Date of Award

Spring 5-1-2005

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Industrial Engineering

First Advisor

M. Affan Badar

Second Advisor

Ming Zhou

Third Advisor

James Smallwood

Abstract

The majority of research involving Quality Function Deployment (QFD) was focused on large consumer based companies and not small job shop business-to-business companies. This case study involved the implementation of QFD into the design process at Reynolds & Co., a small job shop in Terre Haute, IN. The specific objectives of the research were to find the QFD concepts that apply to the improvement of Reynolds & Co.'s (small job shop) design process. The next objective was to reduce the average design time associated with Reynolds & Co.'s design process. The final objective of this case study was to reduce the number of design changes in the design process associated with Reynolds & Co.'s design process. The methodology used for this application of QFD into the design process at Reynolds & Co. was unique. A job shop such as Reynolds & Co. for the most part knows exactly who their customers are where as consumer-based production companies do not know each individual that they consider their customers. The House of Quality (HoQ) a common tool for QFD was not helpful on the job level because the amount of time required to construct a HoQ would have been substantially more than the entire job had initially required. Although, the HoQ was modified for organizational use, to identify goals and priorities of the company. The case study at Reynolds & Co. was successful in providing research into the implementation of QFD concepts to improve the design process of a small job shop. However, the design time & the design changes were not decreased significantly. The design time did decrease but this was most likely because of random chance. The design changes also decreased this was most likely because of random chance as well. The discovery that job shops better understand their customers through direct interaction than do large consumer based companies is a very important aspect of this case study. The nature of Reynolds & Co.'s work is that it is customer oriented in that the customer is the primary provider of pertinent design data. Reynolds & Co. provides a technical service of bringing concepts together into usable parts or machines.

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