QFD Models for Concurrent Engineering Development Processes of Automobiles

Abstract

The systematic application of QFD to Concurrent Engineering (CE) procedures of automobile development has been investigated, which has lead to a proposal of defining the ideal figure of project leader. Included within this role are all the necessary responsibilities for the judgements and decisions related to the project. Based upon this proposal, a "2-storied quality chart" model is conceived which the project team prepares as a result of cooperation with function departments. To consider the progress of time, this chart is further developed to contain two parts; one to be provided for new development, and the other relying on data accumulated in the past. Furthermore, a "parallel flow quality chart" is conceived, considering the job sharing between the project team and function departments which shows diverse aspects during the processes of CE along the product axis. The above proposal of the ideal project leader and the concept models simplifies the treatment of sys tematic application of QFD to the total CE procedures: one can treat it as local QFD activities which take place in each team and department con cerned. In this way, the essential problem of systematically applying QFD to a complicated product development, which is that the quality chart becomes too voluminous, has been solved.