Title: One approach to evaluate the influence of engineering characteristics in QFD method

Authors: Tanja Parezanović; Marijana Petrović; Nataša Bojković; Dragan Pamučar

Addresses: Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, Department of Economy and Marketing in Transport, University of Belgrade, Vojvode Stepe 305 (room 235), 11 000 Belgrade, Serbia ' Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, Department of Economy and Marketing in Transport, University of Belgrade, Vojvode Stepe 305 (room 235), 11 000 Belgrade, Serbia ' Faculty of Transport and Traffic Engineering, Department of Economy and Marketing in Transport, University of Belgrade, Vojvode Stepe 305 (room 235), 11 000 Belgrade, Serbia ' Department of Logistics, Military Academy, University of Defence in Belgrade, Serbia

Abstract: Evaluation of engineering characteristics (ECs) according to customer requirements (CRs) is the most decisive step of the house of quality in quality function deployment (QFD) method. In most cases, high degrees of correlation between ECs exist and should be modelled. The paper develops a specific measure ('influence gap') and novel underlying procedure (smallest gap technique) for ECs evaluation aiming to capture all interdependencies. The influence gap enables to characterise each EC according to its distance from ideal-maximum influence on all requirements. The relationships between CRs and ECs and their inter-relationships are obtained using interval-valued fuzzy DEMATEL method. From the practical point of view, the most important information for decision maker(s) generated by the model is the clear insight about the contribution of each EC when launching a new product/service. Practicability and usability of the proposed methodology is illustrated over a specific transportation service. [Received: 6 January 2018; Accepted: 2 December 2018]

Keywords: quality function deployment; QFD; DEMATEL; multicriteria decision making; MCDM; interval-valued fuzzy numbers; smallest gap technique; carpooling; customer requirements; engineering characteristics; influence gap.

DOI: 10.1504/EJIE.2019.100013

European Journal of Industrial Engineering, 2019 Vol.13 No.3, pp.299 - 331

Received: 06 Jan 2018
Accepted: 02 Dec 2018
Published online: 03 Jun 2019 *

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