Quality Function Deployment and Analytic Hierarchy Process: A literature review of their joint application

The aim of this paper is to review the literature on the combined use of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) methodologies and to apply a comprehensive analysis over the resulting publications. The paper seeks to classify the articles with regard to their variations and extensions, and application areas. The articles are mostly applied in manufacturing, supply chain, higher education, strategy, service and sustainability. This review is characterized by a quantitative and qualitative approach of a non-probabilistic intentional sample composed of 100 academic papers - 98 articles and 2 reviews. For this purpose, the Scopus database was selected as a means to undertake a systematic investigation with a longitudinal cut from 1994 to 2015. The aim of this paper also contributes toward complementing Ho and Mehrjerdi revisions on deepening the QFD-AHP joint application. The limitation is related to the sample of works focus of this review, restricted to the Scopus database, thereby not characterizing the literature universe. A proposal for further investigations is to expand the search scope to other databases and to carry out a deeper analysis on each application area presented.