AN AHP FRAMEWORK FOR PRIORITIZING CUSTOMER REQUIREMENTS IN QFD - AN INDUSTRIALIZED HOUSING APPLICATION

Construction of housing in the United States is highly decentralized. There is an increasing use of manufactured components and modules constructed off-site at a manufacturing facility and assembled at the building site. However, there has been little use of modern manufacturing processes and controls. In an effort to develop energy efficient, affordable industrialized housing, a total engineering design approach is needed. This study uses a concurrent engineering approach to examine the production of an essential component in industrialized housing, a manufactured exterior structural wall panel. In particular, we apply Quality Function Deployment to fully integrate the customer's requirements. This paper focuses on the identification and prioritization of those customer requirements. We integrate the Analytic Hierarchy process with QFD to establish a framework for prioritizing customer requirements.