Puritan-Bennett is a manufacturer of medical test equipment.9 In the early 1990s, its PB900A spirometer (equipment to

Question:

Puritan-Bennett is a manufacturer of medical test equipment.9 In the early 1990s, its PB900A spirometer (equipment to measure lung capacity; see the left photo below) was rapidly losing market share to a competitor€™s product, which was simpler and half its price. Puritan-Bennett decided to use Quality Function Deployment to redesign PB9G0A. It surveyed its customers (pulmonologists, allergists, and nurses) to identify customer needs. A total of 26 customer needs were identified. Puritan-Bennett€™s product design team translated these into 56 design attributes (technical requirements). Here, we will consider a small subset of the customer needs. The following customer needs were most important (importance is in brackets): product is affordable (150), provides accurate readings (100), eliminates technician (administrator) variability (140), is easy to operate (13 0), and is sanitary (108). Prepare a house of quality with five customer requirements. Determine one technical requirement for each customer requirement and fill it in. Relate the pair by a checkmark. Determine a reasonable target value for each technical characteristic and fill it in. (The redesigned spirometer, PB100, shown in tire right photo below, was 1/10th the size and 1/15th tire weight of PB900A, shown at left.)