Quality function deployment: An application on determining the quality factors in higher education

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a method developed in the 1970’s in Japan by Dr. Yoji Akao and with later contributions of Shigeru Mizuno. QFD is adopted all over the world following a number of successful applications in Japan and has been applied very widely until today. This term has been translated to English as "Quality Function Deployment" from original Japanese name "Ten Kai Hin Shits Ki No". The most basic purpose of QFD is to design the functions which product performs according to the needs and requirements of customers. The aim of this study is to apply QFD in a university in Turkey in terms of service quality in higher education in order to determine needs and requirements of internal and external customers consisting of university academic and administrative staff, students and students' families. The House of Quality tool is used to assess the Voice of Customer about the quality of higher education. The study is based on an empirical analysis on a survey which was conducted among 100 students, 30 students’ family members, and 30 academic and administrative staff of a university in Konya, Turkey. The analysis shows that student family members have the highest importance scores among the stakeholders and competence of academic staff has the highest scores among the quality factors.