Dynamic programming for QFD optimization

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a useful method in product design and development and its aim is to improve the quality and to better meet customers' needs. Due to cost and other resource constraints, trade-offs are always needed. Many optimization methods have been introduced into the QFD process to maximize customer satisfaction under certain constraints. However, current optimization methods sometimes cannot give practical optimal results and the data needed are hard or costly to get. To overcome these problems, this paper proposes a dynamic programming approach for the optimization problem. We first use an extended House of Quality to gather more information. Next, limited resources are allocated to the technical attributes using dynamic programming. The value of each technical attribute can be determined according to the resources allocated to them. Compared with other optimization methods, the dynamic programming method requires less information and the optimal results are more relevant. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.