Title: Infusing agility, innovation and quality in products: an integrated effort through the agile ITQFD technique

Authors: S. Vinodh, G. Sundararaj, S.R. Devadasan, D. Rajanayagam, R. Murugesh

Addresses: Department of Mechanical Engineering, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, 641 004 Tamilnadu, India. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, 641 004 Tamilnadu, India. ' Department of Production Engineering, PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, 641 004 Tamilnadu, India. ' Manager-Standards & Systems, Salzer Electronics Limited, Coimbatore, 641 047 Tamilnadu, India. ' Department of Mechanical Engineering, Hindusthan College of Engineering and Technology, Coimbatore, Tamilnadu, India

Abstract: Modern organisations are required to acquire agility to react according to the customers| individual requirements. Researchers have been proposing a number of techniques to acquire agility. However, there has been no technique to integrate agility, innovation and quality in products. In order to fill this gap, this paper proposes a technique known as |agile Innovative Total Quality Function Deployment| (agile ITQFD). This technique absorbs customer voice and facilitates the development of five matrices with the involvement of all the concerned departments and functions of the organisations. This technique ends with the work instructions, which are meant to infuse the knowledge contained in the matrices into practice. The implementation aspects of agile ITQFD were examined in an electronic switches manufacturing company. A validation study conducted during this research revealed the feasibility of successfully implementing agile ITQFD to an extent of 80%.

Keywords: agility; agile manufacturing; innovation; customer voice; quality function deployment; QFD; house of quality; electronic switches manufacturing; India; total quality management; TQM.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2008.016613

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2008 Vol.4 No.2, pp.243 - 263

Published online: 11 Jan 2008 *

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