A rough set approach for estimating correlation measures in quality function deployment

Quality function deployment (QFD) is a planning and problem-solving methodology used to translate customer requirements (CRs) into engineering characteristics (ECs) in the course of new product development (NPD). Estimating the correlation measures among ECs is a crucial step in the product planning house of quality (PPHOQ) construction process because these measures seriously affect the planning of development efforts. This study presents a rough set-based approach used to estimate the correlation measures by revealing the knowledge of a QFD team. The approach involves introducing the category factor of a correlation to express the influences of the correlation categories on the corresponding correlation measures. A case study of a two-cylinder washing machine is used to illustrate the proposed approach. The result shows that the novel approach is effective in revealing the related knowledge of the QFD team and facilitating NPD decision making. 2011 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.