The ALPHA Timer Development Project $($A$)$

Roger Terry hurried down the hallway toward the planning meeting for the ALPHA timer product development project. Terry had served

as project manager for the initial stage of the ALPHA single$-$block product development, and he was now preparing to start the follow$-$on

development activities.

The ALPHA timer development project was a major effort for Doorley Controls, Inc., to develop a new platform design for its washing

machine timer control mechanism. The project was started with a conscious strategy to gain market position with Doorley's key customers:

Whirlpool, Maytag, and Frigidaire. The idea was to create a new core product design to increase sales to Whirlpool. Doorley planned to

replace multiple existing timers with a lower cost, single product platform with enhancements. While existing timers were made with

numerous plastic and metal parts requiring a lot of hand assembly, the ALPHA would be made mostly of molded plastic parts, assembled

by automation. The product concept also included a unique feature called quiet cycle$-$select, which allowed the user to index the control

shaft quietly. The idea for it came out of Doorley's internal quality function deployment $($QFD$)$ analysis. The results of the ALPHA QFD

analysis are shown below.