Page 591 - Introduction to Business

CHAPTER 16 Managing Business Operations 565

Northeast Lamp Recycling, Inc. in
East Windson, Connecticut, annu-
ally recycles thousands of
fluorescent light tubes to be used
in new products.

Robust Designs. Products that perform well under a wide variety of condi-
tions are said to have robust designs. Thus the more designers can build robustness robust design Design that allows
into a product, the better it will hold up, leading to higher customer satisfaction. A products to perform well under a wide
variety of conditions
product where robustness has increased by leaps and bounds is videocassette
recorders.

Modular Designs. Production of a wide variety of products by using a low
number of components is made possible by modular designs. For customers, they
offer a great product selection. For the operations manager, there are only a limited
number of components to deal with. For example, Ford Motor Company recently
announced an integrated global product plan in which the number of basic vehicle
platforms has been reduced by 50 percent, while the number of parts common to
different vehicles is increased to 50 percent. Better yet, customers will have more
distinct and unique vehicles because model variations per platform are being
increased by 45 percent. 4

Quality Function Deployment. Quality function deployment (QFD) is a tech-
nique for translating the voice of the customer, the customer’s needs and wants, into
the product design. Before QFD, companies struggled with translating the ordinary
language that customers use to the technical language that designers use. In addition,
QFD is not only a useful tool for linking customer requirements to technical specifica-
tions, but it also facilitates internal cooperation among marketing, engineering, and
operations. Although most of the initial applications of QFD were in manufacturing
organizations, QFD has also been applied with success in service organizations. For
example, Euro Disney in Paris used QFD principles for its service design. 5
The design of goods has been studied and developed over the years and can be
described precisely; however, the design of services has not received as much atten-
tion. Two major issues in service design are the level of customer contact and par-
6
ticipation and the level of service customization. If the level is low on both counts,

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