Articles
QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT: A MEANS OF INTEGRATING CONSUMER EXPECTATIONS THROUGHOUT CULTIVATION SYSTEMS
Article number
536_73
Pages
607 – 612
Language
Abstract
There are many dimensions to what customers mean by quality and it is a major challenge to produce commodities that satisfy all of these.
This is particularly true for horticultural products where quality is most often affected not by a single decision at a particular stage in the production process but instead has to be continuously monitored and controlled over a period of time.
An integrated framework is introduced that links market research with operations management for the purpose of providing information for planning production, allocating resources and changing marketing strategies.
The innovative approach is based on the mechanism of quality function deployment.
This is an overall concept providing a means of translating customer requirements into appropriate cultivation measures.
The contribution applies the approach to vegetable cultivation systems.
One major component establishes what the quality demand is by exploring customer (consumers, processing industry) wants and needs.
A distinction is made between intrinsic product attributes (i.e. sugar or vitamins content) that shape the product itself and extrinsic product attributes (i.e. price, labels) that are designed to communicate intrinsic attributes.
Focal points of this marketing part are the relative attributes importance and relations between attributes.
The approach employs a causal model.
The second major component, a process-orientated approach, assess cultivation systems with regard to the quality demand.
It determines what cultivation measures affect specific quality characteristics.
The resulting relationship matrix shows how cultivation decisions affect customer quality perception.
The results enable producers to monitor and influence prerequisites for improved quality and support evaluation of competitive cultivation systems and products.
This is particularly true for horticultural products where quality is most often affected not by a single decision at a particular stage in the production process but instead has to be continuously monitored and controlled over a period of time.
An integrated framework is introduced that links market research with operations management for the purpose of providing information for planning production, allocating resources and changing marketing strategies.
The innovative approach is based on the mechanism of quality function deployment.
This is an overall concept providing a means of translating customer requirements into appropriate cultivation measures.
The contribution applies the approach to vegetable cultivation systems.
One major component establishes what the quality demand is by exploring customer (consumers, processing industry) wants and needs.
A distinction is made between intrinsic product attributes (i.e. sugar or vitamins content) that shape the product itself and extrinsic product attributes (i.e. price, labels) that are designed to communicate intrinsic attributes.
Focal points of this marketing part are the relative attributes importance and relations between attributes.
The approach employs a causal model.
The second major component, a process-orientated approach, assess cultivation systems with regard to the quality demand.
It determines what cultivation measures affect specific quality characteristics.
The resulting relationship matrix shows how cultivation decisions affect customer quality perception.
The results enable producers to monitor and influence prerequisites for improved quality and support evaluation of competitive cultivation systems and products.
Authors
U.R. Orth
Keywords
total quality management, house of quality, vegetable
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