A weighted preference graph approach to analyze incomplete customer preference information in QFD product planning

Nowadays, effective and accurate analysis of customer requirements (CRs) is vital in the new product development process, especially in the early design stage, where corresponding changes can be made easily into the further development stages. Quality function deployment (QFD), acting as a customer-centric product development tool, is widely utilized in the product planning stage. Despite its “House of Quality” (HoQ) matrix support, it lacks a specific method in analyzing incomplete or imprecise customer preference of CRs. Though many methods have been proposed, they either required much elaborate information (not effective) or relied much on the subjective interpretations by designers (not accurate). Aiming to solve the problem, this paper introduces a novel weighted preference graph (PG) approach to analyze incomplete customer preference information in QFD product planning stage. Both its analysis procedures and fusion of individual perceptions are described. An example of a respiratory mask development is given to validate the process.