Study and Application of the Integration of QFD and FMEA in Product Design Phase

QFD and FMEA are both effective tools utilized in the course of product design,however there are potential limitations if they are used separately.As they possess the characteristic of sharing the bottom database in an integrated quality management system,the integration of them may sort out this issue.Based on an elaborate analysis of advantages and disadvantages of QFD and FMEA,an integration model of them is proposed in the present study,in which four kinds of FMEA are incorporated into the four phase model of QFD.Furthermore,the relevant software is developed to confirm the validity of this model.It is demonstrated finally through an example that the integration of QFD and FMEA contributes significantly to improve product design quality,decrease repeated product design and lessen product design time.