allel approach has been chosen. If we only had to consider quality from
a customer point of view, the quality function deployment would end
after this phase; however, we do have to take both cost, safety and re-
liability into account at all levels in phase I and II. In this connection,
phase III and IV are conditioned on phase I and II. Phase III and IV in-
clude all the dependent variables that are important to the grower and
society. Cost and yield may be related to varieties and productions
process (as rows below matrix II) and to the combination, in this case
the alternatives A-C (in a new matrix). It is also possible to include tar-
get costs and then try to develop production processes that satisfy this
criterion. Correspondingly, the safety and reliability deployment is the
systematic assessment of all aspects of the QFD process on these crite-
ria; HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) principles
may be used to identify the criteria. In the case of primary production,
the reliability of the cost criteria could be included in the cost matrix as
well. After completing the four phases, production and quality assurance
planning follows.
In reality many decisions are conflicting. With QFD as a model for
product development the choice of, e.g., the variety of a special culture
would be conditioned on whether the variety possesses attributes that
the consumer and the other customers appreciate, and whether the vari-
ety can be grown with a reasonable stable yield and profit for the grower.
In the same way, new varieties and agricultural processes will be eval-
uated according to the defined quality characteristics. Both examples
may be contrary to the traditional company-driven approach where pri-
mary economic and agricultural decision criteria would be used.
Example—House of Quality for Strategic Peas
This example (Bech et al., 1997a) is part of a large research project
named “Strategic peas.” The results are analyzed at both the measure-
ment level and the latent level. As there is good agreement between the
analyses, only the measurement level is reported here. With reference
to Figure 11.3, this example is a part of the upper-right central rela-
tionship matrix where we have the consumer needs and perception of
good sensory quality of deep-frozen green peas translated into sensory
attributes, measurable by traditional sensory descriptive analysis (Hoot-
man, 1992).
It is assumed that the translation of consumers’ perception of the sen-