Improving the Rationale Capture Capability of QFD

The goals of Design Rationale Capture (DRC) are improving design quality and reducing design time. These general goals have led to the design of many DRC techniques originating from research in various design and other related disciplines. However, little evidence about attaining these goals or about their usability or utility in practice has been demonstrated. To improve this situation, we use QFD tools to design a new DRC technique. QFD can be used to transform general needs into working products; its practical utility in improving design quality and reducing overall design time are widely recognised. In the course of using QFD, significant design knowledge is generated and recorded. Consequently, we picked QFD as a candidate DRC technique, and used QFD itself to improve its DRC proper-ties. The utility of QFD as a DRC tool is illustrated by using it to capture the rationale underlying its own design.