QFD Online recently announced the beta release of their online “QFD Builder” software. This software is browser-based and allows users to create sequential (i.e. inter-connected) Houses of Quality online.

QFD Online recently announced the beta release of their online “QFD Builder” software. This software is browser-based and allows users to create sequential (i.e. inter-connected) Houses of Quality online. The software provides basic Quality Function Deployment creation and modification features such as the ability to insert/delete rows, columns and HOQ matrices. Users can allegedly add as many rows, columns, and HOQs as they desire to a given QFD. Additionally, the software allows users to create and store multiple QFDs (i.e. inter-connected HOQs) for different products and/or services.

Some of the more advanced features of the application include the ability to sort rows and columns by name, weight, or custom sort orders. Additionally, changes made to the names of requirements or their relative positions in the matrix automatically propagate to previous and/or subsequent Houses of Quality.

The most impressive feature of the software, however, is its ability to allow multiple users to view, edit, and manipulate data within the same QFD at the same time from differing machines. The product allows user to invite “collaborators” via email, who can then login to view and/or modify any of the House of Quality diagrams in the QFD (not just the one that the owner happens to be editing at the time). Users can view the changes being made by other collaborators in real time, and can tell which cells other users are modifying through the use of different colors for focus-highlighting.

The “QFD Builder” application allows users to “create, store and share Houses of Quality online”. It does not, however, provide the ability to create Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA) diagrams. Nor does the software provide a competitive analysis matrix. However, the application does boast a very prominent “Feedback” button which allows user to submit enhancement requests, so one can assume that additional functionality is coming.

All-in-all, the software is intuitive and easy-to-use. It ability to collaborate with stake holders makes it quite powerful. The fact that QFDs can be stored and accessed via the Web is also quite beneficial as it provides a centralized storage location and a single authoritative copy of the QFD for any given group of stake holders. Perhaps best of all, the software is currently being offered for free, which is quite impressive considering that competing QFD software retails for hundreds to thousands of dollars for a single user license.