Title: Bottom-up integration of quality in new product development using systems engineering

Authors: Zahid H. Qureshi, Muhammad Azeem Ashraf

Addresses: Defence and Systems Institute, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, SA 5095, Australia. ' School of Advanced Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering, Institute of Sustainable Systems and Technology, University of South Australia, Mawson Lakes, SA 5095, Australia

Abstract: Designers and manufacturers of modern complex systems have to account for both explicit and implicit customer requirements. Although, the voice of customer (VOC) provides adequate information for a new design, its integration with complex socio-technical systems are vital for the completeness of the design, where the product quality is judged by the extent to which the VOC is addressed. This dictates the product designer to effectively translate and balance the requirements from all the stakeholders. This paper presents bottom-up integration of quality through the hierarchy of new product development steps using a synergy of design for Six Sigma (DFSS) and Systems Engineering (SE) approaches. Thereby covering the quality aspects through DFSS and systems concept through SE. Embedding of SE approach to DFSS|s identify, design, optimise and validate (IDOV) methodology can result in an effective translation of the voice of all stake holders, and hence better coverage of quality.

Keywords: NPD; new product development; systems engineering; DFSS; design for Six Sigma; VOC; voice of the customer; product quality; bottom-up integration; designers; manufacturers; complex systems; explicit requirements; implicit requirements; customer requirements; socio-technical systems; design completeness; product designer; stakeholder requirements; IDOV; identify design optimise validate; business; systems research.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBSR.2011.042097

International Journal of Business and Systems Research, 2011 Vol.5 No.5, pp.511 - 526

Published online: 18 Apr 2015 *

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