Quality Function Deployment for Service: A Case Study of Enhancing the Planning Statement of a Utility Company

Abstract

Throughout the years, the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) method has significantly developed and was widely implemented for developing products and services in both industrial and service sectors. Each new QFD application often presents an opportunity for practitioners to think about other areas where QFD concept could be used. In this paper, a methodology is developed to facilitate a new QFD application to customer need analysis and quality improvement in the service industry. The objective is to improve the quality of the 5-Year Planning Statement (5YPS) for the asset management of a major utility company. The 5YPS in presented in a strategic report which the utility company develops and delivers to stakeholders and regulators. The report outlines the company’s asset management plan and project-based capital expenditure. Thus, the focus of improvement is on the report’s technical content in terms of proposed projects and asset management initiatives. Quality improvement of such plan is highly needed to address the frequent comments raised by customers due to the multiple nonconformities in previous reports. To this end, various enhancements are made to the conventional QFD model to make it more operational and workable in such service application. In addition, several business and quality tools are used in the construction of the QFD House of Quality (HoQ) including Process Mapping, SIPOC chart, Work Breakdown Structure (WBS), Pareto Analysis, and Brainstorming. The methodology was successfully used to improve the planning statement of a major utility company. The enhancements are recommended based on a thorough review of the feedback received from the customers on the reports submitted yearly to regulators by the department of asset management from 2007 to 2010. The study found that the customers were not fully satisfied by the submitted reports. Consequently, the company has exerted significant efforts over the last 4 years in order to meet customers’ expectations through costly and time-consuming adjustments, re-work, and report changes. The proposed approach utilizes QFD to enhance the company’s planning statement (the technical content of the strategic report) and to avoid these excessive costs. The proposed procedures could be used as a framework to improve other types of planning statements and strategic reports developed by other departments of the utility company as well as by other similar companies in the manufacturing and service sectors.