What is a Long-Range Plan? How to create it

Are you thinking about improving your business? be the best player in the market?

In the fight to get to market, the companies often forget key elements, for example, stabilize their mission and vision to ensure the business in the right direction. As you guess the company often lost its direction also in this situation remains to be successful in a short time.  Create a Long-Range Plan helps to keep the most profitable status in the market.

What is a Long-Range Plan? to be fast, a Long-Range Plan is a document that acts like a map, where the company stabilizes clearly how they are going to get their goals and how they want to take a position in the market. It allows to accurately prioritize work, and have under control your growth and results. This document frees you from the troubling cycle of day-to-day planning, no need to say that this Long Range Plan doesn’t save you the little problems that you can find on your day today. But you have an important vision of where you want to arrive.

Furthermore, a Long-Range Plan helps you to manage your company at a strategic level and research strategic topics through how the market moves. You have to consider include this plan in your budgeting process and forecasting how the market will be moving.

Let’s try to introduce how to create a Long-Range Plan in your company with some tips to have in consideration.

• Mission and Vision Statements 

One of the first topics that you ought to be clear is your company’s Mission and Vision, they serve to stabilize the business the company policy, creating an approach to the market. It is important that your company is aligned with a good mission and vision statement. At this point, you have to spend time understanding which is your brand identity, what you want to do, through co-working with the company’s stakeholders and shareholders in order to define a clear vision.

This process can take a few weeks owing to you have to schedule a few meetings with the company superintendence, in these meetings you will incubate ideas, including decisions to clarify the right company direction. Once the plan has been created, it can be consulted whenever there is a change in the strategic commercial and should be adjusted.

• Define Goals

To have clear the goals and identify them, you have to ask you, some questions to understand which is the meaning and the purpose. Going furthermore the questions are:

1. What do we do? What do we want to do?
2. what are our weaknesses and strengths? DAFO Matrix
3. What opportunities should we consider in the market?
4. Where do you see your business in one year from now? 5 years? 10 years?
5. Have we resources to go there?
6. Is there a potential customer base?
7. Is any player in the market that does the same? will they do the same?

In base of these questions, you can start to define your goals. Keep in mind that your company must be aligned in this work.

• Write the plan

In this streamwork, you can involve the people that you can think is important, for example, owners, directors, senior executives in writing the plan.  The Longe Range Plan should be a guide for all areas in the company:

• Market approach
• Marketing communications and message
• Measurables Sales and Operational goals
• Customer Oriented

And the last step is to put in march all this information and ideas. Try to assure all the company in the same mission with focus its goals. And Review every quarter if the results are going well or you have to change

Good luck!

Autor: Emilio

What is quality? Lean Thinking

Recently my company has been certified in ISO 9001, that Standard that says that a company is as ineffective in its processes, and it is wonderful in the news of internal communication, in some association of quality and hung on the wall, but the Reflection that I pose myself, is, what is quality? What do we mean by quality? Why does a company work so well?

Quality is not a role, quality is not something that is said, quality is not for a day, if you believe that is really wrong, you are going astray.

Quality is a way of life, a culture of work and a philosophy of understanding the operative.

There have been great quality gurus, thanks to them the quality is where it is, but as it says, whenever it is looking for continuous improvement everything has to evolve. We are at a time where innovation at all levels is the key to new successes, new challenges, new failures and undoubtedly new illusions that will make you bigger and wiser.

The quality, apart from the paper that you can have hanging in the department, is something that is breathed, and that the whole company must breathe and know well. Personally, in this sense, I am constantly striving to show the intrinsic benefits of good quality management, that all people know what we work for, what we work for and give merit to the people who deserve it.

What we have ever seen written Lean Thinking, is the reality that is slowly taking root in companies, many of them do not give as much value to a certification as to the fact of doing things right.

Things to , process improvement, people involvement, project implementation, the set of all activities are what creates the core of quality. The core of the company. Quality is NOT expensive, we have to forget that quality is expensive, implementing the different methodologies we have is a wonderful challenge that makes quality an exciting world to live with.

I encourage everyone to make quality and forget certificates.

Make Lean Thinking!

Blueprinting method: Analyze your services and optimize them

Blueprinting is a methodology that is based on analyzing, visualizing and presenting a map of services. It serves to see the evolution of a process or the provision of services through a flow chart.

As a final result we will obtain a diagram where the activities of the process are chronologically represented on a horizontal axis. Depending on the proximity to the client these processes or activities will be at one level or another level within a vertical axis.

 

What do we get with Blueprinting?

We achieve two points of view, within the company (processes) and outside the company (customer experience). Blueprinting focuses on detailing the configuration of a service-based process to achieve an optimal result both inside and outside the company. The philosophy of work is to dismantle the conceptual map of services to achieve continuous improvement through customer satisfaction, as well as increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of processes (associated cost reduction, process waste, etc.).

To achieve success within companies, it is necessary to work under three pillars: developing alternative strategies, focusing on clear objectives and making decisions based on concise data.

From the analysis of the results we develop options to mark a strategy and a posterior evaluation. Always setting some guidelines for action in the face of problems and new challenges, applying competently improvement actions and focusing / sizing efforts.

 

How do you start working with Blueprinting?

1- First, we have to establish the limits of the system, in this case, we are talking about our services and products. In this way we will be able to visualize a dimension of our study, we refer to the E2E (End to End) of the system. Therefore it is important to reflect the essence of the system in sight, then we have to identify what are the key points of this system, these points are our activities or processes.

This first step will unfold all those processes that have an impact both on the operations of our organization and, on the face of the customer, to know what factors are those aspects that will influence the decision of our brand for another one of the competition.

2- All this we have to take it to a graphic representation, for the representation of this process, we will work on a diagram that marks the interactions with the client, with the company, zones of perception, etc. All this we are going to carry out Through the use of a symbology by all recognizable.

In this representation it is necessary to begin to identify in a clear way that internal processes are intimately related to client experience. We must identify how these two routes, one internal and one external, mark the roadmap to generate the start-up of a service with the maximum possible potential.

Obviously to develop this mapping diagram of both processes and client is necessary to set time guidelines, it seems totally obvious but has a non-trivial character that will define the vision of the E2E process and analyze how they impact the processes inside and outside the Organization through the Customer Journey you achieve to reach how much of good or bad is the customer experience. Mides KPIs on both sides and paramétrizas how to improve internally so that it impacts on customer and vice versa.

This methodology may be accompanied by others such as the Servqual Technique or a DMAIC. With this we will uncover “moments of truth“.

3- When deploying our Process diagram and Customer Journey, we have a general life cycle of our system that makes it easier to identify faults. A widely used practice is to identify faults as potential risk areas for customers, these areas must also have a special attention on our part. The areas where failures occur is where we have to start working, it is very important to define in our protocol of action that is important and critical, we should not direct our actions to something that can “wait” to start with actions that have greater priority.

With this we will avoid the occurrence of these failures and even anticipate future failures that may be blocking our services.

4- Once we have identified the failures and we have set a priority or criticality in front of each of them, whether with affection to our clients or in the internal operative, we have to establish a battery of actions in front of these problems. To the extent possible we will work to minimize current errors and prevent futures to reduce impact.

Let’s see them on a real case, to analyze all the steps we have seen. And pursue those aspects that can generate more impact within the organization.

Of course, from this mapping we can integrate KPIs and customer satisfaction indicators that delimit improvement actions on a specific focus to optimize processes and generate value actions towards our final client.

To gain the trust of the client is to offer a service that meets the needs of this and do not have any fuss, we do not like to be surprised with unwanted bills, services or products that do not meet our needs because we feel cheated and will be very difficult That the customer re-believe in us, that is why he marks the end of the process with a face of ambiguity. Since we must remain alert and give a successful service. In the complicated moments we must get our arsenal and get the customer to move as far as possible from that yellow face to pass to a green of satisfaction.

How to implement a Map of the Value Chain or Value Stream Mapping in our organizations

Today we will try to give a small guide to the development of Value Chain Mapping, Value Stream Mapping or VSM within our organizations. The philosophy of this technique is to analyze the process in detail to reach the maximum knowledge of it and to see where our process is failing or can simply improve, with this we will achieve that the performance and efficiency of our processes also help save costs .

To start with this type of techniques you have to start by making clear some concepts such as:

– Production lead time: is the time from the time the order is received until it is ready for packaging and shipping to the customer.

– Processing Time: is the time required to perform the tasks of manufacturing a product.

– Time of configuration, or change of tools: is the time it takes to move from one process to another.

– Number of Reprocessed: is the number of units that need to be reprocessed because of faults or defects.

– Batch Size: is the number of units of product that are realized in a determined time.

– Available Time of Equipment (Working Time Available or Uptime): it is the time that we dedicate, or the time of activity, in a determined period (h / day, h / week, h / month …), here we have to despise meetings, Breaks … everything that can disturb the working time, this data can be given in%.

– Waste (Scrap): are the unnecessary costs that are generated in each process. We can differentiate the following:

– Overproduction resulting in excess inventory (stocks of end products and products in progress),

– Unnecessary movements and transport.

– Waiting points and bottlenecks that slow down the process.

– Nonconforming products (manufacture defective products which must then be reprocessed to repair their faults).

– Other activities that generate inefficiencies or unnecessary costs.

– Demand: it is the number of product that we need to manufacture to cover the orders, or the needs of the market.

– Warehouse process: is the stock of products in progress, both in the process and in warehouses and transport.

Then the data to collect and mark in each of the processes are the following, I contribute the encoding of signs for each one.

Next I present a theoretical model of VSM of how the structure of a global map would be after performing the initial study of how we work within our organization, in this step it is important to devote time to it, because any details that can escape repercussion at the time Of the final results. It is necessary to give detail in the flow of the product, information flow, processes and re-processes that are realized, to control the quantity of all the materials with which it is working, times described above, etc.

When we have represented our process, and we have a global vision the next step is to move to the data. Here as well as before you have to carry out an exhaustive study of what data you have to put in each case and most importantly the type of metrics with which we are going to work, for this we must help from different supports in other areas.

In each process, we highlight as basic data to take into account: cycle time, task time,% activity in that process and Batch size or lot size. With the obtaining of all the data we will be able to complete the map and have a vision of how each of the processes and steps are being carried out within the process. With the next step we can carry out a separate study of each process, discovering in this way its capacity and seeing where there are bottlenecks that block the overall process.

Assembling all the mapping of our process, we can begin to analyze it and use the Lean philosophy, one of the first problems that we can encounter is the production in Batch push, each process produces at a different pace in such a way that there will be in areas that are Accumulate material and in others where there is not, therefore, it is sought that a process produces the necessary and fair amount for the next process, or move to a pull production where the next process demand is worked. Trying to perform a JIT process (just in time) from the client to the resources will help the overall process have shorter delivery times with better quality and lower cost. Techniques like FIFO, 5S, Ishikawa, AMFE, Poka Yoke … help to achieve the efficiency of the process, ultimately Kaizen and Kanban philosophy.

So you have to design a plan to reach an optimal performance model from the VSM. Once each technique is implanted in the process it is important to mark them on the map in such a way that we know about each one being executed. Without disregarding the maintenance work performed by the operator, this maintenance can be: corrective, preventive, predictive or total productive on this pillar is based on the philosophy Jidoka, where the operator takes a vital role in fault detection.

Canvas: project management framework

It emerges as a project management methodology, helping guide these and focusing on a creative design by creating a canvas project to work on. In this way Canvas allows us to draw as our project would be in a series of steps that define in an agile way through the intervention of all stakeholders involved, reducing the TTM and improving the penetration of our products.
We can simplify the realization of Canvas in 3 main blocks which in turn are subdivided:
The first of the blocks located in the center defines what would be the pillars of the project, in this case the final product, on the other hand the activities needed to get that product.

On the right side we will develop market components, product value proposition, broadcast channels, customer relationship and sources of revenue.
Finally the left block defines this methodology would be to identify what resources are going to be needed, use of technological platforms (ICT), relationship between them and what is needed by each in the different steps of the project and of course establish A cost structure.

What benefits does Canvas offer?

– The Canvas model allows rapid modifications on the progress of the project based on data analysis and testing the hypotheses that mark the guidelines of the success of the project, marking the viability of the business.
– Canvas allows the interaction of the different affected areas in a friendly and flexible way, in a very intuitive way and encouraging the interaction between people.
– Undoubtedly encourages teamwork, the way in which different workshops are held to work on the evolution of the product launch. Working with a canvas model allows to establish a better relationship between the people who are going to intervene. You can use methodologies like Scamper or brainstorming.
– Improves the overall visualization of the holistic of the project. Once the Canvas is made, it will be shown to all the people who have taken part in this activity and that will be part of the achievement of the launch of the product.
Now we will develop and define other aspects that we have seen that are necessary to successfully achieve the development of Canvas.

1- Customer Segmentation: The most important thing you have to ask is who is going to be directed to your product, what penetration is going to have and if you are going to have the buying power that you have planned on that niche market.
2- Proposal of value: that is, what you need to cover, the key is to know what problem you will be able to solve your group of customers.
3- Channels of diffusion: to generate a good market penetration it is very important to define through which channels you are going to spread your product on your target audience. At this point you have to be able to discern the audience to which the product is directed and it is based on this you have the possibility to choose the best channel. If it is a group of young customers, it encourages the digital channel while in other sectors, traditional channels may be more successful.
4- Customer Journey: In this process of launching products you have to stop and think about how the relationship with your customers will be. Set touchpoints within the customer and product lifecycle. Ways of contact and feelings that can lift these touchpoints.
5 – Obtaining income: always have to justify a department’s budget to start working on a project, then, let’s see what points are sensitive to the client: how much is the customer willing to pay, how does the payment, sale Direct, online sales … then you have to evaluate all the possibilities of earning money.

When we are clear in what environment the company will move on these new products or services, we will work the internal alliances. We will evaluate the internal part of the project that we need and what expenses we will support, the points to see at this time of project development are:

1- Internal resources: we must identify what people are going to need to achieve our goal, which departments are going to be involved and of those who are going to wear the “monkey” job.
2- Actions to be carried out: it is very important to define the concept of product as market, so, we must establish some lines of action in front of this new horizon. It is very important to know that you want to not waste your time in development.
3- Internal alliances: within this canvas our actors must maintain a good communication and clear lines of action. Based on these values, we must promote the accessibility and transparency of information. It is necessary to make a foment of companionship and to eliminate it with the resources of departments involved.
4- Cost structure: we have seen that we need to identify where our benefits come from, but we also have to have identified where our costs come from. It identifies these outbreaks and establishes a prioritization to reduce these costs.

Once we have all this identified, how do we move forward?
We have marked a starting point in the execution of our project, we must update our Canvas, we must continue to update the changes that happen in our product development and when we finally launch the product to the market we are able to analyze what strengths and weaknesses have influenced our. That helps us to mark a better route at the time of the execution of new projects Canvas or of the nature that is.

Once we have finalized the project we have to take the appropriate metrics to know how good the product we have launched to the market, in these cases it is very interesting to work with Analysis AB, where through the execution of drivers you have a sample of how they affect your products to your customers and can make comparisons between groups of customers without the need to launch the product to your entire portfolio. They are agile methodologies that help to obtain quick results on impact to clients.

Methods for measuring customer satisfaction

For Everyone knows that the customer is at the heart of the organization, product or service we provide revolves around him and the satisfaction that has this of our business, there are many indicators that help us measure the perceived quality of products and services with these customers, the happy customer satisfaction indicators. These indicators are generated through telephone surveys, by post and other means to provide this information. But is it really a reliable indicator? Are there factors that distort the final result and make us make a wrong strategy?, I mean the correct interpretation or not made about this data. The aim of this article is to know some of the indicators that make the company take a series of decisions based on these results to focus resources toward continuous improvement.

The first indicator with which work will be the NPS, Net Promoter Score, is an easily obtainable and measurable indicator that is extracted through only question where the customer passes rated Promoter (P), Neutral ( N) or Detractor (N) depending on the score you have given to the question asked of 10-9 Promoter, Neutral 8-7 and 6-0 Detractor (although it depends on the requirement of service the company in question) . Once calculated is simple to interpret and mark a benchmark against the competition and work on sectoral studies.

However, contrary to the simplicity of this indicator have been studies that provide evidence that is not the best predictor of customer loyalty.

 

What makes this indicator loses strength analysis?

1. We begin with that for this metric information is lost, that is, work with 3 groups (PND), we can not make a separate calculation and increases the statistical error. To give you an idea, in a survey do not get the grade of each client (0-10) but we will talk about a perceived quality of excellent service to poor there is a difference of 10%, we lose Customization by each customer. We had a continuous variable 11 groups (0a 10) to a discrete variable (3 groups).

2. We have more than one interpretation with respect to the same result, going into detail, we can get the same NPS for two very different situations, this means very different performance requirements.

3. This metric is very sensitive to small changes, since the changes that occur in scores between groups involved in obtaining a very different NPS facing a similar assessment.

4. Difficulty to mark a cutoff between groups. Since every company is going to perform according to their needs.

We can determine that the NPS is a purely intuitive metric that gives us an idea of ​​where our company moves, and a relative position of how we find ourselves at another point in time or over the competition. To create a more stable indicator is necessary to be clear that numbers work.

The second of the indicators work is the NSI (Net Satisfaction Index), again we return to measure customer satisfaction based on the number of responses against a qualitative survey and quality of those votes. This time the service Very Satisfactory Unsatisfactory Very valued. Depending on the volume that has been obtained in the different groups perceived quality of service.

As shown in this formula are weighted with greater value responses higher semantic evaluation. Even the group’s responses of “Dissatisfied” are weighted 25% and it is assumed that the client has “some” small satisfaction that is. Positioning values ​​NSI allow us to know our level of quality as far as customer satisfaction is concerned are set out in the following table.

 

The standard of excellence EFQM also shows the measurement of quality in its parent REDER in this case refers to Nª6 section of this standard called result in customers. Unlike the previous indicators EFQM makes a note of satisfaction in terms of the definition we make ourselves what we mean by customer, within this major criterion is divided into two sub-criteria: 6a refers to the perception of the service received, that is, on his view of how we have done our job. Ultimately measured customer satisfaction, users or beneficiaries of the organization. These measures can refer to aspects such as technical skills, behavior, accessibility, communication, responsiveness, courtesy, empathy, added value, innovation, handling complaints and claims, loyalty …

And the sub-criterion 6b Try on internal measures to analyze the performance of activities with customers, users or beneficiaries, ie on the amount of things we do. These measures can refer to aspects such as: number of interventions, complaints and claims rate, number of service demands, error rates or incidents, response time, types of services offered, attended segmentation of collective …

Likewise, the ISO 9001 in its Point 8.2.1 talks about customer satisfaction, but never tells you how to measure, like EFQM is limited to the measurement of customer satisfaction is a mandatory requirement to pass certification and always seek areas for improvement to increase this satisfaction.

I will be adding new ways to measure customer satisfaction, do not miss it.

Emotional memory: Customer Experience

Much is said about the customer experience in enterprise environments, but ¿really good management of this new power to improve the relationship with the client is seeking?, Companies do their work in the best of forms and giving the best possible deal, this deal is remembered?

The human brain is an organ with a discriminatory storage capacity and record of immense emotions, so when interacting with customers is very important to keep a memorable souvenir of our company.

In the business world the term now used to reach WOW achieve a degree of emotional surprise with the highest customer, this will mean the difference between a good and bad memories, to recommend your brand, whether by necessity have to unsubscribe your company is the first to ask deals, which reach more than a give what the customer needs and longer.

Let’s go to real examples, an American family decided to take a trip to the beach and stay at the Ritz-Carlton hotel for a week, the experience was terrific with an exquisite, perfect, but it was not where I highlight the relationship the hotel has with its customers, in this case, and after spending family holidays got home and the younger children had not realized that his favorite stuffed animal, a giraffe called Joshie, realizing that he had not his favorite stuffed the child began to mourn, the parents called the hotel to ask if Teddy was at its facilities. The answer was no, not the whereabouts of Joshie known. Within a week, the family received a call Customer Service at the Ritz, they had found the bear in the laundry, after a few days I get a package to the family home, there was Joshie, but not only that also it included some pictures where it seemed that the giraffe had spent his own vacation, from this original way the Ritz managed to capture fond memories for parents and a positive, almost convinced I would comment on the experience for the baby of the house Joshie magnificent vacation on the beach with his classmates. All in all a very positive experience against something that appears not as significant and an unpleasant memory for the baby of the house, again positive emotional reinforcement.

Since science is very clear that the emotional memory marks a clear difference on their experiences, a business to mistreat a client or management has been delayed and has had a bad result is recorded in the client’s memory, thus becoming someone completely the enemy to our brand. A client may leave the company but not for bad service.

Going a little further on emotional memory, a great story between mother and child, she suffered from Alzehimer and he was devoted to caring for her mother, created routines for her to have a mental planning, the question How do you take your daily life? – He replied – “For me the two key tools are cognitive stimulation and love” – ​​little more to add, we talk about the great story of Paul A. Barredo and mother. They are the two words that any company should devote its customers cognitive stimulation and love. Strengthen the bond of the most unexpected way makes exponentially increase the possibility of generating a positive memory of our brand.

 

How do you manage to surprise the customers?

Everyone is different, every customer has needs at all times and they will contact us for help in everything that is related to our brand, often do not seek anything but a simple solution without any frills, but are accompanied and we are able to understand their situation. And we recommend solve the problem for you have at hand but also find an innovative way to strengthen the relationship. Maybe not now but later, just by the fact of asking him if he was satisfied with the care provided in a disinterested way, just to know if after the resolution is all to your liking, capture the customer’s attention since we talk about people. Customers usually do not expect a second contact of the company confirming the excellence of the brand, here it is where we can make positive reinforcement.

Depending on the sector to which your brand engages you be able to create this positive experience to your customers, only seeks the right time and remember that every client is unique with its peculiarities, to everyone’s problems do not affect them equally, so we are breaking protocols in cases where necessary.

What is IQNet? - What are the IQNet Certificates?

What is IQNet?

IQNet is an international certification entity, formed by more than 30 of the most relevant certification entities of the most important countries.

Some certification entities involved in IQNet are the following: AENOR (Spain), AFNOR (France), AIB (Belgium), ANCE, IMNC (Mexico), APCER (Portugal), CCC, CSIQ (Italy), CQC (China), CQS (Czech Republic), Cro Cert (Crocacia), DQS (Germany), DS (Denmark) , ELOT (Greece), FCAV (Brazil) , FONDONORMA (Venezuela) , HKQAA (Hong Kong), ICONTEC (Colombia), Inspecta (Finland), IRAM (Argentina) , JQA (Japan) , KFQ (Korea) , MSZT (Hungary), Nemko AS (Norway), NSAI (Ireland), PCBC (Poland), Quality Austria (Austria), RR (Russia), SIQ (Slovenia) , SQS (Switzerland), SRAC (Romania) , TSE (Turkey), YUQS (Serbia), AFNOR, ICCS, DQS, NSAI (USA), etc.

 

The purpose of the IQNet certificates

The IQNet certificates are used by  companies and organizations worldwide to testify that they are certified in a particular standard (as ISO 9001, ISO 14001 or any other).

Here is an example of a IQNet certificate :

How could my company obtain an international IQNet certificate?

The way of working is as follows:

If your company has implemented an ISO 9001:2008 management system standard, then it should be certified by an external certification entity as, for example NSAI in USA, or AENOR in Spain (of course, that depends on the location of your company). By obtaining the certification of this local entity, you can talk with them for obtaining an equivalent international certificate signed by IQNet.

By doing that, you will be able to use the certificate of your local certification entity in your country (from NSAI, AENOR or whatever), and use the international IQNet certificate when you need to do business in other country, or when you want to sign contracts with other international companies.

The main point of this is that a foreign company probably will not know the name of your local certification entity, but they surely will recognize the international IQNet logo.

 

The IQNet seal

The IQNet Certified Management System seal is a logo which the certified companies usually add with the stamp of their local certification entity. These logos are accompanied with the codes of the standards that they have certified .

The most common certified standards are the next ones:

ISO 9001 (Quality) , ISO 14001 / EMAS (Environment) , OHSAS 18001 (Risk Prevention), ISO 2200 / FSSC 22000 / BRC / IFS (Food Security), SA8000 / BSCI / IQNet SR 10 ( Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility), ISO 27001 (Information technology ) , BBP / IBEC (Business Excellence), ISO 22301 , ISO / TS 16949 (Automotive Industry) , IRIS , TL 9000 , ISO 29001 and other international standards.

Kanban Methodology: How to reduce delays and create an efficient production system

The word “Kanban” refers to the labels that are put in the products to identify them during the manufacturing processes and during their transportation; however Kanban metodology includes much more concepts that we are going to explain now.

Kanban methodology is focused on creating a production system more effective and efficient, focusing mainly in the production and logistic activities when there is a big amount of items to be processed.

 

What is Kanban?

Kanban systems include a group of ways to communicate and exchange information between the different operators of a production line, a company, or between supplier and customer. The purpose of Kanban Systems is to improve and simplify the communication, avoiding mistakes caused by lack of information.

The most common example of “Kanban” are the labels that are put in the products surface or in the packaging while they are being manufactured, so that they were identified with the information about where they have to be sent or what specifications they have to include.

Currently, in most companies that use a Kanban System, they have automated its methods using computers, so that for example, labels (QR or barcodes) are put in each item and they are read automatically by computer devices while they are passing for each control point. In that moment, the system automatically locates them and gives the orders to the next machines to manage each item properly according its specifications and destine.

 

Types of Kanban

These are some of the ways to implement a Kanban system:

– Transport labels with information about each package and its destination.

– Manufacturing labels with information about the product specifications.

– Tags with any other relevant information about the product, or about the activities that there have to be done.

These tags can be in a traditional format (handwritten or typed), they can include the information encoded in numerical codes, or using barcodes / QR codes to be read using an optical reader attached to a computer.

 

 

Advantages of using a Kanban system

Advantages in production processes:

1 – More flexibility in the production processes and transportation.

2 – If using a computerized system, it will give you information about the status of all items in real time, so you will be able to take decisions more accurately.

3 – It prevents wasting work, raw material and the use of unnecessary paperwork.

 

Advantages in logistics:

1 – Belter stock control.

2 – Ability to prioritize production: the type of product with more importance or urgency can be manufactured before than the rest of items.

3 – More information about the location of each item (products, packages, warehouses…).

 

How to implement a Kanban system

This methodology has to be implemented in four steps:

Step 1: Design the Kanban system that will be used and train staff in the principles of Kanban, and the benefits of using it.

Step 2: Implement Kanban in the busiest production lines and in the ones which generate more problems or where it is more important to avoid mistakes and delays.

Step 3: Follow and improve the system: Is it working as expected? May we do any change to adapt it? You should take into account the suggestions of the workers.

Step 4: In the last step you should obtain conclusions, improve the system, and implement it in the rest of the activities and processes.

 

Kanban methodology is based on some rules and tips that should be taken into account in order to implement it correctly:

– The first rule talk about not sending defectives products to the subsequent processes: when you detect a defective item you have to repair or remove it immediately. That is because producing defective products involves a waste of money in materials, equipment and labor that we will not be able to sell.

– The second rule says that subsequent processes require only what is necessary. This means that you have to calculate what amount of material and time need each activity, and then you have to give it only that, and no more.

– The third rule tells us that we should produce only the amount of product required by the process. For example, if we are manufacturing cars and each car need four wheels, we have to provide four wheels for each one, and no more. Therefore we shouldn’t produce more wheels than the exact number of them which are going to be used.

– In the next rule wants to prevent speculation: We shouldn’t speculate about if the processes are going to need more material or require more time than the needed the next time. It is very important to have a well balanced production.

– The final rule talks about standardize the processes. We have to be able to predict everything in each activity in order to program the times, materials, etc. correctly. We also have to know the potential mistakes and problems to minimize them and to repairs them as soon as possible when they occurs.

 

Original post (in Spanish): https://pdcahome.blogspot.com/p/metodo-kanban-como-disminuir-retrasos-y.html

8D: Eight Steps to solve problems

What is 8D? Eight Disciplines of Problem Solving

The 8 disciplines to solve problems is a tool methodology focused in give us eigth generic steps to identify and solve most of the relevant problems that can occur more frequently in companies. 8D proposes eigth sequential steps that we should follow to solve successfully any problem.

This method is also called Troubleshooting 8-D, Global 8D or G8D.

What are the 8 steps?

The steps proposed to the solve a relevant problem in companies are the followings:

1: Create an expert people team. Relevant problems have to be solved by people who know the activities and the know-how of the company, it would be interesting to create a group with the people who have enough experience in the activity which we want to study. These people will have to take care of the responsibility and they have to be able to propose and implement the correct solutions.

2: Define the problem. The next step is to obtain a  detailed description of the problem. For this, you can use other quality tools as The 5 Whys (what, when, who, where and how).

3: Implement provisional containment actions. If the problem is really serious, before implementing the definitive solution (which can take several days), is proposed to implement temporary quick fixes to avoid getting the situation worse.

4: Identify the cause of the incidence. We will have to find out the initial cause of the problem (the source). To get the real cause we can use several specific quality tools that you can find on this page.

5: Determine permanent corrective actions (PCAs). Previously we have implemented provisional actions to prevent a similar problem from arising again, now that we know the source of the incidence, we have to find corrective actions to remove the cause of the problem. This stage can be long, and also is influenced by the resources available of the company.

6: Implement permanent corrective actions. Once defined corrective actions we will have to implement them. We algo have to check that they work properly to ensure that no failure arises again.

7: Prevent similar problems. Now that you know how and where the problem is produced, you can extrapolate these mechanisms to other similar processes, preventing new similar failures.

8: Recognize the team’s work. To finish, it is recommended to compliment or give some reward to the team which have worked to solve the incidence. If this is handled well, it will serve to increase the efficiency of the company and to involve the staff in their tasks.

 

Result: Less incidences and more efficiency in the activities

The use of 8D method allows to improve products, services and processes, and establishes a standard practice to follow. This tool is very useful because it creates a systematic structure that can be used in almost every kind of problem, non-conformity, incidence or failure. As a consequence, we will be able to optimize the performance of the tasks and most of the future failures will be prevented.

Original Post (in Spanish):  https://pdcahome.blogspot.com/p/las-8d-ocho-pasos-para-resolver.html

FMEA (Failure Mode Effects Analysis): How to analyze potential failures in a design

Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA or AMFE in Spanish) is one of the most common tools in Quality Engineering to detect and solve potential failures in the development of a new product or service. In this article we are going to explain the concept of FMEA and then, we will see how to use it with an example.

 

What is FMEA?

Failure Mode Effects Analysis is a methodology that is applied during the design of new or improved products, services or processes. Its purpose is to study the potential future failures or potential problems (“failure modes”) of our product and then classify them according to their importance.

From there, we will get a list with the most relevant “failure modes”, so we will know what are the aspects that we should solve first, because they are more annoying (or dangerous) for the customer, more difficult to detect or more frequent. We will also know which ones are the less relevant, these ones are the less important and we should not be worried about them, because they have very little negative impact or because they are easy to detect by the machines or control quality inspectors before taking the product to the market.

There are several types of FMEA analysis. It depends on if it applies to a product / service or to a process, but basically they are very similar. In addition, this analysis can be applied in a new product development and also in improvements, modifications or processes optimization.

 

How to create a FMEA? 

The steps to create and use a FMEA analysis are these ones:

 

1) List all potential failure modes

The first step is to create a working group of 4 or 5 people who have knowledge about the product / service / process that is being developed. Ideally, the group should be multidisciplinary and it should include several different profiles, as designers, engineers, technicians and even clients and customers and users. This is going to help to get a broad vision and obtain different points of view.

Once we have made our working group, we have to list all “failure modes” of the design: the failures that could have the final product (they can be functional, safety or esthetic defect and any kind of potential problem). To do this it is recommended to separate the product into its pieces and see how they could fail. You also have to think about what is the expected use of the product: Is it for experts or for novel users? Is it going to be used in critical situations? What if the customer uses it without reading the instructions? If it breaks could someone get hurt?

 

2) Set the priority of each failure mode

Once finished the previous step, we will have a long list with the potential failure modes of our product. These should be included in a table.

Now, it’s time to sort them by importance, so we will give to each failure mode the next three values:

S:  Severity (extent of the problem perceived by the user).

P:  Probability of happening.

D: detection probability (probability of NOT detecting the problem before using the product).

For each failure mode we will assign a value of P, S and D between 1 and 10. For example, on a TV, the “failure mode = power cable break” could have S = 7 (a high value, because the TV would be useless and it can also be a risk of electrocution for the customer), P = 2 (a low value, because it is very improbable) and D = 1 (a very low value because the probability of NOT detecting that the cable is broken during the quality test is very low).

Once estimated P, S and D, we have to multiply them to get the RPN (Risk Priority Number), which will give us a value between 1 and 1000.

RPN = S * P * D

This value will tell us the importance of each failure mode.

 

3) Prioritize the failure modes and propose solutions

Once calculated the Risk Priority Number for all failure modes, we order them. The higher RPN are the more important ones, so these are the failure modes than we should solve before (for example, you can find solutions for all failure modes higher than 600).

If we determine that a particular failure mode is unaffordable (RPN too high), we have three ways to reduce their risk:

• Acting for that if it happens, it will be less severe (and then decrease its S value).

• Acting to make it happen less frequently (and then decrease its P value).

• Acting for that if it happens, we will detect it before delivering the product to the customer (and then decrease its D value).

With this, we can compare the “initial RPN” (before applying FMEA method) with its “final RPN” (RPN we have obtained after acting to reduce the risk of the failure mode).

The objective of FMEA analysis is to have controlled all possible failures, having acted to reduce the most important risks.

 

An FMEA example

We are going to apply the Failure Mode Effects Analysis to design a lamp. The steps to develop the analysis are as follows:

 

1) Enumerate all failure modes

Our experts’ team has agreed that the potential failures of our lamp are:

• That its painting has defects (aesthetic failure).

• The switch breaks, so the bulb does not light (functional failure).

• The lamp structure breaks (functional failure).

• The glass that protects the bulb breaks (aesthetic failure).

• The wires break (functional and safety failure).

• The lamp may fall down and breaks the bulb (functional failure).

• The switch could be not visible and the user does not know how to light the lamp (it’s not a failure, but we can consider it as a failure because this kind of things happens frequently).

 

2) Establish the priority list

Now we assign to each failure mode the S value (severity), P (probability of happening) and D (detection probability). We then calculate the RPN (Risk Priority Number):

• That its painting has defects: S = 1 (bit serious for the user / user does not care too much), D = 8 (common failure, more than 2% of cases), D = 2 (easy to detect, we can see if the paint is well applied before selling the lamp).

• The switch breaks so the bulb does not light: S = 9 (severe for the user, as it will be dissatisfied), D = 2 (rare, in 0.2% of cases), D = 3 (easily detectable by testing it before selling the lamp).

• Broken wires: S = 10 (very severe, risk of damage and the lamp stops working). D = 1 (very rare, less than 0.05%% of cases), D = 8 (hard to detect, as it is a mistake that can happen months after selling the product for various reasons).

• etc…

 

3) Find solutions for the most important failure modes

Once calculated the RPN (1 to 1000) for all failure modes, we study the higher values:

In the example, the RPN is very low because one or two of the variables have been too low:

• Broken wires: RPN = 80. It is the most important failure mode. We could take actions to reduce S using better wires and P could decrease with more strict quality tests.

• The switch breaks so the bulb does not light: RPN = 54. To reduce RPN we can reduce S using a more robust switch that gives us less failures.

• Painting defects: RPN = 16. It’s not an important failure mode, so we do not need to take any action.

Finally, we have to define the goal we want to achieve in each failure mode after the improvement actions (we can establish a goal value for the Risk Priority Number). For example, we could establish that the failure modes that affect the safety, RPN should be less than 50 of 1000 and for those which do not affect to the  safety , RPN have to be less than 70 of 1000.

Original post https://pdcahome.blogspot.com/2013/02/amfe-analisis-modal-de-fallos-y-efectos.html

ABC Analysis – How to optimize warehouses and inventory

ABC Analysis is a simple way to classify items (products, files, folders or anything) used when we want to optimize the layout of our inventory or warehouse. This methodology is generally used in logistic companies and stores to classify any kind of stock. Its purpose is to organize the stock products to reduce the time that the workers are going to need to manage this stuff (the time to keep, search, obtain or move items in the warehouse or shelves).

 

How to do an ABC Analysis?

To organize our stock according to the rules of the ABC Analysis, firstly we have to identify the most important items that we have in our catalogue. Therefore, we are going to classify our items in 3 groups:

– Group A: Here we put the most important item (the most used, the best sellers or the most urgent to obtain in case of necessity). In a store, these items are usually the ones which give to the company the most amounts of profits.

– Group B: These are items less used, or which have a secondary importance.

– Group C: These are those items which are nearly irrelevant. Many times to have them in the store costs more money than the profit they bring.

 

Once the classification have been done, we have to place the Group A items in the most accessible zone of the Warehouse (eg. in the warehouse entrance, in the front of the shelves, in the more visited areas of the stores). Then, the Group B items have to be placed and finally, Group C items will be placed in the remaining space, because the need to dispose of them is less urgent.

The ABC method is used to increase the efficiency of the stores and to save time for managers when they have to pick up and leave items.

Original post:  https://pdcahome.blogspot.com/p/analisis-abc-optimizar-la-distribucion.html

Control Chart: Charts for monitoring and adjusting industrial processes

The Control Charts are used to track the development of the production processes and identify failures and other anomalous circumstances.

In sum, the objective of this analysis is to control processes to ensure they are working properly. If the majority of the points shown on the graph are inside the limits, it’s considered that the process is working fine. But if one or more points are outside of the limits or don’t follow a statistical Gaussian distribution, it is considered that the process is out of control and we will have to search for the cause of the malfunctions.

 

1. How to use a control chart

The graph shows the results of the developing of a repetitive process (normally, in industrial factories). The obtained results can be a continuous value (eg, the measures of a piece) or can also be a discrete value (eg, if the piece is ok or not). In the case of being continuous values, the graph should include a horizontal line with the average value and two lines more with the control limits, upper and lower.

The control limits are placed so that a fixed percentage of the points are inside them. These limits are calculated to include either 75% or 95% of the data:

– Limits which include 75% of the data: In this case, a process which works properly must show 75% of the values ​​inside the upper and lower limits, 12.5% ​​of the values ​​above the upper limit and another 12.5% ​​below the lower limit. If a point is outside these limits is considered normal, but if there are several points above or below the limits probably represent an unusual situation, and it could indicate that the process is out of control.

– Limits which include 95% of the data: In this case only 2.5% of the values ​​should be above or below the limits. In this situation if a data goes out of bounds mean that there has been an unusual circumstance in the process.

 

This type of control charts are used  to detect if the process is working properly, or if it is in a abnormal situation. When a graph shows a “situation out of control”, you may start an investigation to identify the causes and take actions to correct the problem.

The values ​​shown in the graph should be random and follow a normal statistical distribution, being centered in the midpoint line and having a variability that can be the result of two factors:

– Common situation: The variation which is inherent to the process, and therefore you can not avoid.

– Special situation: When it causes an excessive variation, and should be corrected.

 

2. When the process is malfunctioning?

We say that a process is out of control, and therefore should be corrected in the following situations:

– If there is a point beyond the limits of 95%.

– When more than three points are a row outside the boundaries of 75%.

– When increasing or decreasing trends are appreciated in more than 4 points in a row.

– When more than 6 consecutive points are above or below of the average line of the graph (in this case, the process should need to be recalibrated).

– When it is seen that the values ​​follow a pattern (they should be random).

 

3. How to draw a control chart?

Normally, in the continuous processes, the machines include their own software to give us the graphs and the control diagrams as they are performing its tasks. But if we do not have this technology, we can also perform a control chart manually using a spreadsheet in order to understand better the current situation of the development of the process.

Create a control chart requires the following steps:

1) Choose the feature to study. It must measure the data that we want to study: the length of a piece, the temperature of a machine, etc.

2) Take the data. We collect the values ​​over a period of  enough time to enable us to obtain a representative view of the process development.

3) Insert the data in the spreadsheet, and calculate the center line (the average of the value of the data) and the upper and lower limits.

4) Represent the data in a graph, and consider if the development of the process is the proper.

5) Repeat the study from time to time to verify that the operation remains correct.

 

Original post: https://pdcahome.blogspot.com/p/diagramas-de-control-graficos-para.html

POKA YOKE - A method to create a Safe Design

What is Poka Yoke?

Poka-Yoke is a methodology created in Japan which means “fool-proof”. Its purpose is to prevent or avoid mistakes that can be caused by humans or by machines during their activities. Poka Yoke can be also implemented to facilitate errors detection.

If we focus in manufacturing operations, which can be assemblies or other simple but repetitive activities, the risk of error can be very high regardless the complexity of the tasks. PokaYoke System helps to minimize that risk with simple measures like create an easier design or paint the different pieces to make the activities easier.

Poka-Yoke can be designed to handle errors (control function) or to warn them (warning function):

1 – Control function:

In this case, Poka-Yoke is designed to prevent potential mistakes. To do this, it uses different shapes or colours to differentiate the correct assembling of each piece of our product.

2 – Warning function:

In this case, we assume that an error could happen. We have to design a system which reacts when an error happens, therefore it would warn the operator about the failure. For example, you can use light or pressure sensors, alarms, etc.

 

How to implement a Pokayoke system:

Some types of design methods can be…

– A design that permits plug the pieces only in the correct way: If you try to fit the pieces in a wrong way, it won’t fit.

– Color codes: For example in the computers jacks/plugs, each jack has a different colour.

– Arrows and other indications such as “A-> <-A” to indicate where each piece have to be fitted and what is its orientation.

The advantages of using a Poka Yoke system are the followings:

– It minimizes or avoids the risk of errors and nonconformities.

– The operator can focus on the operations that add more value, rather than wasting his time to prevent errors, to check or to correct them.

– Implement a Poka-Yoke system means improving the quality acting on the errors source, rather than on doing quality controls after finishing the product, which are more expensive and inefficient.

– It’s easy to implement and cheap.

Poka-Yoke’s mission is to support the workers during their activities. In the case when the device is part of the operation of a machine, we will be talking about another similar concept: “jidoka”.

Original post (in Spanish):  https://pdcahome.blogspot.com/p/poka-yoke-diseno-prueba-de-errores.html

Gantt Chart - How to plan and track a project development

The Gantt Chart is the most widely method used in business planning of activities on all kinds of projects, besides it can also be used to plan any type of activity over time.

The method consists in a horizontal time shaft, and under it you have to put the activities that you want to track. A project is a group of linked activities, so you have to separate each activity and organize them under the time shaft. Each activity is linked with the others and you can select different kinds of links to mark this (for example, the link “end-start” means that when the activity N is finished, then automatically starts the activity N +1). Thus, using this methodology you can find the project’s critical path, which determines the minimum time to complete the whole project. Additionally, you can add to each activity its number of resources needed (workers ) to control costs and the workload of the involved people.

Also, during the development of the project, if you add the progress of each activity (0% = not started yet, 100% = already finished), you will be able to calculate the delays and the cost of your project, and reschedule the activities to end as soon as possible.

The Gantt Chart methodology is usually applied using software applications. The most used is Microsoft Project, but you also have many others programs, as Gantt Project (http://www.ganttproject.biz/) which is free and it works on Windows, Linux and Mac. Gantt Project also include a portable version which does not need installation (very useful if you’re on a company and your computer doesn’t have administrator access).

Below this, you have an example: A “website designing and development ” project, where they have established different tasks, with its duration, dates of meetings. Once introduced the inputs, the software has calculated the exact dates of each activity and the finish date, taking into account the holidays and the relations between the different tasks:

Here you have an example of the relations between activities and the tracking of a a project using a Gantt Chart:

 

Original post (in spanish):  https://pdcahome.blogspot.com/p/diagrama-de-gantt-planificacion-y.html

Quality Function Deployment (QFD): What is QFD and how to use it

The Quality Function Deployment, also called The House of Quality,  is a methodology used in design and quality engineering to create products that suit the desires and needs of the client/customer of them. Thus, with QFD we will be able to calculate what features should be added to the design of our product or service. Also, we will know what are the unnecessary features that add an  extra cost to the product without being appreciated by the customer and give us a vision about how is our product placed in the market, in order to choose which are the priority areas to improve.

In summary, the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) help us when we have to design a new product:

– QFD gives us an objective point of view about what our future customers are looking for in a product and the requirements it must have.

– QFD gives us a prioritization about what features are most important to add, and which ones are not necessary.

– QFD tell us about the situation of how is our current product against similar others, and what are the areas of improvement to be more competitive (and sell more, of course).

In this post we will explain the steps to apply this methodology.

You also have an example of a QFD in the end of the post to download it.

Generally, QFD has this shape:

To do this, you have to follow the order indicated in the drawing. To explain it step by step, we will take an example of a fictional company that wants to launch a new digital camera:

 

1. “WHAT” List

The WHAT List includes the aspects that our clients and customers expects from our product. At this point you have to put as many things as you can, in order to not forget any aspect. Later, we will  discard the WHAT points less relevant.

For example, for a digital camera we could write those WHAT points:

The camera should have…

a good battery

a hight quality lens

flash light

it has to be able to record video

a big internal memory

a large LED display

a easy to use software

a compact design

a pretty design

a ergonomic shape

it has to take photos quickly

bluetooth

it has to be able to synchronize with the computer

resistant to shocks

it has to be able to expand it with a memory card

it should come with a cover

2. WHAT Analysis

Now, the first thing to do is to order the WHAT points by its importance. In order to do it, you can create a quest or survey of potential users /clients/customers, which rate the importance of each aspect from 1 to 5 (1 = not important, 5 = very important).

These results of importance have to be written in one column (column 1) in an Excel and they will be used later.

The next columns to fill are those about what is the current status of our product for each WHAT (column 3) and how are the other companies (columns 4 and 5), filling them with values ​​between 1 and 5 for each WHAT,  (1 = very bad situation and 5 = very good situation). For example, if our product does not have Flash, you will receive a 1 in that box, and if you have very good flash will be a 5. (See the example below).

Once that it’s done and based on the importance of each WHAT, you have to put an objective or goal between 1 and 5, which will we placed in the next column (6).

Now we calculate the improvement ratio (column 8) by dividing the current status of each WHAT with your goal (column 8 = column 7 / column 3).

The following to fill is the column of the marketing “sales pitch” (column 9). Here, you will get a value between 1 and 1.5 if the mentioned WHAT is a good sales pitch (1 = bad, 1.5 = good pitch). With this, we have included in our design not only the customer preferences (that are in column 1) but also ours preferences as a company.

The next task is to calculate the absolute weight in the next column, as the multiplication between the importance (column 1), the improvement ratio (column 8) and the sales pitch (column 9). We can also take the relative weight in percentage and absolute weight of each WHAT divided by the sum of the absolute weights.

Once we know what are the most important aspects to improve, we can look the weight of each WHAT and we can implement only those who have more weight, discarding others less important.

3. HOW List

After considering what has to have our product, the next step is to define the technical requirements to obtain it.  So we will create a HOW List with the features that must have our product.

For example, for the digital camera:

for a good battery -> Battery capacity (mAh) and amount of shots per charge (photos / charge)

for a hight quality lens -> quality (1 … 10)

for flash light -> flash light included (0 = no, 1 = yes) and luminosity (lux)

for be able to record video -> (0 = no, 1 = yes)

for a big internal memory -> Internal memory capacity (MB)

for a large LED display -> Screen Size (inches) and Screen Resolution (dpi)

for a easy to use software -> accessibility (1 … 10)

for a compact design -> volume (cm ^ 3)

for a pretty design -> design (1 … 10)

for a ergonomic shape -> ergonomics (1 … 10)

for taking photos quickly -> speed in taking photos (fps)

bluetooth -> (0 = no, 1 = yes)

for be able to synchronize with the computer -> compatibility with Windows/Linux/Mac (0 = no, 1 = yes)

for be resistant to shocks -> strength (1 … 10)

fo be able to expand it with a memory card -> (0 = no, 1 = yes)

come with a cover -> cover included (0 = no, 1 = yes)

Note that beside each feature is included its measuring scale.

 

4. Relationship between the HOW points

This is the famous triangle (or roof) that is above the QFD shape, by which this method is also called the House of Quality.

This triangular matrix relates the HOW points between themselves. The relationships can be positive, negative or zero (eg: flash have much negative impact on the battery). This part of the QFD is optional and it’s not usual to put it unless the interactions are very strong.

 

5. Relationship between WHAT and HOW points

This matrix is ​​in center of the QFD and serves to link the WHAT ant the HOW aspects. With this, we will translate the abstract aspects of the list of measurable characteristics “WHAT” to the HOW list.

To do this we will classy from 1 to 9 the relationship between each WHAT and each HOW. For example, “to have a good battery” and “battery capacity (mAh)” have a 9 because they are closely linked, but has a 1 with “strength (1 … 10)” because they have no relationship.

Note: It is crucial to verify that all major WHAT are connected with one or more HOW, since otherwise we would have issues not contemplated.

Once completed this, the aspect of our QFD will be like this (click on the image to enlarge it):

6. HOW analysis

It only remains to fill in the last part of our QFD, which calculates the technical objectives we need to finally obtain the specifications required by our product:

Here we have first fixed the desired orientation of each HOW (more value = better or more value = worst). For example, in a digital camera, more internal memory is better, but more weight is worse.

The following is to calculate the absolute and relative weight of each HOW. For each HOW is calculated: absolute Weight = Sum (Value of each  relationship between WHAT and HOW * Relative Weight associated with the WHAT). From here we will get the order of importance of each of the technical aspects.

Finally, we fill what are the technical aspects of our product and the technical aspects of the other companies product, and we will set what are the characteristics that will be implemented in our product taking into account the relevance of each feature weight, and also, taking into account the situation of the other companies in each of the characteristics.

The end result will be as follows:

 

Conclusion

With QFD analysis we have achieved the next goals:

– To prioritize what our customers want.

– To know what are the essentials you should put in your product and what are the superfluous aspects that you can remove without losing sells.

– To have a vision about your situation in the market, and to compare yourself with other companies and products.

– To know which technical features are the most important in the product, and which are superfluous and can be eliminated.

– To set objectives for the technical features that should be in the future.