Supply Chain Voice of the Customer
Project Description
Business, Customer, and Supplier requirements are dynamic and continue to evolve. To effectively manage the supply chain these requirements must be understood and managed due to their dynamic nature. This project utilized Quality Function Deployment with a team distributed in the U.S, China, U.K., Germany, and Belgium.
Problem Statement
Voice of the Customer requirements and their potential commonality across multiple business units was unknown. Managing a consolidated global supply chain would also require understanding the Voice of the Supplier requirements, which were also unknown.
Goals and Objectives
Define, weight, and rank the Voice of the Customer (VOC) requirements of the:
- End user Customers
- Multiple Business Units
- Sampling of Top Suppliers by Commodity
Develop a cross business unit team to collaborate on the acquisition of the VOC requirements information. Develop criteria to evaluate, weight, and rank the VOC requirements. Utilize Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to manage the VOC information and provide a reporting mechanism for the business unit leaders and supply chain management team.
Summary of Results
Utilizing Webinar on Demand the team was able to fully define the VOC that would facilitate the integration of multiple business unit supply chains. The VOC requirements capture and QFD analysis were completed within one month through a series of 6 virtual meetings of the distributed team. The project began in mid October 2009 and completed in mid November 2009.
