28 Irainan Accounting & Auditing Review, Winter 2006, No 46, PP 28-43

Organizational training needs Design by

QFD: productivity improvement approach

Syed Reza Syedjavadein1∗, Mohammad Ali Shahhoseini2

1. Associated professor, Faculty of Management, University of Tehran
2. Ph.D. Student Management University of Tehran
(Accepted, 7/Fab/2007)

Abstract
The Quality Function Deployment concept has been first developed in
Japan in 1966 by Yoji Akao and disseminated through a paper, in
1972. It arrived in the United-States in 1984 and latter on in other
industrial countries (Clausing, 1994).Quality Function Deployment
(QFD) is a strategic management tool, which is capable of measuring,
managing, and improving the quality of the product design process by
listening to the customer’s voice. What has differentiated our arena
from the other times are the speed and complexity of changes. Most of
these changes show themselves in the wants and desires of customers.
On the other side, one of the most important factors in management
success is quick responding to the changes. While customers and their
satisfaction guarantee the sustainability of the corporate, manages
must coordinate all their activities and investments in tune with the
customers' satisfaction. Managers relying on the human resources, as
the most important resource to the organization, must respond to the
environment and customers' satisfaction.
This paper is trying to distinguish the educational needs of Satcom
Company based on the customer needs. So we have used one of the
most useful techniques, called QFD. Of the results of this paper we
can name: education needs, ranking these needs, coordination courses
with the company processes. Of the other side result are of
coordinating processes and service characteristics and customer needs.

Key words: QFD, Training needs, voice of customer, improving education

quality, improving service quality

∗ Email: reza@seyedjavadein.com
Organizational training needs Design by QFD: … 29

Introduction
Increasing competition in service markets and innovation in
production and services processes needs attention to new strategies
and polices leading to innovation in quality improvement and
expenditures decline. Looking to the changes in Technology of
today’s organization, especially technology oriented service
organizations, we will find out that the organizations must cope with
the changes in the Environment or creates some changes in the
surrounding Environment.
Today’s market has many rapid changes in supplying goods that
are rooted in the changes of customer needs.
To sustain and make profit, organizations must evaluate and
improve the process of production and services and deploy innovative
approaches. Coordination with these changes comes from human
resources in the management that is able to be competitive.
Knowledge organizations formulate their strategies on the training that
includes training of target market and training human resources inside
the organization. In fact new strategy of penetrating in target markets
is called “training strategy”.
Considering the specifications of service industries, like
Intangibility, unutterable, simultaneous production and consumption
… this strategy will be more important.
On of the Basic a specification of service industries is the high
dependency of product or service quality to the capability of service
provider. For example services in a bank are highly dependent to the
person providing services through improving employee's
empowerment. There are different approaches for evaluating and
improving services providing. These approaches are of different range
of quantitative and qualitative methods. One of the most famous
methods is quality function deployment (QFD) that translates
customer needs in to service specifications. Two important
dimensions of QFD are voice of customer and specification of
products and devices that are used in this process. In this article we try
to use this technique in improving training of SATCOM Company.
With this technique customer needs are identified at first, products and
30 Irainan Accounting & Auditing Review, Winter 2006, No 46, PP 28-43

services specifications are distinguished, then the improvable areas in

education are determined.

Literature review:
In a research in higher education with the goal of translating voice of
customers to the operation necessities, registration system of the
university was modified with QFD technique (Cantina Theo and brain
wareng, 1999). They used Idea of Juan's Trilogy or TRIPROL. With
this model not only identifying different customers in education
Environment is easy, but also explanations of different stakeholders'
roles are facilitated. They designed an automatic computer based
system for student training needs as a result.
In another research by Koukin lam Shinxao (1998); QFD and AHP
are used to evaluate the effectiveness of training sources in Hong
Kong City University. They evaluated the courses according to
students, in spite of other times that evaluations have been done by
teachers.
In another re search by Goal pitman et al (2000), they used QFD in
education environment. They used this approach based in TQM
philosophy to evaluate MBA programs in state university of Grandly.
Inputs of QFD are colleted throughout different brain storming
sections with 30 students of this program, 5 faculty members, 3
executives and other related people. The result show that customers
need integration, team working, discussions, quantitative skills, real
case studies and practical projects are very important.
In another research by Edi Esinprouch (2001), QFD was applied
for improving social. Services to disable people. The result shows that
to obtain reasonable results all the intervening variables in providing
quality services must be identified and managed.
David B Hay, 2003 conducted a research determining Skills Gaps
and Training Needs for Information and Communications Technology
in Small and Medium Sized Firms in the South East of England, he
detailed skills audit and skills gap analysis among some 380 people
from 38 small or medium sized companies in the South East of
England, The results are discussed in the context of the widely held
Organizational training needs Design by QFD: … 31

contention that lifelong learning and skills development is key to the

competitiveness and sustainable growth of firms in the UK.
The timeouts training and development of staff can avert problems,
improve productivity and motivation and encourage staff retention and
recruitment. The effective provision of training and development
opportunities by the Training and Development Unit, the Information
Services Training Team and the Coalition for Learning Innovation
depends on the receipt of information concerning the training needs
identified by departments. The central training and development
programs are planned in late Spring/early summer for delivery in the
next academic year; input from managers at the planning stage will
help to ensure that departmental training needs are met. (Tan.C.; Xie
& Chia. 1998)

Training Needs assessment methodologies

There are two methods for training needs assessment - the problem-
analysis method and the competency-based method.
Other methods are variations of these two. (Crowe& Cheng 1996)
Problem-analysis method
A key aspect of the problem-analysis method is the "collection and
analysis of existing organizational data to extract meaningful
conclusions about the needs for training." (Habitat, 1987). The
problem-analysis method involves organizational self examination
aimed at discovering discrepancies in individual, unit or
organizational performance. The problem-analysis method also
considers changes in policies, programmes and services that will
require new knowledge or skills if they are to be carried out
effectively. The problem analysis method is designed for use at the
organization level. Typically, it is reactive, responding to what has
occurred in the past, e.g., what has gone wrong.

Competency-based method
In this method of training needs assessment, emphasis is on locating
and describing characteristics or "competencies" critical to successful
performance and applicable to clusters of jobs in all types of
32 Irainan Accounting & Auditing Review, Winter 2006, No 46, PP 28-43

organizations. These characteristics, in turn, can be used to measure

actual performance. The results can be used in planning appropriate
training for categories of workers with similar job requirements.
Unlike the problem-analysis method, the competency-based
method is proactive. It attempts to create standards of excellence that
provide organizations and institutions with a common language about
performance. According to one authority, "the competency concept
may be the most exciting and potentially promising idea to hit the
training field since behavioral objectives." (Madu, kuei, 1994)
In this paper we try to design a new method based on QFD
technique and the customer orientation philosophy that will be
discussed in detail in the methodology section.

Quality Function Deployment:

Quality Function Deployment is a team-based technique that provides
a means of Identifying and translating customer requirements into
technical specifications for product planning, design, process, and
production. The term Quality Function Deployment is a loose
translation from the Japanese name for this methodology, him shitsu
(quality), kinou (function), ten kai (deployment) [2]. The methodology
consists of a structured procedure that starts with the qualities desired
by the customer, leads through the functions required to provide these
products and/or services, and identifies the means for deploying the
available resources to best provide these products and/or services.
It uses a cross functional team to determine customer requirements.
QFD is a systematic and analytical technique for meeting customer
expectation. QFD is a planning process for translating customer
requirements (voice of the customer) into the appropriate technical
requirements for each stage of product development and production
(i.e. marketing strategies, planning, product design and engineering,
prototype evaluation, production process development, production,
sales) (Sullivan, 1986) and (Revelle, 1998).
QFD has its roots in Japan of the late 60’s and early 70’s [2]. The
Japanese created a methodology to support the development process
for complex products, such as super tankers, by linking the planning
elements of the design and construction processes to specific customer
Organizational training needs Design by QFD: … 33

requirements. By employing this methodology, numerous Japanese

companies enabled their product development efforts to more
effectively focus on meeting customer needs, thus building a distinct
competitive advantage. The successes in Japan helped lead to the
adoption of QFD by companies in the United States starting in the
early 80’s. Since then, with applications across many different
manufacturing and service based companies in the US, QFD has led to
some dramatic success stories: reductions in overall project costs (e.g.
50%), reductions in project cycle time (e.g. 33%), and major increases
in productivity (e.g. 200%) [2].
2. Guinta, L. R. and Praizler, N. C. The QFD Book, the Team
Approach to Solving Problems and Satisfying Customers through
Quality Function Deployment. AMACOM Books. 1993.

QFD Methodology:
QFD uses a matrix format to capture a number of issues pertinent and
vital to the planning process. The QFD matrix consists of six parts.
The first step starts with constructing a list of product demands as
voiced by the customer. The second part of the house of the quality is
customers’ competitive evaluations. The next step is to determine the
quality characteristics. These quality characteristics, which are
measurable, controllable that will impact on one or more customer
demands.
The forth phase is the correlation matrix to identify the
interrelationship of each quality characteristic. The fifth step is an
evaluation of the strength of the relationship between the customer
demand and the technical requirements. The last step is the technical
assessment. The output of the house of quality is not a product design
but merely the requirements of the end product (Vonderembse, 1997).
The basic Quality Function Deployment methodology involves
four basic phases that occur over the course of the product
development process. During each phase one or more matrices are
prepared to help plan and communicate critical product and process
planning and design information.
34 Irainan Accounting & Auditing Review, Winter 2006, No 46, PP 28-43

Once customer needs are identified, preparation of the product

planning matrix or "house of quality" can begin. The sequence of
preparing the product planning matrix is as follows:
1. Customer needs or requirements are stated on the left side of the
matrix as shown below. These are organized by category based on
the affinity diagrams. Insure the customer needs or requirements
reflect the desired market segment(s). Address the unspoken needs
(assumed and excitement capabilities).

2. Evaluate prior generation products against competitive products.

Use surveys, customer meetings or focus groups/clinics to obtain
feedback. Include competitor's customers to get a balanced
perspective.
3. Establish product requirements or technical characteristics to
respond to customer requirements and organize into related
categories. Characteristics should be meaningful, measurable, and
global. Characteristics should be stated in a way to avoid implying
a particular technical solution so as not to constrain designers.
4. Develop relationships between customer requirements and product
requirements or technical characteristics. Use symbols for strong,
medium and weak relationships. Be sparing with the strong
Organizational training needs Design by QFD: … 35

relationship symbol. Have all customer needs or requirement been

addressed? Are there product requirements or technical
characteristics stated that don't relate to customer needs?
5. Develop a technical evaluation of prior generation products and
competitive products. Get access to competitive products to
perform product or technical benchmarking. Perform this
evaluation based on the defined product requirements or technical
characteristics.
6. Develop preliminary target values for product requirements or
technical characteristics.
7. Determine potential positive and negative interactions between
product requirements or technical characteristics using symbols for
strong or medium, positive or negative relationships. Too many
positive interactions suggest potential redundancy in "the critical
few" product requirements or technical characteristics.
8. Calculate importance ratings. Assign a weighting factor to
relationship symbols (9-3-1, 4-2-1, or 5-3-1). Multiply the
customer importance rating by the weighting factor in each box of
the matrix and add the resulting products in each column.
9. Develop a difficulty rating (1 to 5 point scale, five being very
difficult and risky) for each product requirement or technical
characteristic. Consider technology maturity, personnel technical
qualifications, business risk, manufacturing capability,
supplier/subcontractor capability, cost, and schedule.
Analyze the matrix and finalize the product development strategy
and product plans. Determine required actions and areas of focus.
Finalize target values.

SATCOM Background
SATCOM engineering company with the goal of applying new ICT
technology in industries. E- Commerce, Education, culture, service
and production sectors is established in 1998 in IRAN. Goals of this
company are improving usage of new ICT technologies in Iran
(internet, intranet, extranet); encouraging p manufactures merchant
and executives to be online. Company services are website design, E-
36 Irainan Accounting & Auditing Review, Winter 2006, No 46, PP 28-43

commerce, software development, ICT consulting, web hosting,

domain registration and implementing LAN and WAN.

Research Methodology
Research processes are shown in figure 6.

Literature
review

Determining of
research population
& sample

Determining Determining of Customer

specification of service service needs
providing process specification determining

Training
needs
determining Feed back

As shown by figure through literature review, key service

specifications, customer needs specification of service processes and
training needs are determined.
To determine customer needs, we used a questionnaire that was
designed according to company’s managers, experts and some
Organizational training needs Design by QFD: … 37

customers. This questionnaire includes 16 questions about the most

important criteria affecting providing quality services. Likert scale 1
to5 is used. Research population is the customers who have used
company services. Since the population is indefinite, we didn’t use
census but we used simple sampling method.
The size of sample is determined according to:
z 2 pq
n= 2
d
P: 0/5
q: 1-p: 0/5
α = 0.05
d=0/07
(1 / 96) 2 (0 / 25)
n= = 196
(0 / 07) 2
As we see size of sample is 196. That for more confidence we
distributed 210 questionnaires. 140 questionnaires are collected that
120 of them are evaluated. Simple mean and standard deviation are
used to analyze the most important factors affecting services quality. 4
factors of 16 factors that averaged less than 3.5 are omitted.
Table 1: Mean and standard deviation of the basic factors.
Standard
NO Variable Mean
deviation
1 Wide spread advertising 4.63 0.81
2 Time of service delivery 4.55 0.78
3 Service supporting 4.50 .064
4 Commitment to finish the project on time 4.36 0.91
5 Suitable price 4.33 .092
6 Service diversity 4.25 0.99
7 Quick response to customer 4.25 1.05
8 Caring to customer privacy 4.25 0.97
9 Confidentiality. 4.05 1.02
10 Electronic services security 3.96 1.02
11 . Ease of use 3.90 1.06
12 Providing services as package 3.85 0.99
13 Using new technology. 3.09 1.33
14 Consulting to the customers 3.09 1.36
15 Knowledge transfer 3.05 1.23
16 Training services 2.71 1.25
 38 Irainan Accounting & Auditing Review, Winter 2006, No 46, PP 28-43

QFD Matrices formation & calculations:

In this stage, as shown in research methodology section, questionnaire
of affecting factors on desire services, (VOC) is distributed among the
research sample. Below table shows mean and standard deviation of
the responses.
Since the factors 13 to 16 averaged below 3.5, they are omitted and
we continue our research with the first 12 factors.

Table 2:
Service specifications
Customer oriented design

Relationship with service

Filling electronic forms

Specialized supporting

Flexibility in design
After sales services
Competitive price

Voice of

Keeping secrets
Row weights Suitable timing
Ease of use

customer
providers

Average
Absolute
Relative

6 102 1 3 9 9 4.63 Wide spread advertising

Time of service
4 114 3 3 3 3 9 3 1 4.55
delivery
1 189 1 3 9 9 1 9 9 1 4.50 Service supporting
Commitment to finish
8 78 1 3 1 3 9 1 4.36 the project on time.

5 104 1 9 3 3 3 3 1 1 4.33 Suitable price.

2 166 3 9 9 3 3 3 9 4.25 Service diversity
3 136 1 9 1 9 3 9 4.25 Quick response
Caring to customer
12 60 3 1 9 1 4.25
privacy
10 69 3 1 3 9 1 4.05 Confidentiality
Electronic services
9 71 3 3 9 3 3.96
security
7 90 1 3 9 1 3 3 3 3.90 Ease of use
Providing services as
11 65 1 9 1 3 3 3.85
package
34208 917 1622 3907 4533 5937 2818 4760 4734 1369 3612 Absolute
10 8 5 4 1 7 2 3 9 6 Relative Column weights
100 2.68 4.74 11.42 13.25 17.36 8.24 13.92 13.84 4.00 10.56 %

Factors of voice of customers and service specifications are shown

in table 2. Voc are in the rows and factors of service specifications are
in the columns. Service specifications are selected according to
 Organizational training needs Design by QFD: … 39

managers and experts view of point. From interaction of the columns

and rows of the table the relations ship between affecting factors and
service specifications are defined. Figures mentioned in cells of the
table show the intensity of variables relationship. 1 shows week
relation ship, 3 mediums and 9 shows strong relationship.
To relate service specification and key service processes we
designed QFD matrix 2, that shown in table 3. To distinguish
needed training courses according to voice of customers, QFD matrix
3 is designed. Dimensions of this matrix key weighted process
resulted from last table and training necessities according to expert
view.

Table 3: service specifications / key service processes

key service processes
Providing specialized EC consulting
Designing secure electronic archive

Training multifunctional designers

Applying knowledge management

Row weights
Implementing project control
Minimum profit pricing
CRM implementation

Implementing SCM
Office automation

Average
Absolute
Relative

Service specifications

7 116.16 9 1 1 10.56 Flexibility in design

9 44 9 1 1 4 Keeping secrets
3 346 9 3 9 1 3 13.84 After sales services
2 348 9 3 3 9 1 13.92 Specialized supporting
6 131.84 1 1 3 1 9 1 8.24 Suitable timing
1 468.72 1 9 3 3 1 1 9 17.36 Relationship with service providers
4 291.5 3 3 3 9 1 3 13.25 Ease of use
5 216.98 1 3 1 1 9 3 1 11.42 Customer oriented design
8 71.1 1 1 9 1 3 4.74 Competitive price
10 40.2 9 1 3 1 1 2.68 Filling electronic forms
46082 975 8240 2414 7571 2533 12855 1932 2520 7041 Absolute Column weights
9 2 7 3 5 1 8 6 4 Relative
100 2.12 17.88 5.24 16.43 5.50 27.90 4.19 5.47 15.28 %
 40 Irainan Accounting & Auditing Review, Winter 2006, No 46, PP 28-43

Table 4: Key service processes / Training requirement

Knowledge management system training

Training requirement

Organizational & Human skills training

Customer relationship training

E-commerce package training

Activity Base costing training

Supplier relationship training
Network marketing training
Row weights

Network security training

System thinking training
Key service processes

Project control training

Online service training

Target costing training

Teamwork training

Marketing training
Average
Absolute

Absolute

2 733 1 3 9 1 3 3 9 9 3 1 1 1 3 1 15.28 Implementing SCM

6 109 1 1 1 1 1 3 3 9 5.47 Implementing project control
8 75 1 1 1 1 3 9 1 1 4.19 Minimum profit pricing
1 1786 1 9 9 1 9 3 3 3 9 3 1 3 9 1 27.9 CRM implementation
7 77 1 1 3 9 5.5 Office automation
4 296 3 3 3 1 3 1 3 1 16.43 Training multifunctional designers
5 136 3 3 1 1 3 3 1 1 9 1 5.24 Applying knowledge management
3 393 9 3 3 1 3 3 17.88 Providing specialized EC consulting
9 51 9 1 9 3 1 1 2.12 Designing secure electronic archive
172848 7890.14 18992 22917 5044 20702 8995 15178 12438 19394 6781 3662 7392 19958 3504 Absolute
9 5 1 12 2 8 6 7 4 11 13 10 3 14 Relative Column weights
100 4.56 10.99 13.26 2.92 11.98 5.20 8.78 7.20 11.22 3.92 2.12 4.28 11.55 2.03 %

According to the calculations of marix3, training courses are a s

below (table 5). Some of the courses as a package and can be divided
to more derailed courses, for example control project training can be
divided to:
Project management.
Project control.
Project control and management software.
Ms Project.
…

Conclusion:
Role of training as the most important factor empowering
employees and gaining competitive advantages is inevitable.
Importance of this subject is more highlighted in the era of changes
and technology orientation, also in the industries that need to
knowledge workers.
Organizational training needs Design by QFD: … 41

This research with the approach of TQM and using QFD has tried
to determine and design training courses in SATCOM Company
Based upon customer needs. Output of the model are training courses
that will help to improve services quality and consequently, increasing
market share.
This model has a new approach to the organizational training
assessment that is viewing from the outside.

Table5: Priority of training courses according to VOC.

Priority weight training courses title
1 13.26 System thinking training
2 11.98 E-commerce package training
3 11.55 Marketing training
4 11.22 Customer relationship training
5 10.99 Network marketing training
6 8.78 Teamwork training
7 7.20 Supplier relationship training
8 5.20 Organizational & Human skills training
9 4.56 Online service training
10 4.28 Knowledge management system training
11 3.92 Target costing training
12 2.92 Network security training
13 2.12 Activity Base costing training
14 2.30 Project control training
42 Irainan Accounting & Auditing Review, Winter 2006, No 46, PP 28-43

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