72.00
Absolute Importance
Relative Importance
Relative Importance
10
1
9
Rank
10
9
Rank
“Refine your design. Focus on high priorities.”

To drill-down and continue with your business improvement at a more
detailed level, use the Phase Progression capability of the software.
This allows you to carry the high priority factors from one chart to the
goals region of a new chart. There, you can refine your design,
adding new factors at a more detailed level.
When you use Phase Progression, a data linkage is created such
that changes in the upstream chart will be linked to downstream
charts.
•
•
•
•
•
Leveraging Supporting Data
As you perform the steps above, entering data into your chart, you
will undoubtedly want to be as clear and concrete as possible. You
are studying real world problems and especially if you are working
with a team, you want all the information on the chart to be supported
with as much background information as possible. Your real world
problems must be modeled with real world data. The software
supports you very well towards that end.
Never before have you been able to bring so many different types of
interrelated information together in one place. You have the flexibility
to enter many interrelated data types on one chart to gain a rich
understanding of real world strategy, development and deployment
issues.
For example, on one chart, you may enter WHATs and HOWs (i.e.
goals and factors that affect the outcome of those goals) into the
matrix. Then, you may annotate these WHAT and HOW entries with
background or supporting data. This data may be in any of several
formats (e.g. video, audio, weblinks etc.). Suddenly, the inclusion of
the supporting data on the matrix has made it a much more dynamic
recording and analysis tool.
The table below describes each of the many types of data which you
can represent on your charts:
Data Type Example Usage

“Defect Rate” Text is used all over your charts to
enter WHATs, HOWs, Performance
TEXT “Material Stays Pliable”
Targets etc. and any number of
“Easy to Hold” custom data entries.
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There is a built-in symbol library with
lots of useful symbols. They can
represent anything meaningful that
you define.
The software lets you attach

numeric weight values to any
symbols so they can be used in
calculations.
Alternatively, symbols can be

SYMBOLS
defined as AppLinks so that they
can launch other software.
You can even design your own

bitmap symbols, import them in and
establish definitions for them.
All symbols (including custom ones)

are automatically added to the chart
legend and can be used in
subsequent calculations.
Directly key-in numeric data in “User
Entered” numeric rooms.
Use any such rooms as “arguments”

NUMBERS in custom calculations.
•
•
•
•
•
Choose from over 20 built-in
calculations.
Several calculations are provided

which operate on symbol data in the
matrix (e.g. Abs.Tech.Imp. can
CALC’D
VALUES
automatically multiply relationship
data to derive factor importance
ratings).
Calculated values can be depicted

with a bar chart to enhance visual
presentation and understanding.
Drop links to video almost anywhere
on the chart. This allows you to
provide visual descriptions to
enhance understanding and
concreteness.
The uses of this are limitless.
VIDEO Examples:
Enter video of a customer using

your product or service in a real
world setting to foster greater
understanding of latent needs. Or,
enter video of your focus groups to
linked to: allow review of actual customer
C:\winnt\clock.avi verbatims.
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Drop links to audio almost anywhere
on the chart to provide aural
descriptions that increase
understanding of the concept. The
uses of this are limitless.
AUDIO Example:
Enter audio from a management

presentation expressing key internal
needs or project goals. Or, enter a
link to audio from a customer focus
group session.
WebLinks Link to any of the millions of useful
internet sites with data relevant to
Links to your improvement project.
Internet/
Intranet Example:
Sites
Link to your company’s corporate
intranet site to show detailed
specification data or project
requirements.
Weblink Symbol
•
•
•
•
•
AppLinks Setup an AppLink (a symbol
associated with another software
Links to application) then a simple double-
other click launches that application and
applica- loads any data file you define.
tions (and
associated Project Example:
data files)
Use an AppLink to bring up your
project management software and
track schedule progress.
AHP
Or, setup an AppLink to a
spreadsheet to help your team
Excel Access understand the cost data associated
with certain project requirements.
Now that you are aware of the many possible ways of creating charts,
let’s explore how you can use template charts to begin your analyses
very rapidly.
QuickStart Templates
To start your improvement project quickly, you can use any of the pre-
defined templates included.
• QFD - House of Quality Matrices
• Corporate Strategy Development and Deployment
• Product Development (from Voice of Customer to Shop
Floor)
• Production Planning
• Process Controls
• “Pugh” Concept Selection
• Customer Voice Analyses and Market Surveying
• FMEA (Failure Mode Prevention Analysis)
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Why not use one of the above built-in templates as the basis of your
analysis? Then, you can easily add new regions or remove existing
regions to tailor the chart to your specific improvement task.
When you open a new chart, the template dialog box from the
software appears. It is shown below. It allows you to select a pre-
defined chart format designed for a specific purpose.
As you create charts to model your problem, you arrange them

together into a comprehensive project.
Build a knowledgebase not only with completed charts but by re-
using effective chart layouts on new projects.
You can create and organize your own templates since you can save
any chart as a template, even if it has data in it. Once you establish
an effective format, pass the chart layout and calculations on to other
team members or teams for reuse on future projects.
Your projects can include the summary charts (that express a high
level “bird’s eye view” of the issues). And, they can include linked
“downstream” charts, created via phase progression. These linked
charts show how you have “drilled-down” into finer detail in analysis
of your problem. They show prioritized factors leading to your goals
and how you have zeroed-in on an effective solution.
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Included templates and examples are described below.
Application Description Template/Example

Included
House of Quality I
Standard Quality Function House of Quality II

QFD Deployment Templates included
in the General Tab House of Quality III
Simple Matrix
Design FMEA
Failure Failure Mode and Effects Analysis
Analysis (FMEA) templates included Process FMEA
These tables allow you to enter
and analyze “verbatims” or actual
customer statements.
Eventually, these verbatims are

summarized and entered into a
pre-planning chart so they can be
Customer Voice I
Customer prioritized before becoming inputs
Voice Tables into the business improvement
Customer Voice II
process.
A richer understanding of
customer needs can be generated
and the primary source of
customer data is available to the
team.
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Application Description Template/Example
Included
Phase I - House of
Quality
Phase II - Parts
The classic model used to perform
Deployment
Product or QFD which can deploy the voice
Service Dev’t of the customer all the way to the
Phase III - Process
manufacturing shop floor.
Planning
Phase IV - Production
Controls
Executive Strategies
Managing Executive
Also known as Hoshin Kanri or Strategies
Business Policy Deployment. Templates
Planning can be based on data files Mgt. Factors to
included. Operations
Hoshin Audit - Policy

Deployment
Shows an example comparing a
benchmark concept to
Pugh Concept Pugh Concept
alternatives. Includes embedded
Selection Selection Example.BIP
bitmap graphics showing
concepts visually.
Best Practices Matrix
Quality Improvement - Defect
Six Sigma
Prevention Strategies
Quality Matrix
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Chapter 3
Software Basics
Installation
Install the software like any other Microsoft Windows application.
After you Insert your CD-ROM, it should automatically run the install
procedure. If it does not, just navigate to it using your Windows
Explorer and execute the SETUP.EXE program. Make sure you have
your serial number handy and just follow the prompts to complete the
installation.
Beginning a Project
When you first start the software, you are prompted with the dialog
box below. You may start a new blank project or open an existing one.
If you want to view one of the sample projects that come with the
software, choose “Open an Existing Project” and press .
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To create your own new project, choose “Blank Project” then
At the prompt, enter a filename for the new BIP (Business
Improvement Project) file then
The new blank project opens. No charts are contained in the project
yet so, the software prompts you to choose a template on which to
base your first chart. This is done via the dialog box shown below.
(your dialog box may vary)
Continue to next section for details on adding a chart to the project.
Adding A Chart To The Project

You add new charts through the template dialog box (as shown
above). It allows you to choose from available templates to specify
the desired chart layout.
If the template dialog box is not visible, just press the button or
choose the menu item below:
From Toolbar From Menu
File > New Chart
Note, there are several tabs with different template styles to choose
from. Later, you will learn how to create your own tab groups and
templates.
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Click through the tab groups and note the available templates. When
you find one you like, click it and press to open it as a new chart.
You are first prompted to enter the name of the new chart. Then, the
blank chart appears in a new window.
Now that the chart is open on screen, you can begin entering data.
You may wish to start by adding or altering the existing chart title.
Entering a Chart Title

The title region for a chart is the rectangular region in the upper left
corner of the chart just above the WHATs room.
To enter or edit the title for the chart, just click in this region once then
type the new title text. You may enter multiple lines in the title and you
can format the title text using the font settings on the toolbar.
Each chart’s thumbnail image is titled according to the chart title region text.
To differentiate between different chart thumbnails on the project view, just
make sure each chart has different title block text.
You may wish to change to format of the title text. It is easy to do, just
follow the directions below.
Formatting Text
Formatting chart text is easy. There are several methods you can
use. The fastest way is with the formatting toolbar.
Text Formatting Tools
Color *Bullets
Font Font
Size Bold, Italic,
Underline Left,
Rotate Text Center,
Orientation Right
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You can change the following text settings using the tools above
• Font
• Font Size
• Bold, Italic, Underline
• Font Color
• Text Orientation (toggles horizontal or vertical)
• Text alignment (left, center, right)
• *Bullets - can only be added when actually editing text (i.e.
after single-clicking text twice)
Just click any text item then press the desired formatting button.
You may also choose FORMAT>FONT from the menu to change
many of the same attributes.
Changing the Format For Multiple Items

Any font settings you make are applied to the currently selected
item(s). Sometimes, you may want to format several entries all at one
time.
To do this, you need to select the entries first. Do this by any method
below.
To Select These Items . . . Use This Technique . . .

Click the first item. Then, hold down the B key and click
To select a continuous group of the last item to select the list.
WHATs/HOWs.
Click the first item then hold down the C key while you
To select a discontinuous group click the other items individually. Release C key when
of WHATs/HOWs or custom done.
room data.
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Right-click the room’s title and choose
Select All Data
from the popup menu.

To select all data cells in a room.
A dotted line appears around all the data cells to denote that
they are selected. There is a menu choice that does the same
thing;
Edit > Select All Room Data
Setting the Font

When you are entering text, you may want to change the font of your
entries. You can do this easily with the setting choices on the toolbar
for Font, Size, Bold, Italic etc.
You can set the default font attributes for new items from any existing text.
If there is one text entry in the chart that has the desired format, you can
use it to set the default attributes. Follow the directions below.
Just click on any text item that has the formatting you like and choose
Format>
Set Default Font from
Selected
The format of the currently selected item is transferred automatically

to the default settings. Now, any new text assumes the formatting of
the selected item.
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Setting Text Alignment
To format text justification either left, center or right, use the toolbar
buttons below.
Left Right
Justify Center Justify
Justify
To format text alignment to the cell top, middle or bottom, use the
buttons below.
Align Align
Top Align Bottom
Middle
There are corresponding menu choices under
Format>Text Alignment> . . . to do the same things.
Entering WHATs and HOWs

Most users start with the row entries along the left edge, usually
known as the Customer’s Needs or WHATs area of the chart.
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The region is shown below:
The region to the far left (or top

for HOWs) is the title.
There is a default title already
entered.
To change it, click in the
region, type the new text then
press <Enter>.
You can also use your right
mouse button to edit text.
You may continue entering text into the WHATs region.

You may quickly insert and/or delete items using the Insert and Delete
keys on your keyboard.
Two single-clicks (pause between clicks) on an item with text will allow you
to edit it.
Sizing Chart Regions

You can size almost any chart region in two dimensions. To size a
chart region, first, turn on the sizing tool using either method below:
Options>
Size Regions
When you turn on the sizing tool, your cursor changes to the following
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Then, as you move the cursor over a region which is sizeable, it will
change again to show you in which dimension you can size the
region. An example is shown below:
This region is sizeable horizontally.
This region is sizeable vertically.
To size the region, just click its border line and keep your mouse
button down while you drag the border to its new position.
You can even size individual rows and columns of WHATs and HOWs.
Sizing WHATs and HOWs consistently with Match Size

Sometimes, you may want to format all WHATs and HOWs with the
same dimension to achieve a consistent look on your chart.
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For example if you have sized an individual WHAT or HOW to fit in
some text or a symbol, it will obviously not match the size of the other
WHATs and/or HOWs. In order to make them all the same size, there
is a simple feature which allows you to match them all to any one
item.
Using Match Size

Click on the WHAT or HOW item that has the desired size.
Choose Options>Match Size.
Auto-fitting Text in WHATs/HOWs

Sometimes there is text in the lowest level of the WHATs or HOWs
that is too long for the current region’s size. You can always manually
size the region using the Sizing tool. However, a faster way is to fit
the region to the text.
Auto-fitting WHAT/HOW Text

Click any WHAT or HOW item in the lowest (most detailed level)
Choose Options>Auto-Fit Text
Inserting Levels
Most templates charts have two levels of hierarchy available within
the WHATs and the HOWs.
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The region title is at the extreme left or top for the WHATs and HOWs
respectively.
Primary Level Secondary Level
Title
Organization of Title and Levels in the WHATs region
Should you desire more detail at any time, you can add more levels
anywhere within the WHATs or HOWs.
Insert a New WHAT/HOW Level
Action Comment
1. Click an item in either the Your new level will be inserted next to the cur-
WHATs or HOWs. rently selected item.
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Insert a New WHAT/HOW Level
Action Comment
2. Choose: The new level will now appear in the chart. You
may wish to reorganize the items in either the
EDIT>LEVEL>INSERT>
WHATs or HOWs now to take advantage of the
(above or below) for new level.
WHATs
The easiest way to do that is to use Drag & Drop
or to quickly reposition items in the WHATs or
(left or right) for HOWs HOWs.
Deleting Levels
You may delete a “level” within the WHAT or HOW room by clicking
any item in the desired level then choosing:
EDIT>LEVEL>DELETE
from the menu. Deleting a level removes all WHAT or HOW items in
that level.
Use care when deleting levels. If you delete the lowest (most detailed) level, not
only the items but all related data including symbols and room data will be
removed. To reverse a level deletion, immediately choose EDIT>UNDO.
Instead of deleting levels, you can size the region down to hide it from view
using OPTIONS>SIZE REGIONS from the menu. This does not remove
any data from the chart, only from view. To bring back a hidden level,
choose OPTIONS>UNHIDE>LEVEL OR ITEM> (WHAT or HOW).
“Zooming” to Scale The Chart View

The software allows you to continuously zoom the chart image on
screen and still work on the chart. The default zoom factor is 100%
but you can adjust it to any value you want. When you press the drop
down list box on the toolbar, you will see some preset values.
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You can use one of them or, just click in the edit box and enter your
own zoom factor.
Chart Zoom Factor Setting
Adjusting this setting actually affects the scale factor used in Print
Preview. If you need to adjust how the chart is printing on your printer’s
page, simply adjust the zoom factor setting the print-preview till you get
the desired result.
Inserting a List of Text or Numbers

You can easily enter a list of text entries or numbers from another
application like a word processor or spreadsheet.
Text or numbers can be pasted into either WHATs or HOWs. In
addition, you may paste a list of text into any Text room or a list of
numbers into any Numeric room.
To insert a list, follow instructions below.
Inserting a List (Text or Numbers)
Action Comment
1. Copy the text or number Open the application where the text or numeric
list onto your clipboard list appears then select and copy the list using
Edit>Copy from that application (i.e. word pro-
cessor or spreadsheet).
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Inserting a List (Text or Numbers)
Action Comment
2. Click an insertion point You can click any WHAT or HOW. You can also
on the chart. click a cell in a Text room if pasting a text list or a
Numeric room if pasting a numeric list.
The list will be inserted either to the right of or
below the insertion point.
3. Choose Edit>Paste... The entire list can be pasted in one cell or in
multiple cells going across or down. The menu
>Items In One Cell
choice enabled depends on the orientation of
(or) the room into which you are inserting the text.
>Multi-Cell Across
>Multi-Cell Down
Entering Notes
You can enter notes or annotations to any chart data. To enter a note
behind existing chart data, just select the data with a single click then
press the note button on the floating symbol bar.
Splitting the Chart

Have you ever wanted to split the chart on screen to make it easier
to enter data?
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Split Bars
Split Bars
It’s easy. Just choose
WINDOW>SPLIT AT CURSOR
or,
WINDOW>SPLIT WHATs and HOWs
The first choice will split your chart at the position of the currently
selected item. The second choice will split the chart so that the entire
width of the WHATs region is visible and the entire height of the
HOWs is visible. This makes it easy to enter symbol data and see
where you are in the Relations matrix.
If you want to remove the split, either double-click the split bar(s) or
just reselect the menu choice to toggle the split off.
Setting Chart Position

The entire chart can be repositioned or shifted on the screen and
printed page. To shift the chart, click inside the chart title region and
hold your mouse button down while you drag the chart to a new
position.
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You may shift the chart position in order to make room for the chart
legend or, to allow various chart regions to be resized more
effectively.
If you have shifted the chart but want to reset its position into the
upper left corner of the view, choose
Options > Reset Chart Position
This feature simply resets the chart position to the upper left corner
of the screen.
Organizing and Grouping Entries

Now that you know how to enter data into the chart, let us spend
some time on techniques which you can use to arrange your data into
meaningful groups. Let us begin with “Drag and Drop.”
“Drag and Drop” to Quickly Move Items

If you want to move a WHATs or HOWs item in the region to
reposition or regroup it, use the simple Drag & Drop technique.
Just click the item you want to move and keep your mouse button
down while you move it to the new position then release the mouse
button.
The dark bar signals

where the item being
dragged will be placed
upon release of the
mouse button
(e.g. above “Item 22” in
this example).
Any data related to the WHAT/HOW item (e.g. matrix or roof symbols) will
reposition automatically.
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Use this simple drag & drop technique to rearrange items easily into their
logical groupings. This organizing and grouping of like items is often
referred to as the Affinity Process.
You may also use the standard Cut or Copy and Paste to move items
or rooms.
Cut, Copy & Paste

Steps to Cut, Copy & Paste are described below.
Cut, Copy & Paste
Action Comment
1. Click the item you wish to

Valid selections are WHATs, HOWs or rooms.
Copy or Cut
2.
Edit>Copy or Copy leaves original, Cut does not.
Both place item on the Windows clipboard.
Edit>Cut
3. Click where you want to Paste location is always next to some selected
reposition the item. item.
4. Choose Edit>Paste or
press button below
The data is repositioned.
Paste
You may have a list of WHATs, HOWs or other text or numbers in

another program. Quickly inserting the list into your chart is described
below.
Entering Symbols
To enter symbols into your chart, you will be using the floating,
dockable Symbol Bar.
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The Symbol Bar
Symbols are “dropped” into the chart from the Symbol bar. For
example, try this. Bring up the Symbol Bar for the Relations Matrix by
clicking anywhere in the matrix then choosing either option below:
To View The Symbol Bar
View >
Toolbars >
Symbol Bar
The Symbol Bar appears (sample shown below).

Symbol Bar Diagram
Add multimedia
event
Add note Add

weblink
Erase
Add or data
edit text User-defined
symbols for
this region
Intersect items
Symbol Bar Button Descriptions

Button Description
Add or edit text Allows entry or edit of cell text
Add note Enter note (annotations) into cell
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Symbol Bar Button Descriptions
Button Description
Add multimedia event Play audio or video from cell
Add weblink Launch web browser and connect
to a URL (web address)
User-defined symbols Lists all symbols currently defined
for this chart region.
user-defined buttons correspond
to those symbols configured for
region.
Intersect items Lists the row & column items at
the selected intersection. Parent
items are shown via drop-down
list.
The first five buttons on the symbol bar are always present. After
those, any user-defined symbols assigned to the region are
shown.
In this example, three classic QFD symbols have been added to
denote Strong, Medium and Weak relationships.
On most charts, these symbols are pre-defined and appear by
default on the Symbol bar for the Relations Matrix. You can add
or delete assigned symbols easily by configuring any chart
region.
To enter a symbol, just press it. It “drops” into the chart at your
cursor’s current location.
You can drag the symbol bar to a new position to simplify data entry
Entering a symbol will automatically advance your cursor to the next cell
either across or down the matrix. Advance across, down or toggle off
using the menu choice OPTIONS>AUTO MATRIX ADVANCE.
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Entering Symbols in Rooms
Just like the Relation matrix room described above, most other rooms
are also preconfigured with basic settings and symbols to help you
enter data quickly.
For example, if you create a new chart from a basic template, bring
up the symbol bar then click around in different regions which can
hold symbols, you will notice that the symbol bar button choices
automatically adjust to reflect the symbols defined in that region.
EXAMPLE:
With a Relation matrix cell selected on a basic template chart, you
should see the symbol bar with the following choices.
Then, select a roof cell and note that the symbol choices change to
those shown below.
Click another region and the symbol bar updates again with the
applicable symbol choices.
If you only see the first five system buttons on the symbol bar, that
simply means no user-defined symbols have been assigned to that
region.
The first five system buttons are always present.
You can modify those symbol options easily by “configuring.” See
“Configuring Chart Regions” on page 91
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Assessment Rooms, used to express marketplace (external) or technical
(internal) performance datum, have no default symbols assigned. You will
need to assign symbols for your company, your competitors and your target
the first time you use those rooms.
Deleting Symbols
It is easy to delete a symbol from the chart. Use any method below.
Deleting Symbols
Click it then press <Delete>.
Click it then press “Erase data” button on Symbol bar
Right-click it and choose Symbol>Delete from the popup menu
Entering Matrix Symbols

Once you have WHATs and HOWs entered, you may wish to enter
matrix symbols. The chart region between the WHATs and HOWs is
known as the Relations Matrix. It is shown graphically below.
Relations
Matrix region
You can place a symbol at any intersection between a WHAT and

HOW by dropping it from the Symbol Bar.
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Marking and Displaying Reviewed Items
Sometimes, you will analyze a relationship or data value in your chart
and decide that NO relationship exists, that no data entry is
applicable.
When this happens, it makes it hard to keep your place in the
analysis, you can get lost confusing items you haven’t considered yet
with those you have and that are intentionally blank.
To avoid this problem, there is a built-in facility to handle just such an
occurrence. Once you select a cell in a room or in the Relations
matrix, if you then press E without placing data in the cell, the
software notes this and tags it internally as a “Reviewed Item.”
However, if you use the arrow key to navigate to another cell, the item
will not be tagged as reviewed.
So, to summarize:
Pressing E will mark the item as “Reviewed.”
Z
Q R
Pressing Y will simply navigate past the cell without marking
it in any way.
Then, whenever you want to see the cells which you have already
reviewed, just choose OPTIONS>SHOW REVIEWED ITEMS from
the menu.
Entering Data in Custom Rooms
Entering Symbol Room Data

Entering data into an existing symbol room on the chart is done via
the symbol bar.
Just click any data cell in a chart symbol room (e.g. Direction of
Improvement) and access the symbol bar (choose
View>Toolbars>Symbol Bar). Another way to bring up the symbol bar
is to double-click on the data region of any numeric room. That will
cause the symbol bar to appear.
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On the symbol bar, you will see the choices of all valid symbols for
the room. To enter data, simply press the button corresponding to the
symbol you want to enter.
Entering Numeric Room Data

Entering data in a Numeric room on the chart is done by just typing
in the value from the keyboard. Just click any data cell in a chart
Numeric room (e.g. Customer Importance) and type in the desired
value then press <enter>.
If a numeric room is calculated, you will not be able to enter values, the
software will beep and any typing is disregarded. If this happens, you can
configure the room to see how it is calculated. See “Numeric Rooms” on
page 93.
To insure that calculated values in your chart are accurate, you can either
enable Options>Auto Recalc (default is enabled) or disable auto-recalc and
choose Options>Recalc Now to manually refresh calculated values.
Refreshing Chart Numbers with Recalc

When you modify values in a Numeric room or Relations matrix, any
calculated numeric rooms which are affected “recalc” automatically
(assuming “Auto-Recalc” is on). This insures that they are reset and
updated with new values.
For example, let’s say you enter new values in the Customer
Importance room and it is an argument used in the Weighted
Importance function from another room. As soon as you enter the
new values, a recalc occurs automatically so that the Weighted
Importance room values update.
On really large charts, this can take enough time that data entry and
edits slow a bit. If this happens, you can eliminate any recalc delays
by turning off the auto-recalc function.
The Auto-Recalc menu choice appears on the menu as shown below
Options>Auto-Recalc
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It toggles on and off. When it’s on, it is displayed with a checkmark.
Just choose it again to toggle it off.
If you turn off Auto-Recalc, you will need to perform a recalculation
using
Options>Recalc Now
If Auto-Recalc is off, before you consider chart data, make sure you
perform a “Recalc Now” to insure that values are correct.
Changing values on an upstream linked chart will not automatically cause a

recalc in downstream linked charts. In order to refresh data linked between
charts, the target chart (usually downstream) needs to be closed and re-
opened in order to refresh it from the project database.
Entering Assessment Room Data

To enter data in an assessment type room, you must first configuring
it. That establishes the valid symbols which can be expressed in it.
For example, each assessment room symbol will need to be
associated with a competitor before you can “drop” that competitor’s
data values (represented by symbols) into the chart.
Please see “Configuring Assessment Rooms” on page 102.
Once you have configured the valid symbols for the room, you can
drop the data into the chart via the symbol bar for the room. Launch
the room’s symbol bar by double clicking in any data cell for a chart
assessment type room (e.g. Customer Rating). Or, choosing either
method below will also launch the symbol bar:
To Launch The Symbol Bar
View >
Toolbars >
Symbol Bar
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Entering Text Room Data
Entering text room data is easy, just click the any data cell in a chart
text room (e.g. How Much) and type in the text.
Printing
Getting a printed hardcopy of your charts is simple, just follow the
directions in this section.
Printer Setup
Before printing, you may want to make printer settings (i.e. portrait vs.
landscape, paper size, printer etc) To do so, just choose
File>Print Setup
The Print Setup dialog box below appears.
In the dialog box, you can make settings for the printer like paper
size, paper tray, orientation, properties etc.
Once you have setup your printer, you can print your charts.
Printers can also be setup via the Windows Control Panel.
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Printing with “Fit to Page”
Printing is fast and easy if you elect to fit to page. You don’t even need
to preview, you can let the software automatically scale the chart to
fit entirely on the printer’s page. Just choose
File>Print>Fit to Page
The chart is scaled up or down accordingly so that it covers the
maxiumum page area on your printer.
The page size is determined by the default printer and its page size setting. To
change this, you can use the Windows Control Panel.
If you would rather preview before printing, keep reading.
Print Preview
Previewing your chart before printing is easy. Start the preview with
either method below.
Print Preview
File > Print Preview
The preview window allows you to see how your chart will fit on paper
when printed. If the chart doesn’t appear as you want, close preview,
modify the chart and preview again. Repeat till you get the results you
want.
You can scale the chart’s dimensions on the paper using the screen
zoom setting.
The previewed and printed image actually adjusts based upon the screen
zoom factor setting. Thus, if you want the chart to appear smaller on the
page, you can just set the zoom factor down from say 100% to 90%. Then
preview again to verify. Repeat till you like the results.
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To fit different page sizes, enlarge or shrink the image accordingly. As
you change the screen zoom setting, the previewed image adjusts to
show you how the new image will print.
The page size used in preview mode depends on the current “default”
printer and its settings (i.e. page size, orientation etc.). Change defaults
with the Windows Control Panel or with File > Print Setup.
Printing “As Displayed”

The amount of print scaling applied is controllable by your screen
zoom factor. If you choose
Printing “As Displayed”
Print > As Displayed
your chart is sent to the printer scaled exactly as shown on screen

(i.e. using the current screen zoom factor like 100%, 125%, 50% etc.)
This can be useful. This connection means that if you change the
screen zoom setting and preview, you will see a corresponding
adjustment of the previewed image.
If you Print Preview and the chart is not scaled as desired, adjust the zoom
setting for the screen display and preview again. Repeat until the preview
is acceptable then print.
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Printing Notes
Printing chart notes is described below.
How to Print Chart Notes

1 Choose
File>Notes>Send to Wordpad
The “Save As” dialog box appears. The notes will be saved into a
standard text file (default extension *.not) for which you provide the
name.
2 The file created above is opened in the Wordpad application, the
simple word processor that comes pre-installed with Microsoft
Windows. Once in Wordpad, you may choose to format the notes
(e.g. you may want to add a custom title or change the font used for
note text etc.).
3 To print the hardcopy, just issue the Print command in Wordpad.
Once the notes are in Wordpad, you can then copy them into another word
processor if you choose by just selecting them and using the copy and
paste functions.
Exporting the Chart Image

Once you have created a chart, you may want to export it into another
software program for reporting or distribution to others. Doing this is
easy, you can just use a simple Copy & Paste technique.
Just follow the steps below:
To Export the Chart Image
Action Comment
1. Open the desired chart

2. Choose Edit>Copy Chart This places the chart on the clipboard
3. Open the other application where
you want to paste the chart
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To Export the Chart Image
Action Comment
4. Choose Edit>Paste Special and The chart image will paste best as a
choose the “Picture” format. “picture.”
It is important that you Paste as a
“picture” to insure that the chart is
rendered correctly in the other
program.
Being able to embed chart images into other software is very helpful.
Once the chart is visible in another program like Word for Windows,
you can save the Word (.doc) file and share it with others.
However, they will not be able to edit the chart, they may only view
the image.
If you want to send the file you create to someone else, be sure to make the
required setting in the other program to embed fonts. This insures that the chart
displays properly when viewed on another computer that doesn’t have the
software installed. *It is especially important if you e-mail the file to someone.
WORD FOR WINDOWS
Choose Format>Options then access the Save tab and select “Embed TrueType
Fonts.”
MICROSOFT POWERPOINT
In the File Save dialog box, make sure you select “Embed TrueType.”
NOTE: If you find that this doesn’t work on your system, you may have to type in
any character from the Dingur font directly in your target document (if desired, you
may then hide the character). This insures that the font is actually embedded in the
document and may prove a more reliable method of insuring the next user can see
all the symbols properly. For example, paste the chart into Word then click
somewhere in the Word document and type a character from the Dingur font.
You can embed the chart into other software to
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• Create a presentation which shows the chart (e.g.
PowerPoint)
• Increase clarity in a management report (e.g. Word for
Windows document).
• Post the chart on internet/intranet web pages for team
members.
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Chapter 4
Customizing Charts
Configuring Chart Regions
Knowing how to Configure regions is integral to customizing the
software.
Each chart room can be configured to establish its settings.
Depending on the room’s type, different options will appear when you
configure it. Use configure to
• Make General settings
Valid data symbols
Calculations
Scale ranges
Bar charting
Other display options
• Define AppLinks
Symbols that launch other programs
If you want to modify a region’s symbols, Just configure it.
To configure any region, you must select it first. Select a room by
clicking its title. Select a Roof or the Relations Matrix by clicking any
cell in it.
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Then, choose either
Configure Selected Region
Options >
or,
Right-Click and “Configure”
The configuration dialog box for the selected region appears. Some
specific examples are described below.
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Numeric Rooms
Numeric rooms are among the most powerful features of the
software. You can directly enter numbers or have the software
calculate values for you by defining your own calculation in a Numeric
room. When you insert a Numeric Room, the Configure dialog box
appears as shown below.
Configuring a Numeric Room
By default, there is no formula assigned. If you enter a title only and

accept the default settings for the Function (NONE-User Entry) you
will insert a room that allows you to type in numbers directly into cells.
Inserting Rooms That Calculate

To define a room which calculates values, follow the steps below:
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Configuring a Calculating Numeric Room
Action Comment
1. Enter the room’s title. Type in any text in the Title region of the dialog
box.
2. Press the down arrow in
the Functions list box to
review the catalog of cal-
culations available.
3. Click the desired calcula-
tion to select it.
4. In the edit regions that Different calculations require different argu-
appear on the dialog ments. For example, if you choose SUM then,
box, establish the argu- you will need to select the rooms which you
ments which will be used want to SUM from the argument controls which
in the calculation. appear below the Function.
Each time you choose a room to be included in
the calculation, its name appears in the Formula
box above the Functions list.
A list of Functions available and their arguments
are shown below.
5. Choose the number of
decimals to display.
6. Choose to display values The Bar Chart setting displays a histogram of
as numbers or as a bar each cell’s contribution to the total. It is a visual
chart/histogram. indicator of the relative strength of each total.
When you click on this setting, you can establish
the bar chart color.
If you want to change the bar chart color after it
has been inserted, just toggle this setting off
then on again to trigger the color dialog box to
appear.
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Configuring a Calculating Numeric Room
Action Comment
7. Select “Percentage” if This is a display formatting options that

you want to see the val- expresses the value in each cell as a percent-
ues expressed in per- age. For example:
centage terms.
• .04 would appear as 4% etc.
• .4 would appear as 40%
• 4.0 would appear as 400%
You cannot bracket arguments to affect their order of calculation. In

addition, you cannot define more than one function for any room.
If you need to perform calculations that require several functions, you may
configure separate intermediate rooms, used to build more complex
compound calculations. If you build such intermediate rooms, you may
consider hiding them from view once you have verified that final calcu-
lation is working as desired.
Calculation Descriptions
The table below lists each available function and its description.
Function Description Argument Description

Averages all column or row
Any Numeric rooms in the
Average entries in specified
chart.
Arguments (rooms),
Sums matrix entries down
Column Sum each column in the Relations No Argument.
Matrix.
Starts with the value in the 1st
Difference Any Numeric rooms in the
Arg Room then subtracts all
(Rooms) chart.
values in subsequent Args.
Difference Subtracts the constant Any Numeric room and any
(Rooms - entered in 2nd Arg from constant. Type the constant
Const) entries in 1st Arg room. in directly.
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Divides the 1st Arg room
Any two Numeric rooms in
Division values by the 2nd Arg room
the chart.
values.
Adds a simple index by
numbering each row or
Matrix Index column chart entry. No Argument.
Automatically adjusts to
insertions and deletions.
Finds the largest value in the
Matrix Max in
Relations Matrix in each No Argument.
Column
column.
Matrix Max in Finds the largest value in the
No Argument.
Row Relations Matrix in each row.
Finds the smallest value in
Matrix Min in
the Relations Matrix in each No Argument.
Col
column.
Finds the smallest value in
Matrix Min in
the Relations Matrix in each No Argument.
Row
row.
Evaluates all row/column
entries in the specified Arg Any Numeric rooms in the
Maximum
Rooms and enters the chart.
MAXIMUM value.
Evaluates all row/column
entries in the specified Arg Any Numeric rooms in the
Minimum
Rooms and enters the chart.
MINIMUM value.
NONE-User No calculation. User enters
No Argument.
Entry values directly.
Adds all room entries to get a
total, then divides each by Any Numeric room in the
Percentage
that total to arrive at its chart.
percentage (%) contribution.
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Product Multiplies values in the Arg Any Numeric rooms in the
(Rooms) Rooms specified. chart.
Product Multiplies entries in the 1st. Any Numeric room and any
(Rooms * Arg Room with the constant constant. Type the constant
Const) entered in the 2nd arg in directly.
Ranks all entries in the Arg
Room in descending order Any Numeric room in the
Rank
(highest value is ranked 1st, chart.
lowest value ranked last).
Sums matrix entries across
RowSum each row in the Relations No Argument.
matrix.
Adds entries from all Arg Any Numeric rooms in the
Sum (Rooms)
rooms specified. chart.
Sums entries in the 1st. Arg Any Numeric room and any
Sum (Rooms
with the constant entered in constant. Type the constant
+ Const)
the 2nd arg in directly.
Counts the number of A chart matrix region (either
occurrences of the specified Relations Matrix or one of
Tally symbol in either the Relations the Roofs) and any symbol
Matrix or Roof. which has been assigned to
that region.
Sums “weighted” matrix cells Any Numeric room to be the
across or down. The Arg is multiplier or weighting value
the weight factor. and a number which you
SUM(argWgt. x (cell must enter directly
value/scale max)) corresponding to the scale
Weighted maximum used in the
Importance
Relations Matrix.
(Ideal)
The multiplier (or
argument) must have
the opposite
orientation
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Sums "weighted" matrix cells
across or down. The Arg is Any Numeric room in the
the weight factor. chart to be the
SUM(argWgt. x cell value). multiplier(weighting value).
Weighted
Importance The multiplier (or
This is a classic QFD function
(Independent) argument) must have
for obtaining the priorities of
column entries (HOWs) the opposite
weighted by customer orientation.
importance.
Sums "weighted" matrix cells Any Numeric room in the
across or down. The Arg is chart to be the multiplier or
the weight factor. weighting value.
Weighted
SUM(argWgt. x (cell
Importance value/row or col total)) The multiplier (or
(Proportional) argument) must have
the opposite
orientation
Configuring Symbol Regions

It’s easy to configure regions that hold symbols, just click in the
region’s title (if it’s a room) or in the matrix or roof then press the
button or use the menu as shown above. An example is shown
below. If you configure the Relations Matrix, the dialog box below is
launched.
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Configuring the Relations Matrix
Assigning, removing or modifying symbols is easily done from this

dialog box. Click the General tab to access symbols that express
data. Or, click the AppLink tab (not shown above, only present when
configuring custom rooms), to access symbols that launch other
software.
If you remove symbols assigned to the region, the symbol bar
choices will shrink accordingly. Add them and it expands.
Symbols which may be assigned appear in the “project-wide” Symbol
Library visible on the left side. You click a symbol on the left side, set
its attributes in the center, then add a description and weight value to
make it valid in the selected region.
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Step by step instructions are shown below:
Configuring a Region’s Symbols
Action Comment
1. Select the desired room The configure dialog box is displayed. The
by clicking its title (or a options may differ depending on which room is
roof or matrix cell) and being configured.
press to bring up the
Configure dialog box.
2. Symbols must be These symbols include those that come with the
assigned individually. software and any custom ones added by the
Click the desired symbol user (i.e. bitmap graphics).
in the Symbol Library list.
3. Accept or edit the If you edit the description, it will change in all
“Description” field regions where the symbol is used. This keeps
the meaning of each symbol consistent through-
out the chart.
Symbols already in use in other regions will
already have descriptions entered.
4. Enter any specific set- You can specify the numeric weight value you
tings for the symbol. want the symbol to have.
You may have to change the “Valid Number
Range” if the weight value you want to enter is
outside of the current room’s range.
The numeric value you enter may be used in
calculations like the Absolute Technical Impor-
tance matrix calculation.
Depending on the room, you may have different
setting options (i.e. in Assessment regions, you
can select symbols to draw with a connecting
line).
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Configuring a Region’s Symbols
Action Comment
5. The symbol should now appear in the list box on

Press the right side of the dialog box to denote it is
now assigned for use in the current region.
to add the symbol to the
assigned list, making it
valid for use in the
selected region.
To remove symbols, just reverse the process described above;

Click the symbol in the assigned list (right side) and press
to de-assign it.
Configuring Custom Symbols

You can even add custom symbols to the symbol library for display in
chart regions. Just create and save a Windows Bitmap file using any
application that can export in the bitmap format. Windows Paint
(included with Windows) can be used for this purpose.
Setting the bitmap size to 32 pixels wide X 32 pixels tall should provide the
most readable results.
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Then, in the configuration dialog box, just press the <Add to Library>
button under Custom Symbols.
Use these
buttons to
add your
own custom
symbols
Navigate to the bitmap file which you previously created and insert it.
Now, it is in the library and can be assigned like any other symbol.
The legend shows the definition of all chart symbols. To print it with your
chart and/or display it on screen, just choose VIEW>LEGEND>WEIGHT
or, VIEW>LEGEND>ASSESSMENT from the menu. The legend appears
at the bottom of the chart but can be dragged to another position.
Any symbols you configure will appear on the chart legend.
Configuring Assessment Rooms

To configure an assessment room, just click it’s title area and press
the configure button or right click the title and choose configure. The
dialog box below will appear:
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The assessment room is configured by clicking an unused symbol in
the Symbol Library box (left side of dialog box) and then defining the
symbol by entering the following:
• A company name or description
• The attribute (Chart owner, competitor or target)*
• A line and color if you want data points connected
• A valid scale range
• The font size to use to display symbol descriptions
The owner, competitor, target settings are only implicated in the
assessment consistency check report. See “Comparing
Assessments” on page 131.
Once you have configured an assessment room, just double click its
data area and you can drop a symbol value into the chart.
As soon as you choose a symbol from the symbol bar, the “Rapid
Drop” dialog box will appear as shown below:
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In this dialog box, you can drag the slider bar to set the value or type
it in directly. You should note that after you press enter to drop the
value into the chart, rapid drop automatically advances to the next
competitor defined in the assessment room.
Then, when you have entered data for the last competitor, your
cursor automatically jumps to the next WHAT or HOW item allowing
you to continue rapid data entry.
This feature allows you to very quickly enter data points for your
assessment room.
If you “code” or order your data values to match that of the defined
assessment entries, you can enter this entire rooms data very fast. Just
start at the 1st WHAT or HOW and enter the data point for the first
company then press enter. Continue with the 2nd and 3rd ...in same
sequence till you have sequenced through all data points in all the WHATs
or HOWs. Rapid Drop makes it a breeze.
Any symbols you configure will appear on the chart legend.
Configuring the Relations Matrix or Roof(s)

Configuring the relationship matrix or the top or side roof establishes
the valid symbols which may be expressed in it and any numeric
values associated with those symbols.
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To configure it, just click a cell in it and launch the configuration dialog
box by any method below:
Options >
or,
Right-Click and “Configure”
See “Configuring Symbol Regions” on page 98 for further

instructions.
Though typically used for symbols, you can also enter text into the
relationship matrix.
Configuring the WHAT or HOW Rooms

To configure the WHATs or HOWs, like any other room, you will have
to first click in the room title region to select it. The title region for the
WHATs is the left most block in the WHATs region. The title region for
the HOWs is the topmost block in the region.
Then, press the configure button.
The configure dialog box will appear.
As you will see, there is only one type of configuration possible for the
WHATs or HOWs, that is to configure AppLink symbols. These are
symbols that launch other programs. A few ways to use these
AppLinks are suggested below:
• Run project manager software and load a Gantt chart to show
task information.
• Run spreadsheet software and load a financial data for a
design.
• Run CAD/CAM software and load a detailed design drawing.
• Run a word processor and show more detailed annotations or
supporting data.
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To get more information about AppLinks, see “Placing An AppLink”
on page 110
The Chart Legend

Every symbol that you assign in your chart is automatically added to
one of the various chart legends.An example of the Weights legend
is shown below.
The rest of the chart legends look
the same but just present symbols
defined for different regions.
There is a legend for the various
chart Assessment room symbols
and one that is a key to any
AppLinks defined on the chart
(symbols that run other software).
You cannot size the legend but you
can drag it to any location on the
chart before printing. The legend’s
location is not saved, it resets when
you reopen the chart.
Replacing Symbols
Suppose you begin working on a chart and add lots of symbols in the
Relationship matrix. Then, you decide that you don’t like a symbol as
much as another one in the symbol library. No problem, just replace
it. To replace a symbol, choose
Tools>Replace Symbol
When you do, the following dialog box appears.
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Click any used symbol and it
moves to the “Replace this”
box.
Then, choose any Unused
symbol and it moves to the
“With” box.
Press Accept and you are
done. Each chart symbol is
replaced and all data is intact.
The legend is also updated
automatically.
Leveraging Supporting Data

Consider adding the following supporting data links to your charts to
make powerful presentations and richly express your business
problem.
By placing these links in your charts your problems become more
understandable and easier to solve. Applying supporting data in the
right context to frame a problem not only helps you create a rich
knowledgebase, it can even turn your charts into powerful briefing
tools.
You can work directly off your charts to provide active demonstrations
of your business problem and solutions! Show the CEO giving that
rousing call to battle or a customer’s expressions and nuances during
a taped focus group session. Or, show a video of a product in use and
note opportunities to improve it right there during your team
meetings.
Leveraging supporting data links makes it much easier to depict the
“big picture.”
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Link Type Benefit
Applink Launch other software and load
related data file.
Weblink Launch web browser and load URL
content or launch any application
which can be run from your browser.
Videolink Launch your video player and play a
.AVI video file (sound capable).
Audiolink Launch your audio player and play a
.WAV sound file.
Configuring AppLinks
Symbols entered into your charts can also trigger any supporting
application to run and load an associated data file.
Symbols used in this fashion are known as AppLinks.
You may configure and place AppLinks in any WHAT or HOW item or
the title of any custom rooms (i.e. Numeric, Symbol, Text or
Assessment).
To setup an AppLink, you must Configure the room where you intend
to place it. In the configure dialog, just click the AppLinks tab.
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The options that appear under AppLinks are shown below.
AppLinks Options
Setup a Symbol as an AppLink
Action Comment
1. Click in the region and

press Configure .
2. Click the AppLinks tab if
necessary.
3. Click the desired symbol
in the Symbol Library
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Setup a Symbol as an AppLink
Action Comment
4. In “Which Application”, For example, to run WordPad enter Word-

enter the full path and pad.exe. If the path to the application is not
name of the executable defined, you must enter it. For example, C:\Win-
file to associate with the dows\Wordpad.exe.
symbol.
5. In “Enter Application’s For example, Word for Windows uses .doc files
Data File Extension”, so enter DOC for Word. Excel uses .XLS files so
enter the three letter enter XLS for Excel.
extension which is asso- You will specify the actual data file name later
ciated with the applica- when you “drop” the symbol. Just enter its
tion. extension now.
6. It should now appear on the right side in the

Press . “Assigned” list.
Placing An AppLink
Once you have configured an AppLink (described above), you can
place it on your chart. This is done like any other symbol. It appears
on the symbol bar and when you click it, it “drops” into the chart at the
selected location.
Through Configuring, you associate the symbol with the supporting
application (e.g. Word, Excel etc.). Now, when you “drop” it in place,
you simply need to define the data file that you want the supporting
application to load (i.e. the specific .xls file for Excel or the specific
.doc file for Word).
You are prompted for this data file name automatically whenever you
“drop” an AppLink symbol.
AppLinks are powerful as each time you drop one into your chart, you can
define a different data file. This allows you to create very comprehensive
linkages from your charts to existing supporting data.
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Playing An AppLink
AppLinks are easy to run, simply double-click them. Their supporting
application will start and the data file you designated will be loaded.
Just Right-Click an AppLink to modify it or delete it.
Weblinks
Weblinks are symbols that can be defined to launch your web
browser and automatically display the content available at the URL
address you enter.
Weblinks are actually one of the most versatile data links you can use. They
can be used to view most any data type on your system which can be
accessed via your web browser. If the other data link types don’t fit your bill,
make sure you try a Weblink. For example; if you want to display a .MPG
video file you can use a weblink and it will likely launch and run properly.
Suppose you have entered some customer rating data on one of your
competitors products. Why not drop a weblink into the assessment
region of the chart and display the page on your competitors website
that details the actual product you are analyzing?
Or, there may be detailed specifications relating to your analysis
posted on your company intranet. Why not use a Weblink on your
chart? Drop it into a summary WHAT or HOW and show the details
with the speed of a double-click during a team meeting.
To enter a weblink into the chart, just bring up the symbol bar and
press the weblink button.
Weblink button
Weblink
button
Once dropped in the chart, just double-click the weblink to run it.
Right-click it to modify or delete it.
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Videolinks and Audiolinks
Entered and run the same as weblinks. Specify the desired .avi or
.wav file when entering a videolink or audiolink respectively.
These are entered via the symbol bar button shown below.
Multimedia button on symbol bar
Add videolink or
audiolink
Inserting Custom Chart Rooms

The ability to customize your charts by inserting rooms is one of the
most powerful features of the software.
With experience, you will be able to insert your own custom rooms to
record whatever types of data you deem relevant to your
improvement studies.
Pick the type of room to insert by the data you wish to record.
Room Type Data Description
Display user-entered numbers or numbers calcu-

lated by the software.
Numeric
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The data region of these rooms just displays any

“free-format” text which the user enters.
Text
The data region of these rooms must be configured

to include symbols which will represent whatever
the user desires. Each symbol has a shape,
numeric value (optional) and a description. The
symbols with numeric values assigned to them can
Symbol be utilized in calculations with other numeric rooms.
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The data region of these rooms must be configured

to include symbols which typically represent your
company, your competitors and your performance
targets.
Assessment
Inserting Custom Rooms
Action Comment
1. Click on any existing Room insertions are always made relative to an

room title to select it. existing room. You must click somewhere to
start.
You can click the title region of the WHAT or
HOW to insert relative to either of those
rooms.
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Inserting Custom Rooms
Action Comment
2. Choose The “position” is either Above, Below, Left or

Right of the selected room. The “type” is either
EDIT>INSERT>ROOM>
(position)>(type) • Numeric
from the menu. • Text
• Symbol
• Assessment
depending on what type of information you want
to add.
3. Fill out the Configure dia- Depending on the room type you are inserting,
log box which appears you will need to “configure” the room settings for
the information you want to display (i.e. room’s
title, formula if numeric, symbol list if symbol
etc.).
Deleting Rooms
To delete a room, just click its title and press Delete =
or, choose Edit>Delete>Room.
Hiding and Unhiding

Suppose you are reviewing an improvement matrix and want your
team to focus on a few chart regions and exclude others. Or, what if
you wish to keep some internal proprietary data (e.g. performance
targets, alternative concepts) from view?
You can just Hide those regions you wish to exclude. It makes any
temporarily unneeded regions invisible. You will not lose data, the
regions simply disappear from view and from any printouts until you
Unhide them to bring them back into view.
You can hide the following regions
• Rooms (including the Entire WHATs or HOWs)
• The Top and Side Roof
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• Individual WHATs or HOWs
Hiding and Unhiding Rooms
Action
1. To HIDE
select it by clicking its title region then choose
OPTIONS>HIDE>ROOM
2. To UNHIDE
Choose OPTIONS> SHOW HIDDEN ROOMS
(hidden rooms appear in green). Just click any hidden room’s title and
choose OPTIONS> UNHIDE ROOM
Hiding and Unhiding Roofs (top or side)
Action
1. To HIDE
Choose OPTIONS>HIDE>(Side Roof or Top Roof)
2. To UNHIDE
Choose OPTIONS>UNHIDE>Side Roof or Top Roof
Hiding and Unhiding Individual WHATs or HOWs
Action
1. To HIDE
Choose OPTIONS>SIZE REGIONS
2. Click on the bottom or right border of the WHAT or HOW respectively then
Click-Drag the border all the way to the other side to close the item from
view. Then release the mouse button.
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Hiding and Unhiding Individual WHATs or HOWs
Action
3. To UNHIDE
Choose OPTIONS>UNHIDE>LEVEL OR ITEM>(WHAT or HOW)
Entering Text in the Relations Matrix

You can enter text into matrix cells between the WHATs and HOWs.
This capability allows you to create very comprehensive analyses.
You can document issues with as much or as little text detail as you
desire.
Just size the chart row and/or column accordingly to hold more text
in the matrix region. You can use the match item sizes feature to
make chart row and column sizes consistent after sizing. See “Sizing
Chart Regions” on page 67 for more details.
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Chapter 5
Power Tools
Templates
The ability to create and organize templates is one of the most
powerful features in the software. Templates allow you to reuse chart
formats that have worked well. They make it easier to create a
tailored improvement process. You can delineate not only which
templates are to be used but when (i.e. what order) in the process to
employ them.
Creating Templates
It is easy to create a template from any open chart. Choose
File>Save As
and the following dialog box appears
In this box, click Save as Template. When you do so, the box
changes as shown below.
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Here, you can enter a title for the template and a description. You can
also select to include the WHATs and/or HOWs in the template chart.
When you’re done, press OK and the template will be created.
You’re not completely done yet. The template has now been created
but it won’t appear as a choice until you assign it into a tabbed group.
Organizing Templates
In order to do so, choose
Tools > Template Organizer
You can run the Template Organizer with a chart open or from the project
view.
The following dialog box appears
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In this dialog box, templates that have not yet been assigned into tab
groups appear on the left side of the dialog box.
On the right, you can manage the tabbed categories. To enter a new
category, just type its name and press the Add button. You will see a
new tab appear. Then, you can click that tab to select it and assign
templates into it. Just click the template and press the >> button to
assign it or press << the remove it from a group and send it back to
the unassigned group.
If you need to delete a tab group, unassign all templates in that group
by clicking each and pressing the << button. When the group is
empty, you can press the Delete button to remove it.
Once you have created and assigned templates, they will appear as
options whenever you create a new chart.
The dialog box below appears allowing you to specify which template
to use when creating a new chart. The description of the template you
click on is shown in the box on the right.
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The description you entered during creation of the template appear in this
section.
Sorting
You can reorder WHATs or HOWs and all their associated data by
sorting them. They can be sorted in descending or ascending order
by the values in any Numeric room on the chart.
To Sort WHATs or HOWs
Action Comment
1. Select the Numeric room by If you want to sort the HOWs, you must click a
which you want to sort the Numeric room oriented as a row (horizontally).
WHATs or HOWs. Do this by
To sort the WHATs, it is just the converse.
clicking its title.
2. Choose A new chart is created.
Tools > Sort > Descending The word “(sorted)” is added to its title and it is
automatically saved.
or
In the new chart, you will notice that the hierar-
Tools > Sort > Ascending
chy of the WHATs or HOWs is gone. This will
always occur when you sort as groupings must
be removed to reorder the items.
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A Numeric room formatted to display a bar chart provides a helpful visual
to show the results of a chart resort. Or, a numeric room which uses the
Rank formula may also be helpful.
The High Priorities Report

This report provides you with a fast easy way to summarize numeric
room entries.
It works similar in principle to Sorting but results in a text report. This
report may help foster discussion in a meeting setting with people
that aren’t familiar with how to interpret the matrix representation. Or,
for those that do understand the matrix, this report can be a useful
complement to it.
It allows you to get a quick summary of high priority items. These high
priority items can be either a list of WHATs or HOWs that meet your
reporting criteria. The reporting criteria is a simple percentile ranking
of the WHATs or HOWs based upon corresponding values listed for
the WHAT or HOW items in the selected numeric room.
EXAMPLE:
Let’s assume your chart had a numeric room in it called “Number of
Complaints.” In each cell in the room, you entered a numeric value
corresponding to how many complaints were received for each
WHAT. You could quickly get a high priorities report which would
designate the WHATs with the largest number of complaints
according to your reporting threshold (e.g. Top 20% of items).
You enter your reporting threshold into the message box which
appears. It is shown below:
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To generate a “High Priorities Report”, follow the directions in the
table below:
To Generate a “High Priorities Report”
Action Comment
1. Single-click the title of Select the room with the numeric values by
any numeric room in the which you want to rank the WHATs or HOWs.
chart.
2. Choose
Tools > High Priorities
Report
3. Enter the reporting This is essentially a “percentile” calculation. For
threshold in the message example, if you enter the top 20%, the software
box that appears. will list in the report, those WHAT or HOW items
in the 80th Percentile for the selected room.
4. Enter a file name and After finishing this step, the report will appear in
location for the report. Microsoft Wordpad.
The text report is generated in .DOC (Microsoft Word) format and it

opens up automatically in the Microsoft Windows Wordpad program.
There, you can format it further before printing.
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Phase Progression
When you want to refine your analysis or design, you can perform a
Phase Progression. This is a simple transfer and link of the column
items in one chart into the row items of another chart. As noted
previously, the column items are typically factors and the rows are
goals.
Thus, this progression is used to further analyze the key or high
priority factors evidenced in the original chart. Once they are
“progressed” or “cascaded” to a new chart, they appear in the “goals”
area. Thus, you can determine the issues that drive the successful
accomplishment of the key factors. When the factors are transferred
to the next phase chart, related data (e.g. targets, weighted
importance, assessment data etc.) can also be transferred.
The phase progression concept is depicted below
New factors can

Importance
HOWs
Customer
Phase I Example
then be entered
HOW 1
HOW 2
HOW 3
HOW 4
Ho
WHAT 1 2
in the blank
ws
F H HOWs region.
WHATs
WHAT 2 3
x
-fe
WHAT 3 4 H F G H
r
WHAT 4 5 G H G G
to
42 UNITS
WH
5 UNITS
FT.LBS.
PERFORMANCE
TARGETS Enter New
$23
12
Factors
AT
Below
s
Weighted
44
51
26
9
Phase 2
Importance
Relative
Importance
HOWs
Ta
rg
ets
etc
. X-
fer to
here
To perform a Phase Progression, follow the steps below.
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Performing a Phase Progression
Action Comment
1. (OPTIONAL) Sorting creates a new chart with reordered

entries.
Click a Numeric room to sort
by and choose Sorting makes spotting HOWs with high impor-
tance easier.
Tools > Sort > Descending
Alternatively, you can use the Rank function in a
Numeric room to help you identify the most
important factors based on their Rankings.
2. Select the HOW room items You can Click the first item, then hold down the
that you want to carry to the Shift key and Click the last item to select a con-
next phase. tinuous group of items.
Or
Click (1st item) then hold down the CTRL key
while you Click additional discontinuous items to
select discontinuous items.
3. Choose The Build Next Chart dialog box appears.
Tools > Phase Progression
4. (OPTIONAL) Click on any additional related rooms in the
chart that you want to be transferred to the next
Select Related Info to carry.
chart.
5. (OPTIONAL) If you don’t choose a template, the HOWs and
any related data displays in a new chart with a
Choose a template.
generic layout.
If you choose a template, the HOWs are entered
into that template and related data is added to
the right side of the template.
6. Press OK The new “downstream” chart appears.
Once you are done with the phase progression, the newly created
chart will be visible on screen in a separate window.
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At this point, the charts are linked. Changes in linked charts are not
represented immediately. Links update only upon chart opening.
You must close and reopen linked charts in order to see changes update.
If you close and reopen that chart, you will notice one or more link
symbols (shown below) appearing in the transferred items.
The Linked Data symbol
Linked text (HOW items transferred to WHATs and Room titles) can
be modified in either chart. Changes will be visible in either linked
chart upon its re-opening.
Data that is shown in linked rooms is not editable on downstream
charts. If you try to edit linked data, you will see the following dialog
box appear
You must make your changes on the upstream chart.
The Power of Linked Charts

Linked charts are created automatically whenever you perform a
Phase Progression. They provide powerful benefits by keeping
system level data synchronized with subsystem data.
EXAMPLE
Assume you are developing a product and you create a top level
House of Quality chart. You perform a Phase Progression to create a
downstream Parts Deployment chart where you analyze the relative
importance of product parts.
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Together, these charts allow you to use marketplace importance
ratings, which were derived from the Voice of the Customer, to help
you determine which parts are most critical to your design.
Now, assume some time goes by and you are redesigning your
product to meet changing market needs. First, you will query the
market to reveal changes in their importance ratings for each WHAT.
Then, you can simply plug these new values into the top level
(upstream) chart which you previously completed.
Voila’, you can easily view the effects on any downstream charts.
Review any indicated changes in the importance rankings of the
downstream Parts Deployment chart and adjust your design
accordingly.
It’s quite possible that with the newly entered marketplace needs, a
different array of parts in your design now take on the highest
importance. You have leveraged your existing design
knowledgebase.
The same methodology works for Strategic Planning, Process
Design and other linked chart groups.
Viewing Links
Sometimes, you may want to know the other charts where linked
HOWs appear. To find this out, just choose
View > Linked HOW Details...
The dialog box below appears
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Here, you can click any HOW item that shows the link symbol to get
the link details. The grid below the HOWs region shows you on which
other charts the linked items appear. The chart name is shown as
well as the room name and item text.
If the item is linked to several charts, each link will be listed on a separate
line in the grid.
Cascade Delete
If you attempt to delete a linked item, you will get the following
message
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Pressing View Links, shows the dialog box described in the Viewing
Links section above.
Pressing Break Link breaks the links and only deletes the items on
the active chart.
Pressing Cascade Delete deletes not only the items on the active
chart but those on all linked charts.
Creating Subset Charts
? Are there times when you would like to extract a

smaller version of a chart which only shows interac-
tions between a few regions?
W
R
S
S
R W
S Chart Tools
Subset
Rapid Drop Symbols

Chart Tools Data Mgt. Links
Customer Importance
Customer Assessment
QFD Designer Software
Continuous Zoom
Rapid Drop Symbols
AppLink Hyperlinks
Relational Database
Multimedia capable
Analysis
Continuous Zoom
32-Bit Architecture
Work on chart
Drag & Drop

Work on chart
N
Linked charts
Competitor A
Drag & Drop
O Competitor B
QS/FF Service Q QS/FF Services

New SUBSET Chart
charts
248-357-4300
0 1 2 3 4 5
C A D E D D N Q
O
To
Allows us to model our business problems 8.00
Relevant
make it Helps us deploy business goals 9.00 E D E B C O N Q

K K K K
Can link to web data 7.00 B D E D E E O Q

N Direction of Improvement
Powerful
R V
R V Integrates with other software 7.00 E E E D E O N Q
B
This...
R S Powerful Can link to web data
R Can coordinate changes projectwide 8.00 D E D E C E O N
W
easy to
W R Easy to learn 9.00 E D D C C C B B N O Q
V R Integrates with other software
Flexible

O
A A C O N Q
D
Can export results 7.00
Can coordinate changes projectwide
Can allow web collaboration 8.00 C D B D D B N
O Q
Advancing
Created with a "state of the art" architecture 9.00 A A D C C C B B N

O Q
E D D C
go from
Easy to learn
Flexible
Is supported by a forward thinking company 9.00 C D E E N Q
Easy to customize layouts C E

To any Windows App
Audio, Video, Web

30% to unlimited
WHATs & HOWs
Links Deletions
Win 95, 98, NT
Any .EXE file

Ass't Rooms
Performance Targets Can export results

Any region
this... Organizational Difficulty

Q Q Q Q Q
WHATs & HOWs
30% to unlimited
N Competitor A 6
O Competitor B 5 O Q O Q O Q
N Q O
Q QS/FF Services
4 N O Q O O O
Technical
Ass't Rooms
3
Performance Targets
Any region
Assessment 2 N O N N N O N
1 N N N
0
116.00
135.00
185.00
484.00
322.00
342.00
459.00
426.00
458.00
72.00
Absolute Importance
Relative Importance
* team.
Subset charts are a great way to divide work in your
They help you turn a large chart into smaller
ones having fewer issues to address. They are very
helpful for creating focused management reports.
They are easy to create, just follow the steps below.
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Creating a Subset Chart
Action Comment
1. Start by clicking a WHAT You can click a WHAT, HOW or room but not an
or HOW item or room on individual data value or matrix value.
the chart which you want
to extract.
2. Hold down the CTRL key When complete, you must have clicked at least
and click any additional one HOW and one WHAT item. You cannot con-
items which you wish to tinue unless you have done so.
extract.
3. Choose The items are now on the clipboard.
EDIT>COPY
SELECTED ITEMS
4. Choose A new chart is created with the items you
selected.
EDIT>PASTE>AS
NEW CHART
Comparing Assessments
Once you have invested the time necessary to create a matrix, it is
helpful to analyze the data to potential improvement opportunities. A
case where you can apply some analysis towards that end is in the
cross-checking of data in Assessment rooms.
The characteristics that are helpful to spot are those situations where
the data reflects an inconsistency between market perceptions
(shown on a column oriented assessment) and internal or measured
performance benchmarking data (shown on a row oriented
assessment).
The software will perform this analysis for you and highlight problem
areas visually. To perform an Assessment Check, choose
Tools>Compare Assessments
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When you choose this menu item, the following dialog box appears
In this dialog box, you will first specify which two assessments in the
current chart you wish to analyze. You may pick any one market
(external assessment) and any one company (internal) assessment.
Then, establish the reporting thresholds. You may check only ratings
of your own company’s performance if you wish. Or, you may elect to
check the competitor’s ratings in the surveys.
The reporting thresholds are in terms of the maximum scale
INCONSISTENCY. For example, if the scale in the external
assessment is from (1 to 10) and the scale in the internal assessment
is from (1-5) then the maximum inconsistency would occur when data
points are at opposite ends of the scale in each survey.
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This is shown graphically below.
In this example, the market rates

the company represented by the
square poorly (at 1 point of 10)
while the internal survey rates the
same company well (at 5 points of
5). There is a 100% inconsistency.
The dialog box below appears to report the assessment analysis.
It reports that the Chart Owner (using the square symbol) had a rating
of 1 in the market data assessment and 5 in the internal data
assessment with a 100% scale variance or inconsistency.
In this example, the market thinks the chart owner performs poor for
the WHAT (effect) in question. But, when considering a HOW (cause)
which is related to the WHAT in question, the owner’s performance
ranks very well in internal (in-house) tests. This may express one of
several problems:
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1 You may not fully understand the customer need and competitive
assessment.
2 The strong relationship doesn’t really exist between the WHAT and HOW.
There may be a factor or HOW that has a stronger bearing on customer
satisfaction. Revise your matrix to denote such discoveries if they can be
uncovered.
3 The internal assessment is misunderstood. It may not accurately reflect
customer’s needs and wants. The customer may use the product
differently than expected. If this is true, there may be a need for additional
internal requirements and performance measuring tests.
The software only reports on pairs of survey data points which have a
symbol in the relationship matrix to link them together.
Though the software reports on any inconsistencies that meet your reporting
criteria, regardless of the symbol in the intersect, it is recommended that you
focus first on problems which are linked by strong symbols in the matrix.
Duplicating/Copying an Entire Chart

It’s easy to duplicate charts or copy them to other projects. Here’s
how
Action Comment
1. Go to the Project View

where chart thumbnail
images are viewable.
2. Click the thumbnail
Just click once to select the chart. You’ll see it
image of the chart you
redraw with a border and handles around it to
want to copy or dupli-
designate that it is selected.
cate.
3. Copy it to the clipboard
by choosing You may also press CTRL-C to copy it.
EDIT>COPY CHART
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Action Comment
4. To duplicate it, use

EDIT>PASTE CHART You may also press CTRL-V to paste it.
To copy it to a new
project, just paste it in
Thumbnail images may overlap each other.
that new project instead
This will could occur when you copy and
of the current project. To
paste a chart into the same project. After
do that, open the new
performing the paste, click the thumbnail
project and click inside
image to select it and drag it to a new
its Project view before
position.
the paste.
Showing Blanks and Fill %

Once you have entered data into the Relations matrix, you may want
to check a few issues.
Normally, you will want to insure that no empty rows exist. If they do,
that could mean you have some goals entered (in a row) for which
there are no factors defined to help you achieve success.
To Find Empty Rows, choose
Tools>Show Blank Rows
Conversely, a blank column may denote resources which are
ostensibly being wasted. That is, a factor or HOW (design measure)
which you may be tracking, measuring and expending capital on,
which has no bearing to your goals (WHATs).
To Find Empty Columns, choose
Tools>Show Blank Columns
Lastly, putting too many symbols in the Relations matrix may signify
that many items are really cost, reliability or safety items. Those
should be removed from the House of Quality for placement on a
Reliability Deployment, Cost Deployment or Safety Deployment
chart.
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One measure may be the Fill % of the matrix. It is just a value that
shows how many matrix cells (out of 100%) have an entry.
To check Fill %, choose
Tools>Show Matrix Fill %
Copying Data to Another Application

You can copy chart data to another application by using the Windows
Clipboard. First, you need to select the data to copy.
You can select a list of items or one item.

Click the first item then hold down the B key and click the
To select a continuous group of last item to select the list.
WHATs/HOWs.
Click the first item then hold down the F key and click the
To select a discontinuous group
other items individually.
of WHATs/HOWs or custom
room data.
Right-click the room’s title and choose
> Select All Data
from the popup menu. This is especially useful when you want
to copy a row or column of numbers present in a chart Numeric
To select all data cells in a
room.
custom room.
A dotted line appears around all the data cells to denote that
they are selected. There is a menu choice that does the same
thing;
Edit > Select All Room Data
Once you have selected the items, you can choose
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Edit > Copy > Selected Text
You must choose “Selected Text” if you plan to copy the items to another
application. This choice insures that the selection is stored on your clipboard
in text format which is necessary to paste into most other applications
(including spreadsheets). The menu choice
Edit > Copy > Selected Item(s)
is only for copying when you intend to paste within QFD Designer.
Then, you can open the other application (e.g. Microsoft Word,
Microsoft Excel etc.) and paste into those applications.
Clearing the Relations Matrix
? Do you ever want to get another person’s or team’s

opinion of the Relation matrix symbol ratings?
Sometimes, you may want to take an existing chart and distribute it

to a new team member for his or her review of the Relations matrix
even though the existing chart already has symbols in the matrix.
You may be interested in another person or team’s rating of the
relationships to compare to your own. Or, you may want to reuse a
chart from a previous development effort and enter new ratings for a
new analysis.
In this case, you may clear the Relations matrix of the existing
symbols and distribute the chart to someone else so that they may
enter their rankings.
To clear the Relations Matrix, choose
Edit > Delete > All Relation Matrix Data
You may want to duplicate or copy your chart first before clearing existing
symbols to insure you retain your original work. See “Duplicating/Copying
an Entire Chart” for details.
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Templates
...................................
.....
With the software, you can create and save your own templates. In addition, you may
wish to use one of the many built-in pre-packaged templates. Each is described below.
Templates are accessed through the dialog box that appears when you add a new
chart to your projects. If you find a template you like, note the tab group in which it
appears. You will need to access that tab group upon opening a new file.
Just press the tab indicated in the description to find the template.
139
TE M P L A T E S
A
House of Quality I
In Tab Group: General
Multi-purpose interaction matrix. Includes both top and side roofs. Includes basic
matrix symbol calculations.
HOWs (Title) Customer

Customer Importance
Assessment
House of Quality
Direction of Improvement
WHATs (Title)
How Much
Assessment
Technical
Weighted Importance
Relative Importance
140
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TE M P L A T E S
House of Quality II
Multi-purpose interaction matrix. Includes only the top roof, the side roof is hidden.
Includes basic matrix symbol calculations.

Customer Importance
Assessment
New Chart
WHATs (Title)
How Much
Assessment
Technical
Weighted Importance
Relative Importance
141
TE M P L A T E S
A
House of Quality III

In Tab Group: Genera
Multi-purpose interacton matrix. No roofs. Both top and side roofs are hidden.
Includes basic matrix symbol calculations.
Customer Importance HOWs (Title) Customer
Assessment
New Chart
WHATs (Title)
How Much
Assessment
Technical
Weighted Importance
Relative Importance
142
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TE M P L A T E S
Simple Matrix
Simple L-matrix. Only WHATs vs. HOWs and top roof are included. No calculations
included.
HOWs (Title)
New Chart
WHATs (Title)
143
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Market Segmentation Matrix

In Tab Group: Voice of the Customer
This template simplifies market segment analysis. It includes demographics, wants,
current commerce, competition and other segmentation dimensions.
Market Segmentation
Segment 1 Segment 2 Segment 3 Segment 4
Matrix
Demographics (Age, Sex,

Education Level, Marital Status,
Family Composition)
Want are their key wants?
What products or services do

they currently buy?
Market Factors
Which companies compete for

their business?

already, what do they like in our
company?

already, what do they dislike in
our company?
Percent of total customers
Percent of total Sales Volume
144
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TE M P L A T E S
Customer Voice Table I

Used to analyze and record verbatims, demographics and customer use cases.
Includes Why, What, Who, When, Where and How.
Socio-Economic
Internal/External
WHEN?
Reference #
WHY? WHAT? WHO? WHERE? HOW?

Group
When does the

Customer Voice Table Why do you need or What will it be used Who uses it now? customer use it? Where will it be How is or will the
want this product? for? Who will use it? used? product be used?
When will the
customer use it?
1.00
2.00
3.00
Customer Verbatims
4.00
5.00
6.00
7.00
8.00
9.00
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TE M P L A T E S
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Customer Voice Table II

Used to analyze and record verbatims, demographics and customer use cases.
Includes Functions, Measures, Cost, Reliability, Technologies, Failure Modes, Social
&& Organizational issues.
Reference #
Product/Process
Customer's Product/Process Design Design Design Design
Customer's Customer's
Customer Voice Table II Reworded Data Need
Problem
Company
Addressed Function or Task Cost Reliability Technologies Failure Modes Project Social Organizational
Measure
3
Customer Verbatims
146
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TE M P L A T E S
Phase I - House of Quality

In Tab Group: Product or Service Dev’t
The classic QFD chart. Used broadly for many improvement analyses.

Customer Importance
Assessment
Phase I
House of Quality
WHATs (Title)
How Much
Assessment
Technical
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Absolute Importance
Relative Importance
147
TE M P L A T E S
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Pugh Concept Selection

Compares alternative design concepts to a datum/benchmark. Tallies "better" and
"worse" entries each alternative rated against design criteria. Enhance by importing
concept "graphics" into Symbol Library.
Design Concepts
Importance
Pugh Concept Selection
Concept #
1
7
Design Criteria
+ (plus) Pugh Sums

0
- (minus) Pugh Sums

0
Concept Rating (+'s and -'s)

0
Concept Rating (weighted by Importance)

0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
148
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TE M P L A T E S
Phase II - Parts Deployment

Classic Parts Deployment chart. Analyzes HOWs from the previous phase against
parts and their characteristics. Used to determine which parts in the product design
most strongly drive prioritized design measures.
Part Characteristics (HOWs)

Importance
Customer
Phase II
Satisfaction
Parts Deployment Targets
Design Requirements (WHATs)
Part Characteristic Values
Part Capability
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Absolute Importance
Relative Importance
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Phase III - Process Planning

Classic Process Planning Chart. Its inputs are the critical parts and their
characteristics from previous chart. Explores interactions between parts and shop
floor manufacturing processes.
Process Parameters (HOWs)

Importance
Part
Phase III
Characteristic
Process Planning Values
Part Characteristics (WHATs)
Process Parameter Values
Process Capability
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Absolute Importance
Relative Importance
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TE M P L A T E S
Phase IV - Production Planning

Classic QFD Chart. Inputs are high priority Processes from upstream. It is used to
study process capability and measures which can be take to insure successful
outcome of each process. Includes Quality Control, Maintenance, SPC, Checklists
etc.
Planning
Requirements
Process Capability
Ability To Detect
Phase IV Process
Parameter
Total Points
Production Planning
Importance
Values Frequency
Difficulty
Severity
0.00
Process Parameters (WHATs)
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
151
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Hoshin Audit - Policy Deployment

In Tab Group: Business Planning
Use this chart to enter information about current policy deployment status, intended
action plans and responsible parties.
Current Performance
Performance Target
Next
Percent Complete
(symbolically)
Actions
Done Yet?
Measures of Issue or Responsibility
Status
Status
Objectives Concern Due
Hoshin Audit(Policy Deployment) Quarterly,
Who will take Date
Actions Taken
Monthly,
(Targets) (Problem) the actions?
Weekly
etc.
Primary Secondary
Tertiary Objectives
Objective Objective
Reduce European SG&A
Reduce Sales Cost

Objectives
Reduce Costs
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TE M P L A T E S
Record executive future visions versus high-level strategic factors which will impact
achievement. Shows importance of visions, current performance and goals, required
ratio of improvement, market assessment and internal benchmark rooms.
Strategy Factors
Our Current Performance
Market
Corporate Importance
Assessment
Improvement Ratio
Performance Goal
N Target
Executive P Competitor A
Q Competitor B
Strategies O Our Company
0 1 2 3 4 5
Strategic Goals
Business
Targets
N Target 5
P
Benchmark
Competitor A
4
Q
Internal
Competitor B
O Our Company 3
0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
0.0
Weighted Importance
Relative Importance
Strategy Factor Rank

1
153
TE M P L A T E S
A
Managing Executive Strategies

This chart has as its inputs, the prioritized strategy factors from the executive
strategies matrix. In the HOWs region, Managerial factors are recorded. This is an
excellent chart for establishing managerial steps needed to enact strategic factors.
Managerial Factors
Business Targets
Absolute Importance
Management of
Strateg
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Managerial Factor Importance
Relative Managerial Importance

Mgr. Factor Rank
1
154
.....
TE M P L A T E S
Management Factors to Operations

Inputs are prioritized management factors. Used to establish operations and tactics
necessary to carry out management objectives. Records the very detailed steps
which may be taken by functional specialists.
Operational/Tactical Factors
Managerial Factor Importance
Mgr. Factor Rank

Operationalizing
Management Factors
1
Managerial Factors
1
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
0.00
Operational Importance
Relative Operational Importance
155
TE M P L A T E S
A
Design Failure Mode & Effects Analysis - DFMEA

In Tab Group: Failure Analysis
Design FMEA - For Design Failure Mode and Effects (DFMEA) analyses. Anticipate
potential failures, estimate their criticality then alter designs to prevent them before
actual development; saving time and money..
Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA
Risk Priority Number (R.P.N.)
Occurence - (After Action Plan)
Detection - (After Action Plan)

(Replace this title block, enter info similar to below)
Severity - (After Action Plan)

Subsystem: Risk
Component:
Occurence
Priority
Detection
Severity
Model Year(s): Responsibility & Number
Class
Recommended
Core Team: Current Design Controls
Action(s)
Target Completion Actions Taken (R.P.N.)
Design Responsibility: Date
Key Date: (After
FMEA Number: Action)
Prepared By:
Creation Date:
Revision Date:
Item
Potential Failure Mode Potential Effect(s) of Failure Potential Cause(s)/Mechanism(s) of Failure 0.00 0.00
Function
0.00 0.00
Failure Data
0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00
156
.....
TE M P L A T E S
Process Failure Mode & Effects Analysis - PFMEA

In Tab Group: Failure Analysis
Process FMEA - For Process Failure Mode and Effects (PFMEA) analyses. Anticipate
potential failures, estimate their criticality then alter the manufacturing process to
prevent them; saving time and money.
Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA
Risk Priority Number (R.P.N.)
Occurence - (After Action Plan)
Detection - (After Action Plan)

(Replace this title block, enter info similar to below)
Severity - (After Action Plan)

Item: Risk
Occurence
Priority
Detection
Severity
Component: Responsibility & Number
Class
Recommended
Model Year(s): Current Process Controls
Action(s)
Target Completion Actions Taken (R.P.N.)
Core Team: Date
(After
Process Responsibility: Action)
Key Date:
FMEA Number:
Prepared By:
Process Function
Potential Failure Mode Potential Effect(s) of Failure Potential Cause(s)/Mechanism(s) of Failure 0.00 0.00
Requirements
0.00 0.00
Failure Data
0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00
0.00 0.00
157
TE M P L A T E S
A
In Tab Group: Six Sigma
This Best Practices Matrix can be used to assess areas within your company against
various best practice judging criteria.
Best Practice - Judging Criteria
Continuous Improvement Training
Relative Area Performance

Area Score (row sum)
Schedule Attainment Quality
Kanban with Visual Signals
Preventive Maintenance
Late Point Identification
Cycle Reduction Teams

Set-up Time Reduction
Point-of-Use Concepts
Standardized Product

Flexible Suppliers
Continuous Flow
Material Control
Pull Systems
Workforce
(substitute your areas for sample text)
Plant A 0
Plant B 0
Department C 0
Assessment Areas
Plant D 0
Section F 0
Station 23 0
Plant I 0
sample symbols
0
enter your areas... 0
Criteria Performance Target
Criteria Score
0
Relative Criteria Score
158
.....
TE M P L A T E S
Quality Matrix
In Tab Group: Six Sigma
This Quality Matrix can be used to assess the level of performance of your company's
business units for each of several quality initiaties (e.g. Customer Satisfaction,
Commitment, New Technology etc.)
List of Company Business Units
Relative Area Performance

Area Score (row sum)
Quality Matrix
Quality Leadership 0
Quality Performance Initiatives
Supplier Management 0
Process Operation Control & 0
Improvement
Quality Information Management 0
Problem Solving Techniques 0
People Commitment 0
Customer Satisfaction 0
New Product/Technology/Service 0
Introduction
Chance Capability
sample 0symbols
Criteria Performance Target
Criteria Score
0
Relative Criteria Score
159
TE M P L A T E S
A
160
File Conversion
...................................
.....
Converting Version 3.15 Files - Overview
If you have created data in QFD Designer Version 3.15, you may convert those files
individually for use with the new software.
V3.15 data files were organized such that for each data file, there were four sub-files.
These files have the extensions .QF1, .QF2, .QF3 and .QF4.
Though users only see the .QF1 file, all four files must be present to convert the entire data file
properly.
In the new software, all the data is combined in one file, a .BIP (Business Improvement
Project) file.
The included conversion routine is designed to convert from the .QF1 through .QF4
files into a single .BIP file.
There are a few pointers which you should bear in mind to simplify your file
conversions. If possible, please open the file in V3.15 and take the following steps
before running the convert routine:
1 Choose Options>Show Hidden Rooms to make sure there are no hidden rooms. If any
rooms are hidden, click to select then choose Options>Unhide Room for each, then save
the file.
2 If the chart has no side roof, and you want a side roof available in the new software, you
MUST insert one in V3.15 before converting. Choose Options>Add Side Roof to do so.
There is no facility in the new software to add a side roof to files converted without one.
3 Copy the data file (all four sub files .QF1 through .QF4) to the directory where the new
software is installed before converting.
Running “Convert V3 Data”

Follow the directions below to run the convert routine.
Access the new software’s program group off the Start button. Find and choose the
icon titled:
161
FILE CONVERSION
B
Convert V3 Data
After an informational message, the following dialog box will appear
1 Press the <1. Locate V3 File> to browse to the .QF1 file.

2 Press the <2. Set Destination> button to establish where to save the converted file.
3 Press the <Convert> button.
After converting, a new .BIP file will be created. You may open that file like any other
.BIP file formatted for the new version.
Some formatting may be necessary after converting. For example, symbols may appear small.
To fix that, size one row and one column till the intersecting symbol look large enough then,
use the Match Size feature to make the chart consistent.
The conversion routine does not convert chart title or WHAT/HOW titles from the V3 file and
doesn’t transfer font settings. You may wish to insert a new title in the converted file and format
text font settings according to your preference.
2One to two more conversion messages may appear after you open the file in the new version.
This is normal. The application performs some final “cleanup” as part of the conversion
process before finally opening the file.
162
INDEX
•••••
A B
Adding A Chart To The Project 62 Beginning a Project 61
IN
aligning text 66 Benchmarking 13
applinks Boosting Revenues 7
configuring 108 business improvement
DE dialog box 109
entering 91
applications 10
framework 2
X expressing real world problems

with 27
intra-company projects 15
steps 24
• launching programs with 108 team oriented 22
placing in WHATs or HOWs 98 Business Improvement Steps
placing into chart 110 Brainstorm HOWs 45
playing 111 Determine relationships (HOWs
setting up vs. WHATs) 48
step by step 109 Determine Required Improvement
assessment 44
analyses Enter Correlations between HOWs
consistency checks 131 (factors) 50
dialog box 131 Establish Performance Targets 49
internal vs. external (market) Gather Competitive Ratings 43
131 Gather WHATs 39
interpreting consistency Make Internal Competitive Ratings
checks 134 49
report threshholds 132 Quantify WHAT Importances 43
custom room type 36 Refine your designs 51
room Sort HOWs by Importance 51
data description 114 table of 38
defining valid symbols in an 80 business problems
assessment room "lip service" 23
setting up by configuring 98 and financial performance 6
assessment rooms company actions misaligned 11
entering data 83 competitive struggles 13
Audio considering internal processes 16
expressing real world problems corporate strategy issues 11
with 27 costs too high
Auto-fitting Text in WHATs/HOWs 69 production 14
Auto-Recalc vs. Recalc Now 82 service/support 12
Average 95 warranty 12
customer needs misunderstood 12
internal improvement projects 16
•
•
•163
•
•
•
INDEX
litigation 12 clearing the relations matrix 137
many causes of 20 Column Sum 95
market share low 10 communicating
misunderstanding customer per- linked matrices help in 28
ceptions 131 via intranet 28
misunderstanding market percep- Comparing Assessments 131
tions 131 competitive analysis 131
modeling 27 Competitive Benchmarking 13
modeling interactions 19 competitive ratings 24
new concepts needed 13 configure
product development uncoordinat- button 92, 105
ed with manufacturing 13 dialog box example 98
product or process failure 12 configuring 91
production yields low 14 applinks 108
profits low 10 symbol library 99
reliability 12 to establish valid symbols 91
resource allocation 19 WHATs or HOWs 98
returns too high 12 Configuring Chart Regions 91
sales revenue low 10 Configuring Custom Symbols 101
satisfaction low 10 configuring regions
strategic planning 16 how to 91
taking actions to solve 26 Configuring Symbols 98
task management 14 Configuring the Relationship Matrix 98
Configuring the WHAT or HOW Rooms
C 98
calculations copying an entire chart 134
compound Copying Data to Another Application
intermediate rooms needed 95 136
performing in Numeric rooms 91 Correlations
setting up 94 HOW vs. HOW 25
Cascade Delete 129 costs
Catchball 9 lowering 8
cause and effect 17 planning helps reduce 8
courtroom example 18 Creating a Subset Chart
importance of quantifying 20 step by step 131
visually 19 custom rooms
causes 19 inserting 112
Chart Legend 106 custom symbols
chart legend adding by configuring 99
depicts custom symbols 102 guidelines for creating 101
moving 106 customer
chart regions 30, 31 identifying 15
charts Customer Assessment
decomposing into subsystems custom room 37
117, 130 Customer Importance
•
•
164 ••
•
•
INDEX
numeric room 37 Drag & Drop
customers to reposition WHATs or HOWs 75
internal and external 15 Duplicating/Copying an Entire Chart
recording verbatims 42 134
segmenting 41
via "use case" observation 41 E
Cut, Copy & Paste 76 e-mail
steps 76 sharing the chart image via 87
employees
D educating new hires 22
Data Collection and Recording 30 recording their specialized knowl-
data types edge 21
applinks 56 Enter key
audio 55 to "mark" a reviewed item 81
calculations 54 Entering a Chart Title 63
numbers 53 Entering Assessment Room Data 83
symbols 53 Entering Data in Custom Rooms 81
text 52 Entering Matrix Symbols 80
videos 54 Entering Numeric Room Data 82
weblinks 55 Entering Symbol Room Data 81
decimals shown Entering Symbols in Rooms 79
changing setting for in Numeric entering text in the Relations Matrix
rooms 94 117
delayed response Entering Text Room Data 84
due to auto-recalc 82 entering weblinks 111
Deleting Levels 71 Entering WHATs and HOWs 66
recovering using EDIT>UNDO. 71 Executive Planning 16
deleting linked data 129 Exporting 136
Deleting Rooms 115 chart numerics 136
Deleting Symbols 80 WHATs HOWs 136
deployment Exporting the Chart Image 87
manufacturing 13
production 14 F
reliability 12 Failure Mode and Effects Analysis. See
task 14 FMEA
Voice of Customer (VOC) 12 fighting fires 3
designing FMEA 9, 12
drilling down into details 125 focus
leveraging previous analyses 28 short-term vs. long-term 3
Difference (Rooms - Const) 95 focus groups 15, 42
Difference (Rooms) 95 formatting
Direction of Improvement multiple items at once 64
Symbol room 37 text in a room’s data region 64
Division 96 Formatting Text 63
•
•
•165
•
•
•
INDEX
G 64
graphics sort chart data 122
windows bitmaps HOWs
importing into symbol library as causes 20, 24
101 as design measures 20
green shaded rooms as economic properties 47
are set to hidden 116 as human properties 46
as market properties 47
H as mechanical properties 46
hiding and unhiding as physical properties 46
levels 71 as production properties 47
roofs (top or side) 116 as time properties 47
rooms 116 brainstorming for 24
High Priorities Report 123 chart room description 34
use of Percentile calculation in 123 checklist 46
HOQ. See House of Quality developing
Hoshin 17 keys to 47
Hoshin Kanri 9, 11 sorting 122
House of Quality 31
basic diagram 31
I
HOW Identifying The Customer 15
sorting by importance 25 importing
How Much bitmaps
Text room 37 to use as symbols 101
how to from other programs 72
add a chart to the project 62 improvement goals 24
change the number of decimals Inserting a List of Text or Numbers 72
displayed 94 Inserting a New WHAT/HOW Level 70
configure a region’s symbols 100 Inserting Custom Chart Rooms 112
configure regions 91 Inserting Levels 69
convert V3.15 data files 161 Inserting Rooms That Calculate 93
create a subset chart 131 Installation 61
cut, copy & paste 76 Interviews
delete symbols 80 to obtain Voice of the Customer 42
develop resulting design priorities items
125 sorting 122
duplicate or copy an entire chart
134
L
enter matrix symbols 80 Leadership and Planning 3
export the chart image 87 Learning The Software 30
insert custom rooms 114 legend 102
perform a "phase progression" 126 moving to a new position 106
print notes 87 levels
select multiple WHATs or HOWs hiding with size regions 71
inserting in WHATs/HOWs 70
•
•
166 ••
•
•
INDEX
Leveraging Supporting Data 52 Matrix Min in Col 96
Linked Charts 127 Matrix Min in Row 96
linked charts 83 matrix power
and viewing downstream effects knowledgebase creation 21
127 to model interactions 21
reopening to recalc 83 matrix symbols
upstream and downstream effects entering 80
28 Maximum 96
linked data 83 Minimum 96
breaking links 130 mission statement
deleting 129 examples 4
symbol denoting 127
linking internet sites 111 N
Lowering Costs 8 NONE-User Entry 96
numeric formulas
M described 95
management reports numeric rooms 36, 93–98
simplifying with subset charts 130 data description 112
Manufacturing Deployment 13 entering data 82
manufacturing yield 14
market O
understanding 1 Organizational Difficulty
market needs Numeric room 37
unspoken 25 organizational intelligence
Market Research 42 tapping 23
Market Segmentation Matrix 40 orientation
market share setting printer 84
satisfaction and quality effects on 7 setting text 64
winning 1
marketing P
sales points 25 paper effect
surveys 15 refining designs/planning on paper
Marking and Displaying Reviewed 29
Items 81 saving tooling/eqp. cost 29
match item sizes 117 paper size 84
Match Size pasting
to match all item sizes 68 a list of text or numbers
matching item sizes 68 from clipboard 72
matrices chart image
holding design knowledge 21 symbol display issue 88
in knowledge libraries 22 data from other programs 72
used in employee education 22 multi-cell across 73
Matrix Index 96 multi-cell down 73
Matrix Max in Column 96 Percentage 96
Matrix Max in Row 96 percentile
•
•
•167
•
•
•
INDEX
used in High Priorities Report 123 product development
performance gaps 25 leveraging "lessons learned" 22
performance targets Production Deployment 14
establishing 24 profit damage 3
Performing a Phase Progression 126 Profit Potential 1
Phase Progression 125 project view
and linking between charts 127 duplicating entire charts 134
diagram 125 Pugh Concept Selection 13
into a template 126
planning Q
lack of time for 4 QF1 QF2 QF3 and QF4 files
profit impact 3 from Version 3.15 161
Policy Deployment 9, 11, 17 QFD 8, 10
Policy Management 9, 11 Relationship symbols 35
pre-planning quality
importance of 45 perceived 15
Pre-Planning Matrix quote
template chart 44 bill gates 1
Print Preview 85 einstein 14
print preview jack welch 7
affected by screen zoom setting 85 phillip II of macedon 4
affected by zoom setting 72
and fitting charts to paper 85 R
scaling chart on page 85 Rank 97
tip 86 rank reversals
zoom setting’s effect on 85 of factors 28
Print Setup dialog box 84 Recalc Now 82
Printer Setup 84 recalculating linked values 83
Printing 84, 86 Refresh calculated values
As Displayed 86 use of Recalc to 82
Fit to Page 85 refreshing linked data 83
Printing Notes 87 Relations Matrix 35
Priorities picture of 80
refining designs 25 Relationships
prioritizing WHATs vs. HOWs 24
based on cause and effect 20 RelativeTechnical Importance
problem definition 6 Numeric room 37
and project requirements 6 Reliability Deployment 12
problem formulation Replacing Symbols 106
data types used in 27 resource allocation 19
problem reoccurence 3 reusing design analyses
process map 16 linked chart implications 127
Product (Rooms * Const) 97 reviewed items
Product (Rooms) 97 enter key vs. arrow key 81
Product Clinics 42 keeping your place on the chart 81
•
•
168 ••
•
•
INDEX
ROI 3 needs of 17
boosting 28 strategic planning 9, 16
roofs for shareholders 17
hiding 116 strategy
unhiding 116 misguided 2
rooms subset charts 117, 130
custom 36 Sum (Rooms + Const) 97
deleting 115 Sum (Rooms) 97
entering symbols in 79 Supporting Data
hiding 116 leveraging 30
on the House of Quality 31 Symbol Bar
unhiding 116 described 77
RowSum 97 symbol bar
Running Convert V3 Data 161 adjusts to show valid symbols 79
running weblinks 111 button descriptions 77
diagram 77, 111, 112
S launching 81
Select All Data 65 Symbol entry
selecting WHATs or HOWs 64 mark reviewed item
services to note no relationship exists
considering customer deliverables 81
of 15 symbol library 99
Setting Text Alignment 66 symbol room 36
setting the default font 65 data description 113
Showing Blanks and Fill % 135 symbol rooms
Side Roof 33 entering data 81
size regions symbols
remove levels from view with 71 insuring they display correctly 88
Sizing Chart Regions 67
sizing WHATs or HOWs to match one T
item 68 Tally 97
software Task Deployment 14
as an improvement analysis frame- team meetings
work 26 display projector facilitates 29
how it can help boost quality 8 keeping your place on the chart
how it can help prioritize personal mark reviewed items 81
goals 26 teams
how it helps prioritize 8 avoiding "not invented here" syn-
learning the 30 drome 23
Sorting 122 benefits of 22
complements to building 22
High Priorities Report 123 consensus building 23
speeding up data entry 82 dividing work using subset charts
Splitting the Chart 73 130
stakeholders 11 enhancing results of 29
•
•
•169
•
•
•
INDEX
establishing 23 phase progression into 126
importance of "buy-in" 23 Pre-Planning Matrix 44
participation in 23 Process FMEA 157
Technical Assessment Pugh Concept Selection 59, 148
custom room QFD 58
Assessment type 37 Quality Matrix 159
template Simple Matrix 143
open from starting quickly with 56
dialog box 121 use in standardizing internal meth-
template Organizer ods 30
dialog box 120 Voice of Customer 42–43
templates 14, 119 text
benefits of custom 30 aligning 66
Best Practices Matrix 158 entering in Relations Matrix 117
catalog of 58 Text room
Creating 119 data description 113
Customer Voice Table I 145 Text rooms 36
Customer Voice Table II 146 text rooms
Customer VoiceTables 58 entering data 84
Design FMEA 156 thumbnail images
Executive Strategies 153 titling 63
failure analysis (FMEA) 58 titling
for quickly starting 30 charts 63
help record "best practices" 30 thumbnails 63
Hoshin Audit - Policy Deployment top roof
152 description 34
House of Quality I 140 Total Quality Management (TQM) 11
House of Quality II 141 transferring HOWs to WHATs
House of Quality III 142 via Phase Progression 125
Listed in Appendix 139 Two-Dimensional Thinking 27
Management Factors to Opera-
tions 155 U
Managing Executive Strategies unhiding 116
154 roofs 116
Market Segmentation Matrix 40,
144 V
opening from Version 3.15 data files
dialog box 57 converting 161
organizing 120 Video
dialog box 62 expressing real world problems
Phase I - House of Quality 147 with 27
Phase II - Parts Deployment 149 viewing data links between charts 128
Phase III - Process Planning 150 VOC (Voice of Customer) analysis
Phase IV - Production Planning five Ws and H method 41
151 Voice of Customer
•
•
170 ••
•
•
INDEX
templates 42 WHATs
Voice of the Customer 40 as desired effects 17
as goals 17
W as project inputs 17
waste chart room 33
avoiding to reduce cost 29 gathering 24
Weblinks Importance Ratings for each of the
expressing real world problems 24
with 27 sorting 122
weblinks 111 WHATs and HOWs
Weighted Importance entering 66
custom Numeric type room 37 hiding and unhiding 116
Weighted Importance (Ideal) 97 inserting/deleting with keyboard 67
Weighted Importance (Independent)
98 Z
Weighted Importance (Proportional) 98 zoom factor
WHAT HOW text effect on print preview 72
auto-fitting 69 shrink or expand chart image on
what-if scenarios 28 screen 72
exploring 28 Zooming to Scale The Chart View 71
•
•
•171
•
•
•
INDEX
•
•
172 ••
•
•

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Quality Function Deployment

Business Improvement Software

725 S. Adams Road, Suite 70

725 S. Adams Road, Suite 70

© 2000 Qualsoft LLC. All rights reserved

©2000 QualSoft LLC

Configuring Chart Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91

©2000 QualSoft LLC

©2000 QualSoft LLC

Appendix B - File Conversion.

©2000 QualSoft LLC

Bill Gates, 1981

? Facing the challenges of ever evolving marketplace needs, how will

To assure mediocrity, simply ignore changing marketplace needs. To prevent it,

? How can you lead in your market without planning?

? Can you lead without a clear focus of the intended results?

? How many times have you attempted to solve a problem only to be

Most business problems can be defined as financial performance problems whose

What is Your Business Improvement Problem?

Jack Welch, CEO General Electric

Increasing quality to drive higher customer satisfaction is a business improvement

Corporate strategies are Policy Management Form a powerful

• Warranty Reliability Deployment

Products sales revenue Designs get changed before

Competing products or Identify high priority customer Explore opportunities to

* isGenerating a solution in a process vacuum can hinder success. It

? Isn’t the management and satisfying of stakeholder requirements

If you represent several constituencies or stakeholders, record their requirements

Cause and Effect

A lawyer arguing in front of a jury has to deal with cause and

In the example, only “Damaged Material” causes the

Machine Personnel Environment

Quantifying Cause and Effect

* toKnowing the relationships between causes and effects is essential

Using a matrix with special weighting calculations is a perfect model!

Matrix Power- Creating a Knowledgebase

Team Oriented Business Improvement

? Ever develop a good workable idea only to be foiled by people in

You may have underestimated the importance of participation and consensus

Quantify WHAT Importances

Determine Required Improvement

Brainstorm HOWs (causes)

5 • Ideally, these are controllable, measurable, objective factors that cause

Determine relationships (HOWs vs. WHATs)

Sort HOWs by Importance

? What framework can be used to implement these steps?

Rich Data Expression

Exploring “What If” Scenarios

Leverage the “Paper Effect”

A basic House of Quality chart is shown on the next page.

Copy Chart Capability

Drag & Drop

Software Analysis O Competitor B

Allows us to model our business problems 8.00 C A D E D D N O

Provides relevant templates 7.00 C B O N Q

Can link to web data 7.00 B D E D E E O Q

R V Integrates with other software 7.00 E E E D E O N Q

Can allow web collaboration

Created with a "state of the art" architecture 9.00 A A D C C C B BN

To any Windows App

Audio, Video, Web

Any .EXE file

In this region you enter “WHAT you want to