Ứng dụng triển khai chức năng chất lượng QFD xây dựng mô hình lớp học tiếng Anh hiệu quả.

Triển khai chức năng chất lượng (QFD) là một kĩ thuật đưa ra quyết định nhóm toàn diện và linh hoạt được sử dụng trong việc phát triển các sản phẩm và dịch vụ, tiếp thị thương hiệu và quản lý sản phẩm. Ứng dụng QFD trong việc triển khai ý tưởng về một lớp học tiếng Anh hiệu quả, đảm bảo chất lượng giảng dạy và học tập.

概念設計為例 QFD in the Conceptual Design of the English-Lecturing classroom

National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences

In Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements

For the Degree of Master of Engineering

in Industrial Engineering and Management

June 2015 Kaohsiung, Taiwan, Republic of China

QFD in the Conceptual Design of the English-Lecturing classroom

construction

Student: Hoang Thi Hong Nhung Advisor: Ming-Hung Shu, PhD

Department of Industrial Engineering and Management

National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences

Abstract

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is one of the Total Quality Management (TQM) techniques which assures the voice of customers are heard and translated into the design, development and production process of a product The objective of this paper is to determine features of an English teaching classroom toward satisfying the customer’s requirements and to utilize QFD methodology to improve the quality of the conceptual design of a construction project The study is based on primary data collected by the questionnaire survey from students, teachers, staffs and etc who are considered as customers in a university of languages in Vietnam The data was analyzed by using the techniques of QFD and Pareto Analysis On the basis of these feedback, a house of quality is developed, which highlighted the major requirements of customer and also highlighted some benchmarks where other institutions are more productive With this result, design team is able to prioritize design solution that meets the customer needs

Key words: Quality Function Deployment, English teaching classroom, Conceptual

design

Acknowledgement

I would like to express my appreciation to my advisor Professor Ming-Hung Shu for his suggestion of this thesis’ reseach method, for the continuous support of my research His tremendous assistance and guidance helped me in all time of writing this thesis

I wish to give a special thank to Department of Industrial Engineering and Management

of National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences for the financial support during the period of two years Also I would like to thank all the respondents of the questionnaires

My sincere thanks goes to Ms Nguyen Thi Ha, Lecturer of English Department of The University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS) for her encouragement, insightful comments, and spent the generous amount of time with me discussing about

my thesis

I also thank my fellow labmates in National Kaohsiung University of Applied Sciences: Siva Narayanan, Le Van Tinh for their counsel, ideas and encouragement throughout this entire effort

I would like to express my special thanks to my family members who gave me the constant source of love, concern, support and strength all two years to finish my master thesis

Your sincerely,

Hoang Thi Hong Nhung

Table of Contents

Abstract iv  

Acknowledgement v  

Table of Contents vi  

List of Tables viii  

List of Figures viii  

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1  

1.1 Background
 1  

1.2 Research Motivation 2  

1.3 Objectives
 3  

1.4 Structure of the Thesis 4  

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5  

2.1 Quality Function Deployment (QFD) 5  

2.2 Benefits and drawbacks of QFD 6  

2.3 QFD in construction 6  

2.4 QFD in Vietnam 7  

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 9  

3.1 The Cross-functional Team 9  

3.2 Questionnaire Survey 10  

3.3 Affinity Diagram 10  

3.4 Tree Diagram 11  

3.5 House of Quality 12  

3.6 Building the House of Quality 14  

3.7 Pareto Analysis 18  

CHAPTER 4: APPLICATION OF QFD 19  

4.1 Project background 19  

4.2 The Customer
 20  

4.3 The Cross-functional team 20  

4.4 Collecting the customer requirements 20  

4.5 Building the House of Quality 21  

CHAPTER 5: RESULTS 26  

5.1 Concepts about style and type of chair and desk 26  

5.2 Concepts about type of door and window 27  

5.3 Concepts about facilities and furniture 27  

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSIONS 30  

6.1 Conclusions 30  

6.2 Limitations 30  

6.3 Recommendations 30  

REFERENCES 31  

APPENDIX 1: ENGLISH QUESTIONNAIRE 33  

APPENDIX 2: VIETNAMMESE QUESTIONNAIRE 44  

APPENDIX 3: QUESTIONNAIRE RAW DATA 55  

APPENDIX 4: AFFINITY DIAGRAM OF THE VOC 60  

APPENDIX 5: TREE DIAGRAM 65  

viii

List of Tables

Table 4.1 List of customer requirements 22  

Table 4.2 List of technical requirements 23  

List of Figures   Figure 1.1 Structure of the thesis 4

Figure 3.1 Research process diagram 10

Figure 3.2 Affinity diagram 11  

Figure 3.3 Tree Diagram 12  

Figure 3.4 The House of Quality (HOQ) 13  

Figure 3.5 Cascading Houses of Quality 14  

Figure 4.1 House of Quality 25  

Figure 5.1 English teaching classroom layout 29  

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background


Nowadays, English has become the lingua franca of the world There are more than 50 countries use English as the official language, nearly 80 countries use English as a second language English plays a very important role in all areas of business, commerce, telecommunication, tourism and diplomacy English is the means of communication among countries, cultures and international organizations In the trend of globalization today, English is a prerequisite for a country's integration into the world family

English is referred to as an indispensable element in the process of international integration, industrialization and modernization of Vietnam English is as "bridge language" to connect economy and culture of Vietnam with the world Many years ago, Vietnam committed to join into the regional and international economic integration Until now, Vietnam had trade relations with

165 countries, signed bilateral trade agreements with 72 countries all over the world Vietnam is a member of the ASEAN Free Trade Area and the World Trade organization In 2015, Vietnam will officially become a member of the ASEAN Economic Community The integration makes more and more corporations and foreign companies to invest in Vietnam to expand markets and business cooperation, which will create more job opportunities but also poses many challenges for young workers Vietnam Human resources are required to have a high level of expertise, the ability to use English at work and communicate fluently English language ability is the leading standard for large companies to recruit staff and promote to management positions So people who are good at communication in English will have more opportunities to work in foreign companies with high salaries and get promotion faster in the career They also have competitive advantage about the expertise as well as better integration with the international labour market

Students are exposed daily to-date information, technical science Technology is changing very rapidly with the presence of foreign languages, mainly English with a series of scientific terminology, with very diverse expressions in the field of engineering science and technology scientific style Thus, the role of English teaching and learning is enormous and decide the quality

of the process of international integration

Currently, English is the most important language, dominates almost absolute in foreign language education at the Universities of Vietnam English teaching in Vietnam has become extremely important over the past several years Ministry of Education and Training has very strict requirements on the language skills of students, which are English as a mandatory condition to be recognized university graduation or a prerequisite for participation in the program graduate training

of education and training, overcome entrance one-way train the creative mindset of learners, gradually apply the advanced methods and modern methods in the process of teaching and learning Foreign language teaching and informatics are towards standardizing information, practical, ensuring capacity utilization of learners.” This shows that the teaching and learning of foreign languages included English in Vietnam attract a lot of attention Foreign language and English in particular have the important position in education and training, and in the development of Vietnam

1.2 Research Motivation

Although English plays an important role in the new context of integration and globalization, the quality of English teaching in Vietnam still low which does not meet the market demand for competent English speaking people According to the university educational services after evaluating 59 major universities in Vietnam, 51.7% of graduates do not meet the requirements

of English language skills English proficiency of the students is just about 360-370 points in TOEFL or IELTS 3.5 This is the lowest level versus the world’s standard At this level, students cannot participate in discussions even at the lowest level They only receive simple information in familiar context The fact shows that the majority of students have low language proficiency Level

of communication does not meet the requirements of employers, proficiency in reading, writing cannot afford to majors, including literacy skills Only 10% of students can use language to access

the academic materials

Teaching quality of teacher, issues of students and the physical environment to teach and learn English are the main reasons of this condition Many universities in Vietnam don’t have enough teaching equipment and facilities equipment The classroom is equipped with outdated facilities, the furniture is of low quality, doesn’t fit the students In general, equipment for teaching English is poor and has not been used well The classroom with well arrangement and decoration

is one of the important factors to improve English teaching and learning quality Research on the classroom environment has shown that the physical arrangement can affect the behaviour of both students and teachers (Savage, 1999; Stewart and Evans, 1997; Weinstein, 1992)

The question now is to invest in the construction of classrooms to meet the English teaching requirements in order to develop and improve the effectiveness of teaching, to meet the requirements of the integration process in Vietnam today

1.3 Objectives


The objectives of this research are as follows:


(1) To address the condition of English teaching classroom in a university in Vietnam

(2) To find the key customer requirements and give suggestions in order to improve quality of teaching English

(3) To identify the important features of an English teaching classroom which meet the customer

to design the most satisfied classroom in order to improve English teaching and learning quality (4) To demonstrate Quality Function Deployment tools applied effectively in investigating the customer requirements, and assuring the important and positive voice of customer is manifested in the conceptual design of a construction project

1.4 Structure of the Thesis

Figure 1.1 Structure of the thesis

Chapter 6

Conclusions

Present Result and Discussion about the conceptual design

of an English classroom that satisfies the voice of customer

Chapter 5

Results

Present an application of QFD in the conceptual design of

an English teaching classroom The voice of customer about classroom is identified through questionnaire survey, then the data is organized by using affinity and tree diagram With this data, the house of quality is built to establish technical requirements that are necessary to respond to the customer requirements

Introduces the background about the role of English, the status and quality of teaching and learning of English in Vietnam; objectives and structure of the research

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Quality Function Deployment (QFD)

With a quality management system in a conventional plant, production units, the products are manufactured in accordance with the standards of product quality is considered satisfactory to market However, a problem that enterprises often face up with when trying to maintain or improve the quality of products is understanding and communication between departments of the market research, product development and production about customer requirements Consequently, it is necessary to have a solution for this case That is one of the tools for making quality: Quality Function Deployment

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) describes a method for translating customer requirements into functional design in order to increase customer satisfaction (Akao, 1990) QFD helps create products that please the customer not just the engineer (Hauser & Clausing, 1988) Quality function deployment is a way to assure the design quality while the product is still in the design stage (Armacost et al., 1992) QFD emphasizes on the voice of customer and provide a means to ensure customer’s needs translated into technical requirements accurately and heeded throughout product development process with stages like marketing strategies, planning, product design and engineering, prototype evaluation, production process development and production, and sales All operations of a company are driven from the customer requirements QFD is used at early stages of a project in order to produce more accurate decisions by focusing on project budgets in terms of quality and client’s needs

QFD was researched and developed in Japan in the late 1960s by Professor Shigeru Mizuno and Yoji Akao The purpose of Yoji Akao and Mizuno is to develop a method of quality control to make sure that the customers' needs are taken into products before creating it QFD is a part of the Total Quality Management (TQM) system at the Mitsubishi Shipyard in Kobe, Japan in 1972 The concept of QFD was continued developing in the late 1970’s QFD reached a peak when the automobile manufacturer Toyota applied and developed it into a quality table with a "roof" above with the name "house of quality" Since then, QFD became familiar in the United States

In 1983, QFD is introduced in America and Europe A case study was first recognized in

1986, when Kelsey Hayes used QFD to develop sensors with full customer requirements When QFD become more common, the users of QFD started noticing that when combined QFD matrix tables, it would become more useful Until American Supplier Institute developed and applied QFD diagram through 4 phases, QFD just is a popular application for complex design Now, QFD has spread in the USA and other countries and is used by companies such as 3M, AT&T, Baxter

and Clausing, 1988; Hill, 1994; Cohen, 1995; Chan and Wu, 2002)

2.2 Benefits and drawbacks of QFD

Generally, benefits of QFD are to ensure customer needs are met through design and production; translate the customer needs into technical specifications; link customer needs with every production stage or the goal of the product is understand and interpret correctly during the manufacturing process; assist the senior management to determine the cause of the dissatisfaction

of customers QFD is a useful tool for competitive analysis of product quality; improve productivity and quality, as well as the time required to develop new products; allow companies to effectively simulate the design of new ideas that they can bring new products to market sooner and gain competitive advantage

QFD brings the following advantages to companies: fewer and earlier design changes, reduced product development cycle time, fewer startup problems, and, above all, customer satisfaction (Kim et al, 1998) As an important side benefit, Akao (1990) states that QFD has produced reductions in development time of one half to one third Sullivan (1986) says that the main objective of any manufacturing company is to bring products to market sooner than the competition with lower cost and improved quality and that QFD can help do this Sullivan (1986) said that QFD has been used by Toyota since 1977, following four years of training and preparation Results have been impressive Between 1977 and 1984, Toyota Auto-body introduced four new van-type vehicles Using 1977 as a base, Toyota reported a 20% reduction in startup costs on the launch of the new van in 1979, a 38% reduction in 1982, and a cumulative 61% reduction by 1984 During this period, the product development cycle (time to market) was reduced by one third, with

a corresponding improvement in quality, because of a reduction in the number of engineering changes QFD not only reduce the product development time, it also improve the quality of product and lower the price of product QFD can also facilitate continuous product improvement with emphasis on the impact of organization learning on innovation

However, QFD also has some drawbacks

- It is quite difficult to build the house of quality on a piece of paper or a chart

- Need a lot of time to guide to build the house of quality

- The various components of the house of quality and related calculations are very confusing especially for the users in the service industry

- Amendment, deletion, supplement are rather complex in manually

- QFD software seems unavailable and very expensive especially for people in developing countries

2.3 QFD in construction

QFD can be applied to the construction industry in different ways Mallon and Mulligan (1993) used QFD on a hypothetical renovation of a personal computer workroom Serpell and Wagner (1997) used QFD to determine preferences on the design characteristics of the internal

layout of a building apartment Luiz Atônio Gargione (1999) used QFD in the design phase of an apartment construction project as a tool to adjust the layout and the highlights of the apartments in urban areas of Brazil The purpose of this study applied a method of building design oriented customers based on the tables and matrices of Akao (1990) Another purpose of this study is testing the application of QFD in management for real estate projects and develop it for the small company

to increase business efficiency Syed M.Ahmed et al (2003) Survey the suitability of QFD in planning and design and Suggest a QFD application models available for use in the process for planning and design Neil Eldin and Verda Hikle (2003) apply QFD in the design process for a modern classroom in a university Research has proven that QFD can be applied successfully in the construction project

QFD application in the construction industry has been developed in many countries of the world in recent years, and especially in a competitive environment is fierce, the quality of building products should be paid more attention from every stage of design phase until the end of work The design phase for building has task to achieve client’s requirements The company needs to reach the standards of quality through drawings and technical specifications in this phase

Conceptual design is the very first phase of design, in which drawings or solid models are the dominant tools and products The conceptual design phase provides a description of the proposed system in terms of a set of integrated ideas and concepts about what it should do, behave, and look like, that will be understandable by the users in the manner intended Using QFD during the conceptual stage of a construction design can assure major design decisions always focus on the requirements of customers

In construction project, if the client needs and requirements are not noticed and treated appropriately or they are disregarded or vanished as the project phase goes on, some problems like misunderstanding of client expectations, rework, etc are occurred Hence, it is necessary to consider and collect customer requirements at the first time in the early design stage to provide the correct design solutions In construction project, designers often make decision about design solutions and customer expectations are often neglected This leads to reduce the satisfaction In this situation, QFD is proved to be helpful in both collecting and transferring customer expectations into design solutions without them diminishing as the project goes on QFD helps to track the customer requirements from the start till the end of construction project; help designer check any distortions in time; help minimize uncertainty when develop project phases; reduce cycle time and restrict redesigns

2.4 QFD in Vietnam

While QFD has been widely used throughout the world, QFD has only been implemented

in a number of enterprises in the industrial park in Ho Chi Minh City, Binh Duong and some other provinces There are a few companies knew QFD but companies understand the QFD and apply it

Science and Technology, was established in May 1975 on the basis of the National Institute of Calibration) provide regular training on QFD Actual application of QFD in Vietnam is very few Just some cases like ATVN, Thai Tuan Textile, Number One (THP Group) have used QFD Besides, there are also a number of research projects on the application of QFD in the design phase of some projects in the construction industry in Ho Chi Minh City In summary, QFD has not been applied widely and effectively in Vietnam

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

In business and industry, every company has its customers There are two types of customers: internal customers and external customers Internal customer is any member of an organization who depends on assistance from anyone else to accomplish his or her tasks within the organization In the engineering and construction, internal customer is staff who use and maintain the completed facility like sales, design, engineering, manufacturing, quality control, etc External customer is anyone who directly affected by an organization’s product or service External customer purchases products that provide the revenue to keep the organization flourishing Satisfied external customers are often keep coming back and spread good feedback about the company to others It is the reason external customer is important to the success of a business QFD helps to determine customer requirement to satisfy or delight the customers QFD provide a set of planning and communication routines, it focuses and coordinates skills within an organization, first

to design, then to manufacture and market goods that customers want to purchase and will continue

to purchase It is based on the belief that products should be designed to reflect customers’ desires and tastes (Hauser, 1988) QFD is a methodology for taking the voice of the customer and using

that information to drive aspects of product development

3.1 The Cross-functional Team

Because most projects require knowledge in many areas so it is necessary to have a functional team that is a group of people with different functional expertise working toward a common goal (Krajewski and Ritzman, 2005) The cross-functional team identifies and listens to the voice of customer, uses QFD tools to translate the customer requirements into the technical requirement, complete one or more of series of matrices to get insights about how best to create a most satisfied product or service and how to prioritize their research and development activities forward

cross-This study applied the methods as QFD technique and Pareto Analysis QFD is a structured method that uses some tools to gather and prioritize customer’s needs quickly and effectively so as

to make a design quality that satisfies the customer and translate the voice of customer into design targets The QFD tools adopted in this research are Questionnaire Survey, Affinity Diagram, Tree Diagram and the House of Quality

Figure 3.1 Research process diagram

3.2 Questionnaire Survey

Questionnaire survey is often used to collect data for many different reasons, such as to learn people’s opinions, determine customers’ satisfaction, or identify employees’ needs All questionnaires have two characteristics The data source is a person and statistical analysis is required to reach conclusions A plenty of questionnaires have to be obtained to get results of statistical significance This data collection will affect the later phase of research methods Hence,

it is imperative that the questionnaire survey needs to be designed carefully The process of implementation and analysis the questionnaires must be considered to assure the quality of the results In this study, the purpose of questionnaire survey is to get the customer requirements and measure the degree of importance of the voice of customer This data can help determine technical requirements toward satisfying the customer

3.3 Affinity Diagram

The affinity diagram organizes a large number of ideas into an overall hierarchical structure

It is used when the firm confronted with many facts or ideas in apparent chaos or when issues seem too large and complex to grasp, and when analyzing verbal data, such as survey results Affinity Diagram’s procedure is as follow Each idea voiced by the customer is recorded with a marking pen on a separate sticky note or card All notes need to be visible to everyone If two ideas seems

to be related in some way, the notes are placed side by side Repeat this action until all notes are formed into groups of ideas that suggest some same themes When ideas are grouped, select a major topic for each group Place the card that captures the meaning of the whole group at the top of the

House of Quality Tree Diagram

Affinity Diagram

Questionnaire

Survey

Pareto Analysis QFD

Tools

group These theme groups are grouped into higher-level themes The purpose is to achieve with five to ten main ideas at the top (the primary level) The ideas at the next level down (secondary level) provide definitions for the primary level The tertiary level defines the secondary level (Cohen 1988) Figure 3.2 shows an example of affinity diagram Seats and desks represent the words of the customer They belong to the “seatings” Blackboard, projector and computer belong

to the “teaching aids” Each was entered on a card These were related to the general idea of classroom furniture

Figure 3.2 Affinity diagram

3.4 Tree Diagram

The tree diagram is a hierarchical structure that starts with one item which branches into two or more, each of which branch into two or more, and so on It looks like a tree, with trunk and multiple branches It is used to break down broad categories into finer and finer levels of detail, from generalities to specifics based on the analysis of the existing structure The hierarchy is expanded to the level that represent a complete structure Tree diagram can be used after an affinity diagram that has uncovered key issues The cross-functional team has to look for gaps at each level

of the hierarchy structure of the affinity diagram and then add more information to obtain a complete structure According to figure 3.2, videocassette recorder and microphone would be added in the tertiary level See figure 3.3

Figure 3.3 Tree Diagram

3.5 House of Quality

House of quality (HOQ) is the central construct of QFD It is a convenient and simple tool

to translate the customer requirements to technical requirements The HOQ uses a matrix to display what the customer wants (WHATs) and how a company offers technical solutions to meet those wants (HOWs) The customer requirements that are listed at the left side of the matrix are the input

to the HOQ matrix They are controlling requirements to find out the measrable design requirements that are listed at the top of the matrix Technical requirements that respond the voice

of customer are the output of the HOQ When developed fully, HOQ resembles a house with the skeleton as figure 3.4 It shows customer requirements, technical requirements, priority of the various requirements, relationship between the descriptors, target values for each descriptor, competitive evaluation between various other products with the current product, etc

The HOQ is a kind of conceptual road map that gives the cross-functional team a means of reaching consensus on actions to be taken that will lead to customer satisfaction (Hauser and Clausing, 1988) A series of HOQ can be made to drive the customer requirements during the construction project The voice of customer can be systematically cascaded into engineering requirements, design, component characteristics and construction documents This is done by creating matrices in which the HOWs of the current HOQ becomes the WHATs of the next HOQ (Neil N Eldin, 1995) See figure 3.5 The quantity of the houses of quality depends on the specific project

Figure 3.4 The House of Quality (HOQ)

Figure 3.5 Cascading Houses of Quality

3.6 Building the House of Quality

Following are steps in building the HOQ for this study

Step 1: Develop a list of customer requirements The list of customer requirements includes the major customer needs, also what the customer would be delighted with even though not asked for The voice of customer is obtained from many different ways, including surveys, focus group interview, listening posts, etc In this study, customer requirements are gotten by questionnaire survey and they are in the left side of the HOQ

Step 2: Develop a list of technical requirements or technical design elements along the roof of the house These are the design elements that relate to customer needs The cross-functional team members should participate in developing the list and it should be based on the inputs from customers All views must be considered (Ullman, 1992)

Step 3: Demonstrate the relationships between the customer requirements and technical design elements A diagram can be used to demonstrate these relationships The symbols with scores related to them are as follow:

˜ = 9 (Strong association)

™ = 3 (Somewhat associated)

∆ = 1 (Weak association)

The number represents the strength of relationship between each WHAT and each HOW, is placed

in the cell located in the middle of the HOQ The cell is left blank if there is no relationship A WHAT row with all blank cells means that the WHAT has not been addressed and design requirement need to be added A HOW column with all blank cells means that the HOW has not been addressed any of the WHATs and it should be eliminated

Step 4: Identify the correlations between design elements in the roof of the house The QFD team detects conflicts and use the symbols as follow show whether different design elements are

™ = +3 (Positive)

X = -3 (Negative)

* = -9 (Strong negative)

Step 5: Perform a competitive assessment On both the right side and in the lower middle portion,

it is the assessment of how the product compares with the key competitors There are two assessments, one for customer requirements and another for the technical requirements These comparisons are on a 5-point scale with 5 being highest competition

Step 6: Prioritize customer requirements On the far right side of the HOQ are customer requirements priorities These priorities include importance to customer, target value, sales point, and absolute weight

The cross-functional team assigns rating for importance of customer requirements based on the result of questionnaire survey in step 1 and the team members’ experience and their knowledge

of customer needs This is a subjective assessment of how important each WHAT is to the customers This weighting is on a 10-point scale with 10 being most important The ratings are placed in the “Importance to customer” column of the HOQ Customer requirements with high importance but low competitive assessment need to be improved

Target values are set on a 5-point scale where 1 is no change, 3 is improve the product, and

5 is make the product better than the competitor With the target value, the cross-functional team decides whether to change the product These target values are based on the needs of the customer, the competitive assessment and evaluation of what is possible at what cost

The sale points is established by the cross-functional team members on a scale of 1 or 2 with 1 meaning not emphasizing this requirement, 2 meaning emphasize satisfaction of this requirement

The absolute weight is found by multiplying the customer importance, target value, and sale point as the following equation:

Absolute weight = customer importance X target value X sale point

Step 7: Prioritize technical requirements

The relative and absolute weights for technical requirements are evaluated to determine what engineering decisions need to be made to improve the design based on customer requirements This is performed by computing a percentage weight factor for each of the absolute weight and relative weight numbers

The value for absolute weight is established by multiplying the relationship between customer and technical requirements and the importance to the customer

aj= 𝐧𝐢$𝟏𝐑ijci

Where:

a is the absolute weight

R is the relationship between the customer requirement and the technical requirement

c is the degree of customer importance

aj*=aj/ 𝐦𝐣$𝟏𝐚j

Where a* is the absolute factor

The value for relative weight is established by multiplying the relationship between customer and technical requirements and the customer requirements absolute weight

bj= 𝐧𝐢$𝟏𝐑ijdi

Where:

b is the relative weight

R is the relationship between the customer requirement and the technical requirement

d is the customer absolute weight

CHAPTER 4: APPLICATION OF QFD

4.1 Project background

According to Sahney et al (2004), total quality management includes within its ambit the quality of inputs in the form of students, faculty, support staff and infrastructure; the quality of processes in the form of the learning and teaching activity; and the quality of outputs in the form

of the enlightened students that move out of the system Infrastructure plays an important role to improve the quality of education Arranging the physical environment of the classroom is one way

to improve the learning environment Research on the classroom environment has shown that the physical arrangement can affect the behavior of both students and teachers (Savage, 1999; Stewart

& Evans, 1997; Weinstein, 1992), and that a well-structured classroom tends to improve student academic and behavioral outcomes (MacAulay, 1990; Walker, Colvin, & Ramsey, 1995; Walker & Walker, 1991)

The University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS) is a prestigious research and training university in languages, international studies and a number of related departments in Vietnam This school contributes to the development of the country through training high-quality human resources, scientific research, providing quality services that meet the social demands according to international standards

In the era of globalization, language is an indispensable tool to help Vietnam integrate and enhance competitiveness in the world As the leader of foreign language training in Vietnam, the ULIS realizes that improving foreign language capacity for Vietnamese is able to promote the role and the strength

Since 2007, the ULIS has become one of the three universities involved in the design of the project "Teaching and learning a foreign language in the national education system in the period from 2008 to 2020" (hereinafter referred to as Foreign Language Scheme 2020) After the project Foreign Language Scheme 2020 was approved, the ULIS established the Steering Committee to perform the duties of the National Foreign Language Scheme One of the key tasks in the early stages of implementing the project is to improve foreign language skills and update teaching methods An ideal English teaching classroom with specific features that most satisfy the customer

is needed to improve teaching effectiveness in ULIS It was proposed that QFD tools are used to obtain “the voice of the customer” of the ideal classroom This project demonstrates QFD can be used to translate the customer requirements into technical design elements, and assure customers’ voice is responded throughout the conceptual design phase of a construction project The proposal covered the project through the conceptual design phase and offers the optimum layout of an ideal

4.2 The Customer


Madu et al (1994) classified customers into input customers, transformation customers and output customers In education system, input customers are parents and students, transformation customers can be faculty and staff, output customers are corporations and the society For this study, the ideal English teaching classroom is a “product” and the customers are the classroom users and those who have connection with the finished classroom Hence, they are teachers, students, staff and administrators

4.3 The Cross-functional team

Each of the classroom customer groups was asked to appoint some representatives to form

a ten-member cross-functional team to address the English teaching classroom The QFD team member has authority to make decision They have communication skills and must be open-minded and highly motivated The list of the cross-functional team members is as follow:

•   Teachers, Department of English

•   Students, Department of English

•   Administrative manager, Department of English

•   Administrative assistant, Department of English

•   Staff, Facilities services

•   Staff, communication media center

4.4 Collecting the customer requirements

A questionnaire was developed to collect data of the customer requirements for this study The complete questionnaires in English and Vietnamese are presented in Appendix 1 and Appendix

2 Initially, it was designed in English, and then translated into Vietnamese For increasing the validity of the research questionnaire, a double translation of Vietnamese versions were performed; which means, it was translated into English by another person, then again the new English version was translated into Vietnamese After that, these two Vietnamese versions were compared and adjusted to ensure the most literal translation Ultimately, the final version of the questionnaire was completed and released to teachers, students who work and learn English in Department of English, staff and administrators in the ULIS The questionnaire asked the customers for stating their comments about current condition of English teaching classrooms in the ULIS They also were asked about the degree of importance of factors in a classroom that influence English teaching and learning Then, describe the ideal classroom to learn and teach English effectively Prior to the survey, a pilot study was conducted within a small group to get feedback for any further modifications about the inexplicit concepts of the survey and ensure that the customers had no

difficulties in completing the questionnaire Word correction and expected responding time were also evaluated through pilot testing

Data collection: Data collection is the process by which the opinions and useful information from the customers are collected, classified, and categorized On the one hand, the questionnaire was given to the customer They answered the survey in about 10 minutes and all questionnaires were gathered for data collection On the other hand, the online survey also was conducted This online survey was not only flexible while saving time and cost In addition, it reminded customers

to fill in all question, hence minimize the lost data The survey was contributed online through Facebook and email to the customers related in this study in Vietnam After four weeks, questionnaires were received Its raw data is presented in Appendix 3

Using the Affinity diagram: Each of customer requirements, needs and comments was copied on a card exactly The cross-functional team would have a meeting to organize these cards The team members read the cards and stuck them on the board where everyone could see them Similar meaning cards would stick together at one place All the cards were on the board to form the columns of ideas The QFD team members discussed about the ideas and could move the cards

to another column if necessary A theme was named for a column that express the general meaning

of the cards This process aimed to make a hierarchy with primary, secondary and tertiary level that formed a diagram showing the affinity of related customer requirements This affinity diagram is

as Appendix 4

Using the Tree diagram: The QFD team analysed and modified the affinity diagram They eliminated the redundant ideas and the suggestion that was out of topic or not related to the project They also discussed to add some needs that were missed by the questionnaire The customer requirements that evolved from this process are shown in Appendix 5

4.5 Building the House of Quality

Step 1: Develop a list of customer requirements (The WHATs)

With the data collected from questionnaire survey and organized in tree diagram, the QFD team has to develop a list of customer requirements for the house of quality To build the HOQ conveniently, the QFD team members discussed to reduce some requirements that were not the major needs according to their experience The WHATs presented in the HOQ are as follows:

Effective

teaching and

learning

Facilities Modern, good-quality, easy to use and access

Sound and acoustics

Good sound system Noise is suppressed

Lighting See presentations and visual aids clearly

Size of classroom

Have less than 20 students

Large enough to walk around and easy access to students

Seating arrangement

Easy to make group Easy to walk around and contact with student Provide security

and pleasure Security Have secure equipment with instruction and hotline

Air quality and temperature

Good air conditioning Fresh air

Chairs and desks with wheel to move easier

Table 4.1 List of customer requirements

Step 2: Develop a list of technical requirements (The HOWs)

The QFD team brainstormed to produce the technical requirements or design characteristics Every idea was discussed seriously to determine whether it is measurable and appropriate to the customer requirement or not Each customer need was considered carefully This process translated the voice

of customer into design characteristics The HOWs presented in the HOQ are as follows

List facilities and furniture Door and window material Type of tile

High-quality audio system Type of door and window Type of light bulb

Reduce the number of students Area of classroom

Change seating arrangement Style and type of chair and desk Color of paint for wall and ceiling Color and kind of curtain

Table 4.2 List of technical requirements

Step 3: The QFD team discussed the relationships between the customer requirements and design elements This step is to determine how much each design characteristics affect on customer needs and assure all customer needs were translated The score was assigned to show the strength of the relationship The symbol ˜ with score 9 indicated strong association, the symbol ™ with score 3 indicated somewhat associated, the symbol ∆ with score 1 indicated weak association The blank cell means that there is no relationship

Step 4: The QFD team members discussed to identify the correlations between design elements in the roof of the house This step is helpful to balance the trade-offs and to find out the conflicts between design characteristics The symbol ˜ with score +9 indicated Strong positive, ™ with score +3 indicated Positive, symbol X with score -3 indicated Negative, symbol * with score -9 indicated Strong negative relationship See figure 4.1

Classroom 1 (C1) specializes in teaching English reading, writing and speaking Classroom 2 (C2) specializes in teaching English listening The ideal classroom in this English teaching classroom project is a classroom where four skills are taught in The QFD team toured classroom C1 and C2

to measure and assess and then discuss to offer the point from 1 to 5 with 5 being highest competitive level for each classroom There are two assessments, one for customer requirements and another for the technical requirements See figure 4.1

Step 6: Prioritize customer requirements

Importance to customer: In the questionnaire survey, customers were asked to offer their assessment of the importance of factors in a classroom that influence English language teaching and learning According to the result of the questionnaire and the cross-functional team members’ knowledge and experience, the QFD team assigns rating for importance to customer requirements with 10-point scale This expresses how important each WHAT is to the customers See figure 4.1

Target values are set on a 5-point scale from 1 means equal to the existing classrooms to 5 means

to be the best classroom of the existing classrooms To set the target value, the QFD team considered about the cost of the ideal classroom It satisfied the customer requirements but not cost too much money Then, the cross-functional team members established the sale points with score

1 meaning not emphasizing this requirement, 2 meaning emphasize satisfaction of this requirement The absolute weight is found by multiplying the customer importance, target value, and sale point See figure 4.1

Step 7: Prioritize technical requirements

The cross-functional team calculated the absolute weight, the absolute factor, the relative weight and the relative factor The detailed calculation is as below For example:

The absolute weight of technical requirement “List facilities and furniture”:

Figure 4.1 House of Quality

They are listed below:

1, Style and type of chair and desk with absolute factor 0.25, relative factor 0.25

2, List facilities and furniture with absolute factor 0.18, relative factor 0.19

3, Type of door and window with absolute factor 0.09, relative factor 0.11

The conceptual design about the ideal classroom for teaching and learning English effectively was produced that concentrate on three design characteristics

5.1 Concepts about style and type of chair and desk

Features of chair:

- Drafting Chair with armrests that take the pressure off the shoulders and the neck, which minimizes the risk of pain

- Chair with ample sized to make student comfortable

- Adjustable to range height Student can change the height of chair easily This feature gives the flexibility to adjust the chair to fit different student body type and adjust the seat to desired height

- Foot type is locking soft caster that gives greater mobility This helps student easier to move for group activities and interaction more efficiently and more quietly When working in pair or group with other students in other place in classroom, student can just roll the chair It is also easier when changing partners, changing group size, creating space for games, dialogues, and other presentations

- Chair pivot 360degrees without strain to enable students easy to position their materials and to face others and teacher or screen and writing board

- Chair back can be adjustable forward and backward

- Footrest enables students’ feet to be supported

- Space is sufficient among chairs for teacher to walk around and access any student in the classroom

Features of desk:

- Writing surface is wider that give ease of use and comfort It makes convenience to arrange the book, notebook and other stuff

- Desk with wheels to move easier

- Book box for student store their notebooks, books, bags and other school supplies

- Edges are protected by steel angle

5.2 Concepts about type of door and window

- Soundproof, scratch resistance: helps prevent external noise, assure good acoustics in class

- Windows with curtain on one side of the classroom

- Windows are openable to let in fresh air and get daylight Windows can give a better view outside that is positively and significantly associated with better student learning,

- Easy to clean

5.3 Concepts about facilities and furniture

It is assumed that the classroom would be state-of-the-art and high-tech room The English teaching classroom will be equipped with the following facilities:

•   LCD Projector

•   Overhead projector

•   Screens: not at the same place with writing board

•   Writing board: white board

•   Media control system: put in the teacher desk

•   Computer: laptops with wifi available

•   Capture camera: ensure the security in exam and in other situation

•   Wireless microphone: provides good hearing; make convenient for teacher to move in the classroom

•   Earphone: sufficient for students and teacher

•   Air conditioner: provide fresh air and control the temperature in the room

•   Ceiling fans: control the temperature in the room

- Writing board and screen are not at the same place to avoid limited visibility when use both simultaneously

- Podium is connected to projector, screen, sound system controller, etc which allow user to control all in-room devices and present by using build-in computer, VCR player or connect personal portable device via cable or data jack

Other concepts about the ideal English teaching classroom:

- Wall color, curtain color and room decoration assure that it will provide a comfortable and pleasant learning environment

- Bulbs provide sufficient lighting for reading, writing and taking note

Figure 5.1 English teaching classroom layout

The customer requirements were translated into design requirements with features presented in the conceptual design for ideal English teaching classroom The QFD team also focused on the highest relative and absolute factors of technical requirements so as to most satisfy customer’s need However, most of the QFD team had never heard of QFD and none had ever used QFD before They had also never worked together before this project So, there were some disputes in discussion but finally the cross-functional team applied successfully QFD in addressing the