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Quality Function Deployment (QFD): An Alternative Context – Sumathi Annamalai What is QFD? QFD is used to translate customer requirements to engineering specifications. It is a link between customers - design engineers - competitors - manufacturing. There was a time when individuals could order a pair of shoes directly from the cobbler. The Cobbler by measuring the foot himself and personally handling all aspects of manufacturing could assure the customer would be satisfied. The increase in the distance between producers and users is the problem that concerns Yoji Akao, one of the founders of Quality Function Deployment. QFD links the needs of the customer with marketing, design, development, engineering, manufacturing, and service functions. It can be used for service and software products, as well. Benefits of QFD l Improved communication and sharing of information while developing a new product. l Creation of an informational base which is valuable for repeated cycles of product improvement l Product success in the marketplace, due to the precise targeting of key customer requirements Planning Define and Determine customer needs Determine the competencies required Analyze the labour market Identify the source of recruitment Four - phase QFD Model for HRM Deployment Selecting the potentials competencies Induction and Socialization Deployment to the internal customers l Reduced overall design cycle time, mainly due to a reduction in timeconsuming design changes. l Reduced overall cost due to reducing design changes, which are not only time consuming but very costly, especially those which occur at a late stage. l Reduced product cost by eliminating redundant features and over-design. Application of QFD in HR Department Can we apply the concept of QFD in the area of Human Resource Management? This article focuses on the applicability of QFD approach in identifying, procuring, retaining and evaluating the human resources in an organization. An attempt is made to apply all the functions generally performed by the HR Department, from the QFD perspective. This helps in viewing the HR department as a resource provider and facilitator for all the other departments, who are the internal customers. Quality is the back bone of QFD concept and quality without human resource is impossible in an organization. Hence the HR Department has to take care of the quality of the human resources procured, deployed, utilized and managed in the entire organization. Determining the metrics Decide the performance metrics for different levels / functions Design the Performance Evaluation System Communicate to the human resources Evaluating and Controlling Evaluate the human resources at their individual levels Provide feedback for Improvement Skill Development Planning: The QFD for human Resource Management starts with planning function. This planning has to undergo the following sequence. Define and Determine customer needs Who are the customers for HR Department? Deployment of human resources has to be specific to the customer needs. All the departments which depend on the HR Department for its human resources are its customers. Specifically they are all internal customers. The need for human resources varies according to the department and the levels. Hence the customer needs have to be studied carefully before designing a system Determine the competencies required Based on the needs, the competencies demanded by the internal customers have to be determined in a clear-cut manner. Once when these competencies are welldesigned, the HR Department will be able to satisfy the needs of its internal customers. The companies adopt competency mapping to determine the specific requirements of their customers. The customer has to be involved in determining the required competencies since it is they who are utilizing the resources and the HR department would just be facilitators. Analyze the labour market A consolidated report comprising of the competencies needed versus the various sources available for procuring has to be prepared. The demand and supply position for such competencies, the problems associated with their procurement, legal proceedings, etc have to be dealt at this stage. Identify the source of recruitment After analyzing all the sources, the right source to procure the competencies has to be determined. The sources can be colleges, universities, competing companies, from the labour market, even internal from own concerns. Hence this systematic approach of meeting the needs of the customers would eradicate the problems arising of mismatch later. Contd.. On page 41 Sumathi Annamalai is Assistant Professor, PARK Global School of Business Excellence, Chenna. E-Mail: swahini_a@yahoo.com | HRD News Letter | December 2007, Vol.23, Issue:9 42 |
Holistic Assessments - A Three Dimensional View Its been quite sometime that I wrote an article on assessment. My last article for NHRD magazine was the one of B-learning titled "Welcome to B-learning!". Out of the blue, this picture (see Figure 1) virtually flashed in front of me. The impulse generated inspired me to write an article on it. How is that! Here we go… Like I discussed about a new jargon called "B-learning" in my previous article, this time I have come up with another one named "3DAC". It stands for 3 dimensional assessment cube (See Figure 1). human being basically possesses seven types of intelligence components. They are linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence. The degree of intelligence on each component may vary within and among individuals. The aggregate composition determines the overall "cognitive ability" of an individual. Also, the dominant trait(s) would determine the field(s) in which an individual would excel (e.g. If a person has interpersonal intelligence as a dominant trait, it means that he can be a good marketing guy or a teacher). This should give you an idea about Cognitive Abilities. If you are curious to know more about this, there are abundant resources available on the net for your reference. Now, to Skills… A Skill by definition "is something you learn or acquire over a period of time". Again Skills can be two types viz. Hard and Soft. Hard Skills pertain to something that a person can perform or demonstrate. Examples of such skills are driving a Car, flying an Aeroplane, assembling/Troubleshooting PCs, etc. Soft Skills have more to do with behavioral traits of a person. Attitude, inter-personal skills can be cited as examples for this. Of course, in a way soft skills can be considered as a sub-set of Cognitive Abilities. But you can treat it as a discipline too. Since hard skills are tangible, it is easy to demonstrate and assess. On the contrary, soft skills are more often than not dormant and also human behavioral patterns are very – G Ravi Kumar erratic and circumstance dependent (e.g. the way an individual behaves when he is calm is different from when he is under pressure or disturbed). Hence a soft skill is a grey area and hence assessments here are very subjective and often debatable, sometimes contentious too. Holistic Assessments - The 3DAC way Finally, let us look at ways by which we can assess abilities and skills that we discussed till now. A couple of well known tests for assessing cognitive abilities is CAT3 and CogAT. You can check their official websites for more information about these tests. There are several personality test batteries available for Soft Skills assessments or behavioral assessments. Some of the noted ones are 16PF, FIRO-B and DISC based tests. Hard Skills would mean anything from driving a car to flying a space shuttle. Here, the context is Software or Programming Skills assessments. Again here, we have Objective assessments and Performance based assessments. In objective assessments candidates are tested more on concepts pertaining to software programming. Some of the renowned players in objective assessments are Brainbench, MeasureUp, QuestionMark and Professional Aptitude Council (PAC). The latter is the most effective, but the most challenging kind of assessments. Prominent companies in this area of assessments are SkillCheck and DevSquare (www.devsquare.com). u H 3 dimensional assessment cube Abilities and Skills - complement each other Before I explain about "3DAC", let me first give you some dope on Abilities and Skills. If you analyze, the implied meaning of the word "Abilities" translates to "Cognitive Abilities". There are many schools of thoughts on this subject and several definitions / connotations that exist for this word. According to me, one of the notable ones is the seminal work by Dr.Howard Gardner called "Theory of Multiple Intelligences". According to him, every G. Ravi Kumar is an IT professional based at Bangalore. E-mail: ravi@devsquare.com; rk1601@hotmail.com; rk1672@gmail.com Fundamentals of Non-violence, infused with consciousness of consciousness and spiritual Peace and Relative Economics spirituality or consciousness of consciousness are developed in a emotion. balanced manner. - Acharya Mahaprajna 4. If only intellectual consciousness is 7. Stopping the reactive violence is 1. That activity cannot attain success, developed and if only economic possible only when the disease of which is devoid of the process of development takes place, then bread consumerism that grows with the transformation of consciousness. cannot go together with non-violence economic development is treated and 2. The system for controlling and peace. consciousness of self-restraint possessiveness or individual 5. If mere consciousness of spirituality is reaches the higher level. ownership cannot attain success developed, then both Ahimsa and 8. The solution to this problem is Training because it lacks in the technique bread cannot go together. in Non-violence; mere intellectual of transformation of consciousness. 6. Ahimsa, peace and bread can go deliberation would not be enough to 3. The mission of non-violence can together only when intellectual provide the solution for human become successful only when it is consciousness, economic problems. | HRD News Letter | December 2007, Vol.23, Issue:9 43 |
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