The Wonder House Paint Product’s House of Quality Essay

Introduction

Business organizations are increasingly improving their products and services for consumers worldwide. However, some of the products and services developed fail to adhere to address the needs and requirements of the customers. This leads to customer dissatisfaction. Therefore, there is need for business firms to come up with products and services that factor in the customers’ needs. Developing such products will increase customer satisfaction and lead to the overall success of the firm producing these products. One of the ways to achieve this is through the use of house of quality technique in the Quality Function Development matrix. This paper will use this technique to build a house of quality for a house paint product.

Step 1: A List of WHATs

The customer requirements concerns include issues of durability, variety, cleanliness and easy to wash, affordability and user friendly. Questions such as what the customer needs the house paint for, the important features that the customer is looking for in our product and factors making the customer go for the house paint must be carefully considered in the development of Wonder House Paint. These are listed below:

WHATs

1. Durability
2. Variety
3. Cleanliness and easy to wash
4. Affordability
5. User friendly

Step 2: Technical Descriptors (HOWs)

The ultimate goal of this process is to design Wonder House Paint in a way that meets and exceeds the expectations of the client. These HOWs helps to identify what is needed to meet customer requirements. This involves translating customer requirements into specific engineering characteristics. The technical descriptors are listed below:

Technical Descriptors (HOWs)

1. Durable paint
2. A wide range of colours and textures (variety)
3. Paint with Teflon (Teflon is an ingredient put in paints to make them glossy and easy to clean)
4. Use of locally available ingredients (affordability)
5. A new design which makes it easier to open the paint cans (user friendly)

Step 3: Relationship Matrix between WHATs and HOWs (between steps 1 and 2 above)

The ranking is between 1 and 10 (1 weak and 10 very strong). This will describe the current relationship as opposed to what is suggested.

The relationship between the client requirement for a durable paint and the engineering characteristic for such a paint is strong (7) because Wonder House paint is one of the few most durable paints in the market. The ranking (8) for affordability is strong. Wonder House paint is one of the cheapest brands in the market compared to those of the competitors because the company is already using local raw materials. Wonder House paint has not incorporated Teflon in producing most of its paint varieties thus the relationship for cleanliness is weak (3).

Step 4: Interrelationship Matrix between HOWs

Step 5: Competitive Assessment

Ranking Ability of the Company and the Competitor to Meet Customer Requirements (WHATs)

Durability of Wonder House paint is generally lower than that of its competitors because Wonder House paint unlike its competitors has not yet adopted the latest technology in producing the paint. Cleanliness is (2) low because the company is not using Teflon or such other ingredients. Wonder House paint has a wide range of varieties thus the ranking (4) is higher than that of its competitors.

Ranking for HOWs

Competitors have a more durable paint than wonder house paint as the firm has not adopted the latest technology in making a much more durable paint than its business rivals. Wonder house paint has a wide range of house paints and textures (in excess of 7000 different colours and textures) which are available to customers. Thus on variety, Wonder House paint is strong at (4) in a scale of 1 to (5) compared to its competitors who have less varieties of house paint. Wonder House paint is using local materials in its production, ranking at a scale of (4) in affordability. This has led the firm to lower its production costs thus making the firm more competitive in the market. Wonder House paint containers are easy to open and are more user friendly. However the competitors have a more advanced paint packaging containers.

Step 6: Developing Prioritised Customer Requirements

Cleanliness ranks high (9) in the customer requirements. Customers want a house paint that is clean and easy to clean without using too much effort. Wonder House paint should therefore integrate Teflon and other advanced technology in the production in order to capture the market and beat competition. Variety is not a priority because the company already has a wide range of products. The customers require a more user friendly paint.This translates to a high customer requirement which ranks (6). The company is working on improving the quality of its containers in order to make them more user- friendly. The firm is also in the process of acquiring the latest technology of producing paint that is durable since customer requirement on durability scores at (5), a major concern for the customers. Wonder House paint has over 7000 varieties and textures of house paints. Therefore the customer requirement for variety is not much of a concern since the firm has more varieties for its customers than its competitors.

Step 7: Prioritised Technical Descriptors

To make a more durable paint, the company has to incorporate the use of Teflon. Teflon is very difficult to attain because it is a patented product. Therefore, it is more challenging and difficult (4) for Wonder House Company to improve the durability of its paints. On the other hand, the company has one of the most skilled employees involved in the production of varieties of paints. The firm has also a large manufacturing plant capable of producing the various varieties of paints. Therefore, Wonder House Company has fewer difficulties (3) in solving the issue of varieties.