What is CENSYS®
Censys, created by Worrell, Inc. in 1993, is a hybrid QFD technology that does two things. First, it resolves nearly all the objectionable problems associated with the conventional marketing research methodologies for collecting customer information such as focus groups and personal interviews. See (benefits of Censys). Secondly, it virtually eliminates the greatest stumbling block and criticism of QFD, which is the time consuming morass of meetings and steps necessary to get company consensus on the criteria to include into the product definition and subsequently the development process itself. Censys was created out of a real need in the U.S. product development culture for a faster methodology to design and develop products. While there have been excellent examples of success using QFD here in the U.S., most American companies simply do not have the patience and or resources to execute the formal QFD model. And to complicate matters, the standard marketing research tools used today simply are not suited for the QFD model. It has also been our observation that QFD training by academicians with little real-world product development and commercialization skills has left a number of U.S. companies floundering to eventually abandon QFD, claiming it as another failed component in the TQM or quality fad.
What is QFD?
Quality Function Deployment is a product planning and development system developed by Dr. Yoji Akao. It is a direct outcome of the quality leadership provided to Japan by Edwards Deming and Joseph Juran after being snubbed by American Industry after the second world war. In the early 70s Toyota, along with several other significant Japanese corporations utilized QFD for competitive advantage and subsequently dominated many U.S. consumer and industrial product markets. QFD is a systematic means of ensuring that customer and/or marketplace demands are accurately translated into relevant technical requirements and actions throughout each stage of product development.
Ford Motor Company brought the system into the U.S. and developed the Taurus, which was touted as the product that turned Ford's fortunes around. Chrysler uses QFD on its new products, and a host of other progressive U.S. companies were trained in the early 90s. Ford started the American Supplier Institute, a non-profit training arm that teaches corporations in the U.S. how to use QFD. Worrell Design was the first product design firm in the U.S. to be trained in QFD by American Supplier Institute.
The Product Development Problem:
The fact is, there is a product specification crisis in product development processes today, the world over.
The single greatest factor in the estimated losses of up to 10 billion dollars per year in the U.S alone related to product failures is the inability for companies to truly understand what customers are telling them they want. Even the 13 billion dollar research industry dedicated to providing information to industry is not able to solve this problem. The fuzzy front end and product definition is a serious problem for product developers. “Statistically, the most significant difference between commercially successful companies and the other (less successful companies) was the care they took in drawing up a comprehensive design brief at the start of any major product development project.” Robin Roy, Senior Lecturer, Open University, Britain
Qualitative market research techniques such as focus groups, personal interviews and telephone surveys are used extensively in the product development industry to solicit opinions and ideas from consumers and users about the development of many types of products and services. For as widely used as these tools are, there are serious drawbacks that put millions of dollars and years of time investment at risk. A domineering respondent in a focus group can render hours of work and thousands of dollars useless as they bias a complete focus group. Influential managers who watch behind the glass frequently skew customer input by taking comments out of context to support personal convictions. Questionnaires designed by professional moderators or researchers to probe the needs of respondents’ motivations often get answers that are so complex they need to be interpreted, condensed or manipulated to be explainable in the executive summary. Questionnaires that are too specific tend to a particular bias that “leads” responses and ultimately limit the range of creative solutions. And the customers—What do they really know about our new product? What are they going to tell us that we don't already know? Despite this seemingly arrogant attitude, there is a fair amount of truth in this statement. The fact is, customers cannot tell you what they don’t know. Unfortunately and typically, this is exactly what product developers need to know to gain competitive advantage over their competitors. If only customers could articulate what they really want. Development managers are frequently and rightfully skeptical about the results from existing research methodologies to the point where many will forego research altogether.
Voice of the Customer
Even when companies have a good understanding of what their customers want, translating those wants into design criteria that is clearly understood throughout the development process can be a problem. Inevitably, competitive pressures continue to mount, the stakes for market share keep going up and, to date, the lack of an alternative makes this part of developing new products and services inefficient, if not misguided.
- There is no standard or clear methodology for integrating customer input into the development process anywhere in the world.
- There is no good way of creating design criteria from measurable customer wants, and if there were, there is no assurance that these wants will be maintained throughout the development process.
- The ability to develop products that meet customer requirements in a timely fashion can never improve until we learn how to obtain, prioritize, and process this information effectively.
Can your company afford to risk the costs associated with the development, tooling and launch of a new product, package or service on anything less than clear information about what your customers want?
The need to understand the complexities of how your customers make buying decisions demands a different way of assimilating and processing this information.
The claims of Censys are the same as traditional QFD but results are obtained much faster with less personnel time expended!
- Engineering changes have been reduced
- Design cycle has been shortened
- Start-up costs have been reduced
Specific business benefits experienced by customers who have used Censys
- Increased customer satisfaction and market share
- Improved designs and performance
- Reduced warranty claims
- Better planning and communication between departments
- Enhanced product specifications and better briefs for development
- More effective conveyance of technical competen- cies to new personnel thereby reducing the time wasted on debate and conjecture.
- Systematization of what veteran product development people do intuitively-but with greater speed, clarity and accuracy.
- Produces quantifiable, measurable and prioritized design criteria that can be acted on immediately and without need for interpretation.
Censys: Faster, Better, Right.
Now you can understand what your customers want even if they don’t.
Speed to market with the right product is now a reality.