LiU Electronic Press

A conventionally applied QFD, the method used in most cases, does not gather customer wishes with great accuracy. That means that the results will likewise be inaccurate as their significance depends decisively on the quality of the input quantity. Therefore, new considerations are looking at how to achieve increased accuracy of input quantity by employing the Analytic Hierarchy Process [AHP]. The outcome is that the weighted customer requirements are included in the calculations not as an absolute value of a defined interval scale e.g. from 1 to 5 or 1 to 10 as before but in the form of relative figures between 0 and 1. The relative weightings result from making comparisons of the requirements in pairs in order to achieve increased quality of outcomes. As the employment of relative evaluation methods based on the AHP methodology - in particular that of making comparisons in pairs - involves considerably increased time and effort, it is essential to observe that wherever possible no or only minimal loss of accuracy is incurred when integrating the relative values. Otherwise, the considerable increase in time and effort spent becomes unjustifiable.