Application of quality function deployment on an alternative transportation system (paratransit system)

Abstract

Quality Function Deployment (QFD) methodology is applied in the planning of new products/services or the improvement of existing products/services, with the active participation of all departments of the organization, minimizing the initial time of planning and also the cost of planning, with parallel minimization of the failure possibilities of the product/service to enter the market. The basic idea behind this method is to take into serious consideration the “Wants” of the customers, so that they can be translated to engineering characteristics of the product/service. The methodology was introduced in Japan in the late ‘60s and about 15-20 years later entered USA, while it is now applied in many organizations in Europe. In our work, we will apply QFD in the planning of an alternative transportation system (paratransit) in a “Kapodistrian” Municipality which constitutes many villages.