QFD - THE PROBLEM OF COMPARING TECHNICAL ENGINEERING DESIGN REQUIREMENTS

An approach based on multiple-criteria decision aid (MCDA) methods has been introduced for the prioritization of technical/engineering design requirements during the quality function deployment (QFD) process. The proposed method allows the avoidance of the rigid procedure under which the relationship matrix coefficients are turned from an ordinal into a cardinal scale. A comparison analysis is carried out between the ''traditional'' approach and the proposed one. A numerical example is also provided so as to highlight the main differences between the two methods.