What is a House of Quality Template?

A House of Quality (HoQ) template is a structured visual tool used in the overall process of Quality Function Deployment (QFD). This framework helps teams implement client specifications and conduct effective Product Planning and Design stages. Hence, the HoQ diagram is built from the competitive and technical data gathered during the Voice of the Customer (VOC) analysis and market research.

Benefits of Using a House of Quality Template

The QFD process involves four stages: Product Planning, Product Development, Process Planning, and Production Planning. Each phase entails a variety of elements, steps, requirements, and activities to establish the right foundation for implementation. Hence, it’s needless to say that it’s a comprehensive methodology, and not to mention it’s aligned with an organization’s quality management system.

House of Quality Matrix

Likewise, QFD’s most essential stage, House of Quality, is one of the most technical stages in the process. With the six main sections that the HoQ consists of, it’s not impossible to overlook some details and implement actions that aren’t aligned with what was agreed upon. These may then affect the whole QFD process.

Using a template when creating a House of Quality helps you avoid such challenges and achieve optimal results in the first stage of the QFD through the following benefits:

• An established process of identifying customer needs, e.g. gathering the Voice of the Customer using VoC templates

• Scoring system for requirement prioritization

• Optimized way of determining design requirements

• Reliable method of defining the relationship between what the customer needs and how to achieve them through functional design specifications

• Standardized procedure of disseminating best practices in conducting a competitive analysis

What to Include in a House of Quality Template?

An HoQ template must cover the diagram’s main components and include a title page that lets you state basic details about the project (e.g. name, point person, and date) and a completion section (which allows you to include a sign-off portion). The template consists of six main sections or components that list and outline customer requirements, design and engineering requirements, relationship matrices, and target values to determine which product specifications to prioritize in implementation.

This is so that everything is well-accounted for and can be used as a reference guide by other teams or departments for the succeeding stages of the QFD once the Product Planning stage is complete. So, what are the Six Sections of a Basic House of Quality Matrix?

1. Rated Customer Requirements

This is where you list down all customer requirements that you need to address. Make sure to use a scoring system to easily see which ones you should consider prioritizing. Then, add any supplementary information necessary to establish the importance of each requirement.

2. Market Research Findings

Use market research findings to verify how each customer’s needs are being addressed by other businesses or companies in the market. Benchmark such data to back up your plans, proposals, and priorities during the Product Planning and Design stage.

3. Technical and Functional Design Specifications

List all corresponding design specifics in relation to the customer needs. Again, use a scoring system to determine the ones you must prioritize.

4. Customer Requirements and Design Specifications Relationship

To help you relate one customer requirement to a design specification, use this section in your House of Quality template to score their level of correlation. This will help you put more context into how each customer need can be addressed once the product feature is implemented.

5. Design Specifications Relationship

Establish a unique scoring system to denote the relationships between all the design specifications you’ll list. This way, you’re able to put emphasis on cohesive features rather than randomly proposing product design specifications that seem too out of place.

6. Target Values in Design

The target design values are essential in evaluating the features or characteristics of the overall product design. In the template, you can use this section to record the objective, quantifiable measures that your team has agreed upon.

How to Use the House of Quality Template

In general, there are 6 main rooms or areas inside the House of Quality. Apart from answering the question “How do I fill out a QFD?,” these rooms also give an overview of how to effectively use the House of Quality template:

1. Customer Requirements and Rating – Located at the left side of the house, this room lists the customer requirements gathered from the research and how they’re ranked based on their degree of importance (can use a scale of 1 to 5).

2. Competitive Priorities – Placed on the right side of the house, this part outlines the top points of comparison between the customer requirements and the needed innovations based on competitor analysis.

3. Technical Design Features – Listing the design features of the product, this section is placed just above the base, making it the attic of the house.

4. Technical Design and Customer Requirements Relationships – Found at the base of the house below the attic, this part is responsible for visualizing and rating the impact of the design features on the priority list of customer requirements.

5. Design Relationships – Also known as the roof matrix, this describes the interrelationship between the design features.

6. Target Values – Lastly, the basement of the house lists the target values that serve as an organization’s way of quantifying objective measures to help evaluate each design feature or characteristic.

House of Quality Template Example

To help you better understand and visualize what a House of Quality matrix template looks like, here’s an example when you use it in SafetyCulture:

House of Quality Template Report

House of Quality Template – Sample Report | SafetyCulture