House of Quality refers to a well-known process for product development that is inspired by customer desires for product or process development and anchored by the capabilities and resources of the organization seeking to meet those desires. It is a process of listening to customers, translating their desires into a written plan, prioritizing steps of execution based on what is most important to the customer, and putting a realistic plan on paper. The tool can be used in different stages of the development process and are inspired by participatory design thinking. The model is build up with The Customer Specifications section to the left in the model lays out the specific priority features on which the customer has set focus. The Engineering Specifications section to the right in the model displays engineering methods needed to measure and execute production.
Prospective uses:
- To understand Customer Desires – the tool can be used to understand customers perhaps even better that they understand themselves so as to open their eyes to ideal solutions. - To understand Customer Priorities – the tool can be used to get knowledge about customer needs, but then break those needs down into prioritized parts. - Overview over departmental buy-In - the tool helps to create a plan that addresses all true priorities and to which all departments in the company can agree. - To translate customer desires into goals & technicalities – desires of the customer ranked by priority and specific process and resource planning - To specify traceable requirements – answering the question how the company are meeting the client’s requirements and why the company are doing it this way - To provide structure - provide a logical, executable, traceable structure to organize the development of the product. - To allocate resources – define which resources are needed to develop the product