Application of Quality Function Deployment (Qfd) To Improve Product Design Quality in School Furniture

Quality function deployment (qfd) is a powerful development method with a wide range of applications to translate customers’ needs into technical requirements in order to enhance customer satisfaction. the goal of the study was to identify the requirements of the school furniture users in the areas of functionality, material selection, structure, ergonomics and aesthetics. the authors implemented the qfd analytical method to find out whether qfd is an effective method to improve the quality of design outcomes (in this case, high school furniture) or not. to answer this question, the authors extended the qfd analysis to a complex set of customers' requirements in regards to school furniture products. a step-by-step application of qfd, known as house of quality (hoq) matrix was for that purpose. the quality-based requirements were considered and then the issues of scheduling were evaluated. the data collection process was carried out by recruiting 160 students from three high schools in tehran (capital of iran). students' requirements were collected and translated into technical requirements using qfd method. data gathering was carried out through survey, questionnaire distribution and structured interview. subsequently, the collected data were analysed to find the best solutions for the problems. obtained results from hoq matrix evaluation, were used to provide suggestions and solutions to reduce the problems. results indicated that seat position is the main factor in designing school furniture specified by majority of students. it is highly connected with back injuries, neck and legs pain. qfd method also can help demonstrators to ascertain inter relationship between operational requirements and measures of performance..