A Hybrid model (Kano – House of Quality) to hear the voice of the customer according to analytic

hierarchical process, Case Study: Saipa Diesel Company

Seyed Abas Mousavi1

Seyed Mehdi hoseini2

Abstract

To sustain profitable relationships with their customers, companies have to accommodate customers'

demands and consequently the technical requirements to meet their customers' demands. Also in today's

competitive environment, those organizations will be success under competition which outperform in

meeting customer needs compared to other market competitors. Main objective for research is to

prioritize engineering and technical requirements based on their combination meeting customer's demands

in respect to Saipa company's products. In the present research, to determine customer demands and

technical requirements to meet the demands of customers, some interviews and surveys on five mangers

and deputies of marketing units' staffs and five MA sale mangers and deputies of engineering unit were

undertaken. The Questions were designed in the terms of the Kano model and three types of interested

demands. Then, the specified elements to meet customer needs and technical and engineering

requirements were incorporated in the form of a separate questionnaire for each statistical distribution of

these experts in given units. After statistical analysis, in both parts of the requirements, numbers of 11

elements were confirmed. Elements included in the customer's needs were ranked using a hierarchical

analysis technique and finally, through combining demands, house of quality engineering, the technical

and engineering needs were ranked. Results indicated that foreign exchange and banking facilities

currently are the most effective factors in meeting customer needs.

Key words:

integrated marketing communications, voice of the customer, quality function development, the Kano

model, the quality of house

Introduction

1 Corresponding author: M.Sc. on business administration, Islamic Azad university2 Department of management , firoozkooh branch , Islamic azad university ,firoozkooh , iran

Nowadays, WTO (world trade) experiences increasing growing mostly due to technology breakthroughs

along with plenty various products. This in turn has led to more focus on contribution of continuing

efficiency improvement to as a competitive and strategic requirement in many institutions throughout

around the world. On the other hand, in world trade age, in order to equipped with competitive tools, the

enterprises seek to satisfy customers.   One of important ways is to design of the product / service

according to customer's needs and it serves as one of the key ways to attract and retain customers in the

successful global companies.

The first and most important step in attracting customers is to understand customer needs and

expectations and respond to market changes and Quality Function Development QFD is one of those

techniques that from the early stages of the product life cycle of goods or services, i.e. design phase

improves customer satisfaction. Additionally, meanwhile, design requirements (DRs) or technical

requirements TRs for product are identified in the first phase by design team and applied by the strategic

objectives identified for company. QFD is a tool for inter sectorial planning to assist product development

team. Other advantages for QFD include costs alleviations, low customer complaints, improved

communications among various sectors and increased teamwork, high engineering knowledge, the

documentation, determination of the critical characteristics in quality of the product, identification of risk

in the early stages of design and assist identification of the competitive advantage in company. Hence, in

light of above mentioned cases and the importance of customer satisfaction, this study gives a hybrid

model, Kano-House of quality to hear the voice of our customers in a case study in Saipa Diesel

company.

Statement of the problem

Today, businessmen are aware on indisputable fact that a 5% increase in customer means a 5 percent

growth. In today's organizations, quality management practices have received great deal of attentions and

in this perspective, the customer comes first and last word. Customerism and customer-orientation in

comprehensive quality management thinking, is one of the main principles. To discover and collect the

customer's needs is unavoidable fact and, thus, prior to the next step, these requirements are converted

into product based on customer demand and tastes.

Today, based on these requirements, several techniques have been developed, among which two

techniques voice of customer and quality function development are growing in organizations today. Voice

of the customer is technique for hearing comments, messages and customer feedback and the needs and

expectations. According this, customer's voice is springboard.  Customer expresses his/her feelings and

perceptions of their commodity product into words and sentences and then actual needs are elicited in

specific practices within such voices, and to come into valuable results, they should be translated in to

production language. To satisfy this end there is a urgent need to, another technique called Quality

function development - QFD ". Voice of the customer is different from traditional market research,

market study, is a method based on numerical data and uses statistical or inference tools while the voice

of the customer, is a method based on nominal data such as intuition. Not only it play great role for

intuitions and perceptions, but also is much more flexible compared to other methods. However to

achieve voice of customer, one-dimensional view is not enough. In an earlier time, customers were

viewed satisfaction on the one-dimensional aspect, which means that the higher quality of the product

received by the customer, the higher increased customer satisfaction and vice versa. Note that it to meet

needs of a particular product, by far, is not necessarily entail an increase in customer satisfaction.on the

other hand, demands type and size affect products quality and hence customers satisfactions. Professor

Noriaki et. al (1984) introduced a model called the Kano model of customer satisfaction that this model is

capable to distinguish three three product requirements which will have an impact on customers

satisfaction. The Kano model, divides the quality characteristics of the product into three classes, each

class represents a given set of customers' demands. They include basic, functional, attractive and

motivational. According to a survey conducted studies on receiving voice of customers it can be

concluded that the while eliciting phase, customer needs do not follow a specific pattern and the different

needs of the customers are not considered. One of the patterns apparently assists us to achieve customer is

to adopt Kano model to extract and determine the needs of the customers. In the meantime, customers can

not only getting customer's views and attitudes not lead us to success in today's competitive marketplace.

So there is urgent need to take advantage of other models to meet customer needs as considered their

input and compares it with others, including the terms and conditions of engineering needs and to identify

needs and priorities derived from these compounds, to get successful organizations in order to respond to

the voice of the customer. The most promising model used in this context is house of quality model along

with quality function development. The first planning tool used in QFD is house of quality.   House of

quality of service for costumers works based on the customer's requirements. Many managers and

engineers utilize house of quality as a first diagram and tool to found quality. In addition, one of the key

areas in which industry plays an important role is the automotive industry. More successful automakers in

their works the faster economic growth will be. The economy depends heavily on the performance of this

industry, and they play a vital role in this regard.

One of the most important issues in the automotive service is voice of customers. Automotive industry

executives are in need of a good model to hear the voice of customers. Given that several different models

on hearing voice customers have been purposed (Kano - House of Quality) the combined approach to

hear the voice of the customer is the subject of this study and in this industry what kind of customer needs

and engineering requirements should be taken into account to achieve customer satisfaction? What is

prioritization for such demands ?In developed countries, permanent contacts to customers is the primary

priority and at the forefront of all marketing plans and service providers of all types and in this respect,

never single selling to costumer is not enough. The important point on process of customer interaction is

that in case of the dissatisfaction and his refusal to repurchase the goods all the mechanisms in acts in

reverse manner in manner that disrupts the production planning and reducing suppliers revenue and profit

and eventually manufacturer bankrupting. Marketing expert's surveys indicate that dissatisfied customers

outperform in transferring experience to others. Or it can be concluded that the profits of the business,

requires customers repurchase process. Since those customers who are proud of having the goods or

services, encourage their relatives to use those services. Hence (the process of customer satisfaction) is of

utmost importance.

While the Customerism life and customers orientation date back to five decades, this phenomenon has

become a major concern of organizations worldwide and is responsible for the daily management and  

That's why customer orientation is strengthening and Today, the number of companies that put customer

satisfaction as an indicator of performance are enhancing as well. As more companies selected customer

satisfaction and customer loyalty rate as an indicator of the performance of the product or service of their

choice and in many organizations it is used as an indicator of future corporation status (Whittle and

Lofgern 2005 page 15).In recent decades, in many companies a strategy of market share of customer

satisfaction and loyalty, have been changed, as mentioned earlier, to attract a new customers costs 5 times

for maintain him/her. This change is strategic thinking based on the concept that customer satisfaction is

the best indicator for future access to the customer's satisfaction in turn led to more loyal customers for

organization. So given the theoretical principles studied in this research we aimed to investigate and

provide a model to meet customer needs based on the voice of customer.

Research Objectives

(1) The identification of customers' demands on Saipa Diesel companies based on the triple requires of

the Kano model.

(2) The identification of requirements and engineering needs to meet to customer needs.

(3) Weighting and ranking customer needs in a hierarchical analysis method.

(4) To prioritize based on a combination of technical engineering requirements and needs in responding to

customer needs in respect to customers' demands for Saipa Diesel Company.

Methodology and measurement tool

The study was a descriptive survey, and in case of nature is applied in terms of aim in which population

include 59 sales and technical experts of these 28 experts were belonged to marketing department and 31

experts were involved in technical units of Saipa Diesel company.

In this study, due to limited statistical subjects, the census sampling was considered. To literature review,

library method such as books and scientific journals, and to extract the parameters and options in addition

to the study of literature review, expert opinions on subject was used. To determine The customer needs

and technical requirements needed to meet the demands of Customers primarily through interviews and

Feedback from 5 Ma (managers and assistants) commercial unit and 5 Ma (managers and deputies) from

the engineering were used to determine the needs and requirements, where number of 13 questions were

designed.It should be noted that these questions are given in terms of three types of requirements posed

by the Kano model.

According to experts, the main consumer unit 4 as the major needs and 5 other elements as well as

functional requirements and other requirements for the four types   for the motivational needs of the

customers were considered.  Determine the basic elements and requirements for responding to customers'

needs developed by business unit was used based which their views and 10 elements for meeting these

demands were considered and then the elements to meet customer needs and engineering requirements in

the form of a separate questionnaires for each statistical distribution of these units (experts) were

developed.

And for each one of questions for experts to what extent elements obtained are significant in the range of

5 options Likert scale systems have been used in the options from completely disagree to completely

agree with the 5 options, with scores of 1 to 5.

Validity and reliability of questionnaires

The both questionnaire's validity was confirmed by unit's senior experts and In order to assess the

reliability of the questionnaire the alpha Cronbach coefficient was calculated.  The 20 copies of each

questionnaire designed to test the statistical population.SPSS software output for Cronbach's alpha on

both variables showed that customers' needs and engineering requirements were conformed, to

coefficients of 0.83 and 0.72. After this stage and extracting main elements, the House of Quality matrix

was completed for options assessment. The Specified requirements in client's demands section, according

to the experts, numbers of 13 items were determined, and then items were divided based on the Kano

model into three spectrums of needs as the following:

Requirements type Questionnaires to determine customer demands

Functional requirement Products diversity is low

Functional requirement High price

Functional requirement No environmental pollution in long term

Basic requirements Suitable interaction to customers

Basic requirements Returns or fix possible defects

Motivational requirements Cheap leasing facilities

Functional requirement Low fuel price

Functional requirement post-sales service quality and golden warranty

Motivational requirements Installment trucks

Basic requirements Updated sale information or service delivery

Basic requirements Truck delivery according to schedule

Motivational requirements Golden card

Motivational requirements abroad Vehicle traffic

Table 1 customer demands for Saipa Diesel company Also in requirements for an appropriate meeting to

the demands of customers, 10 criteria were described in Table 2: Table 2: Engineering Requirements Data

Analysis In this study, data analysis focused on four main categories: demographic analysis of 2-

descriptive statistical analysis and questionnaires inferential data analysis 3-weighting and rating

customer needs 4- - completing house of quality and AHP data analysis. Based on this, the descriptive

analysis of the questionnaire data were investigate the central and distribution indices according to

customer needs and single sample T test was considered to of the approval or disapproval formulating

questions in the questionnaire. Also AHP analytic hierarchical techniques were used experts in the

business units using paired comparisons and set of elements based on spectral 9 Saatchi spectra demands

rating were prioritized, and the final step is to complete a quality home matrix to prioritize engineering

requirements to meet customer demands.

Findings

1-Demographic specifications: Sociological characteristics of the study sample in the separation of

business and engineering units are given in Table 3.

Table 3: Demographic specifications

Engineering unit Business unit

variable frequency percent frequency percent

gender male 19 67.85% 31 100%

female 9 32.14% 0 0%

age 3 10.71% 5 16.1%

10 35.7% 10 32.25%

8 39.6% 12 38.70%

4 14.28% 4 12.9%

education diploma 0 12% 0 0%

Associate 0 15% 0 0%

B.SC. 19 67.85% 20 64.5%

M.S.c 9 32.14% 11 35.48%

5 17.85 6 19.35%

N Questionnaires to determine technical and

engineering demands

1 Technology transfer to the Italian Fiat or Ford

America

2 Exchange facilities

3 Feedback system

4 Hundred percent inspection workstation

5 Bargain with banks to reduce fees and interest rate

6 Hire skilled experts

7 Banks facilities

8 Offering integrated informing system

9 Applying comprehensive schedule

10 ISO 14001 and international standards

9 32.14% 9 29%

7 25% 11 35.48%

7 25% 5 16.13%

2 Descriptive and inferential analysis of customer demands

In this section the descriptive and inferential statistical analysis on the questionnaire were adopted

N Mean S.d

Question 1 28 3.48 1.025

Question 2 28 3.69 0.875

Question 3 28 1.236 2.91

Question 4 28 1.044 3.45

Question 5 28 1.191 3.53

Question 6 28 1/074 3.93

Question 7 28 1.026 3.07

Question 8 28 1.087 3.44

Question 9 28 0.960 3.75

Question 10 28 1.022 3.43

Question 11 28 0.916 3.55

Question 12 28 0.820 2.63

Question 13 28 1.052 3.47

Results of a descriptive analysis of the customer requirements is presented in Table 4

The following description is given: Table 4: Descriptive analysis of customer needs scores

According to Table 4, it becomes clear that those questions 3, 7 and 12 scored less than numeric value 3,

the average option i.e. it seems that participants in this study did not approved by the business

department. To investigate this inferential analysis was used.

In Table 5 the single-sample T-test analysis was studied In this analysis where the decision criterion is

equal to 3.

Null hypothesis: The data average for the study questions are ≤ 3.

Alternative hypothesis: The data average for the study questions are > 3.

Table 5: inferential Analysis of customer needs scores

Decision criterion-3

Question 1 T value df significance

Question 2 2498 27 0.019

Question 3 4222 27 0.000

Question 4 -0375 27 0.711

Question 5 2.324 27 0.028

Question 6 2373 27 0.025

Question 7 1926 27 0.045

Question 8 0.478 27 0.636

Question 9 2.182 27 0.038

Question 10 4.130 27 0.000

Question 11 2.264 27 0.032

Question 12 3.206 27 0.003

Question 13 -2.384 27 0.064

Question 2 2.382 27 0.024

According to the results in Table 5, it is clear that the significance level of the test results   for needs of 7,

3, and 12 are more than the standard error is large (p> 1815) is therefore null hypothesis  was confirmed.

In other words, in terms of audience research questions did not approved by the Business unit and cannot

serves as as determinant questions for customer needs for the company during this period. Thus in each of

the sections or Kano model is not taken into account in this interval. The numbers of main elements for

10 elements are discussed in this section.

3-Descriptive and inferential analysis of engineering requirements

Descriptive analysis for engineering requirements and technical measures intended to separate the items

considered in the table is as follows.

Table 6: Descriptive analysis engineering requirements scores

N mean Sd

Question 1 31 4.001 0.925

Question 2 31 3.803 0.872

Question 3 31 3.672 0.041

Question 4 31 3.754 1.137

Question 5 31 3.879 0.909

Question 6 31 4.103 1.018

Question 7 31 4.048 0.851

Question 8 31 3.866 0.919

Question 9 31 3.630 0.894

Question 10 31 3.767 1.062

According to Table 6, it is clear that the total average rate for Questionnaire questions to  engineering

demands is greater than 3, and to control the reliability, results obtained from analysis and statistical

analysis are used. Similar to customer needs in Table 7, inferential statistical analysis based on single-

sample Student t test was considered where the decision criterion equals to 3.

Null hypothesis: The data average for the study questions on engineering requirements are ≤ 3.

Alternative hypothesis: The data average for the study questions on engineering requirements > 3.

Table 7: Descriptive analysis of engineering requirements score

Decision criterion-3

Question 1 T value 30 significance

Question 2 6.024 30 0.000

Question 3 5.124 30 0.000

Question 4 3.962 30 0.001

Question 5 5.382 30 0.001

Question 6 6.029 30 0.000

Question 7 6.853 30 0.000

Question 8 5.247 30 0.000

Question 9 3.926 30 0.000

Question 10 4.025 30 0.000

According to the a significance level of 0.05 calculated for the engineering requirements is smaller than

0.05 it becomes clear that all developed questions in this section have been approved by the technical

experts and hence are used in house of quality model.

Ranking customer requirements by AHP

In this study, the questionnaire paired comparisons are used to rank the importance of customer needs by

five MSc experts in Business Unit. Ranking by paired comparisons of the present study to determine the

importance of contacts and customers' needs are presented in Table 8.

Table 8: Results of commons paired comparisons in customer satisfaction.

Given that the inconsistency rate is smaller than 0.01, so the ranking seems to be valid and reliable.

Accordingly, suitable price and Timing and truck delivery according to schedule and post-sales quality of

service were ranked in first to third in comparison to other elements in higher difference. Then, according

to the weighting to the customer's requirements considering customers' requirements to Saipa Diesel and

engineering factors needed to meet to these needs, we can combine these needs with each other through

the matrix to determine priorities as well as integrate combined prioritize voice of customers.

Accordingly, the final step is to assess the quality of the house. Completing House of Quality Matrix for

10 customers' demands, 10 technical characteristics were determined and the relationship matrix between

them was formed according to figure 1.

Left and upper row represent matrix for house of quality and technical requirements. Also, right column

shows weight matrix calculated based on a hierarchical analysis technique presented to each customer's

needs. For house of quality three symbols and characterized with 1.3 and 9 are used to

represent strong, moderate and weak relationship between customers' demands and technical;

requirements. For example, if engineering requirements do not meet customer needs completely it scored

with 9. To determine the absolute importance of engineering and technical, Engineering Requirements

weight is multiplied to each customer demands in matrix column by customer needs weight (right column

matrix). Accordingly, the Table 1 for the calculation of absolute importance (AI) requirements is

combined with customer needs as following:

AI=[0.308*9)+(0.509*9)+(0.019*1)]=7.538

Hence, the combined ranking is as Table 1. When the absolute importances of re-calculated values are

equalized the relative importance (RI) becomes:

RI=[7.538/(7.538+9,27+1,864+0,768+7,566+0,762+8,894+3,855+4.3+0.502)-16.62

Table 1: quality of house Matrix based on customer demands and technical requirements

Concluding remarks

According to the results of research, Saipa Diesel Company should use quality of house matrix to

prioritize and meet the needs of their customers. Accordingly engineering priority are suitable to satisfy

Saipa Diesel company demands in engineering unit in order to achieve customer satisfaction and loyalty

to following should be taken into account: Technology transfer to the Italian Fiat or Ford America-

Exchange facilities- Feedback system- Hundred percent inspection workstation- Bargain with banks to

reduce fees and interest rate- Hiring skilled experts- Banks facilities- Offering integrated informing

system- Applying comprehensive schedule- ISO 14001 and international standards

Suggestions

1. Given the findings of this research some perspectives are offered in order to achieve satisfaction

and loyalty of customers in Saipa Diesel Company:

2. To provide greater convenience and easier facilities to persuade customers to buy products.

3. Prices setting or clarifications in this regard to improve trust and customer loyalty

4. To develop guidelines and rules of client rights

5. To present a plan for facilities services community by

6. To make relationships with customers.

7. to present integrated information management systems-

8. To employ experienced and professional forces

9. to meet safety and environmental standards

10. To offer guarantee of service

11. To diversified products

12. To fix defects and returns possibility

13. To province leasing services

14. to pave the way for the conditions installment purchase

15. updated information within site

16. Vehicle delivery scheduling

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