Customer driven engineering

Quality function deployment (QFD), also referred to as customer driven engineering and matrix product planning , is a useful quality and planning tool which uses a structured approach in defining all the customer needs or requirements and translates these into design requirements for product development. 

The off-line system constitutes the generic engine box and it is identical for all applications. The input data and the user interface were customized. Input data concern primarily the types of products offered for sale, and this is already part of the business strategy of the institution. Similarly, some institutions may have views on market trends and may wish to convey those to their clients in the specification of scenarios. More often than not, however, they rely on market expectations from other sources. The information required on the part of the consumer is also custom-made for each application, driven by the market segment at which the business is aiming. Similarly the requirement for the user-interface hinge upon the core business of the sellers and is well-understood by their marketing departments. 

The third category, engineer-to-order (S3, M3, D3), is customer requirement driven and as soon as a customer order is received, the design of the product starts. This category possesses the longest possible lead times of the three categories (SCOR 10.0). 

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