An approach for manufacturing strategy formulation process based on fuzzy quality function deployment

This paper proposes an approach for manufacturing strategy formulation process based on quality function deployment (QFD). The study starts by analyzing the formulation process of manufacturing strategy and the features of QFD. Thereafter, a manufacturing strategy formulation process based on QFD is developed, which comprises two stages and ten steps. This approach uses QFD as a transforming device to link competitive factors with manufacturing decision categories such as structural decision categories and infrastructural categories, and use QFD as a main tool in different stages of manufacturing strategy formulation process. This paper also integrates fuzzy set theory and house of quality in order to provide a structured tool to capture the inherent imprecision and vagueness of decision-relevant inputs and to facilitate the analysis of decision-relevant QFD information. A case study is included to illustrate the utilization of this approach at the end of the paper.