Theory and practice of total quality function deployment : A perspective from a traditional pump‐manufacturing environment

Purpose – This article seeks to propose a technique called total quality function deployment (TQFD) and to appraises its practicality by applying it to a traditional pump‐manufacturing environment. Design/methodology/approach – The deficiencies of QFD techniques were studied. The theory of the TQFD technique was developed with the objective of overcoming these deficiencies. Two pump‐manufacturing companies were involved, while examining the practicality of TQFD technique. Findings – A traditional pump‐manufacturing environment lacks knowledge of implanting techniques like QFD, which challenges the researchers to test‐implement, the techniques like TQFD. Yet the successful development of TQFD documents during the reported research project indicates the practical feasibility of TQFD implementation in pump‐manufacturing companies. Research limitations/implications – The practicality of TQFD was tested by involving two pump‐manufacturing companies located in the city of Coimbatore in India. These two companies may not represent the global pump‐manufacturing environment. However, the pump‐manufacturing trend is uniformly showing sluggish growth at global level. Hence, the inferences drawn may considerably represent traditional pump‐manufacturing environment at the global level. Practical implications – Since TQFD documents are successfully developed, engineers can be trained to become TQFD coordinators. These engineers will transfer the voice of customers into the practical field by following the implementation procedure presented in the paper. Originality/value – So far no researchers have reported the theory and practice of TQFD. Pump manufacturing companies lose their market share because of the failure to translate customers' vague languages into technical languages through the involvement of all personnel and holistic exploitation of resources of the organisation. TQFD is a very valuable technique to meet this imperative.