Constructing the complete linguistic-based and gap-oriented quality function deployment

This study attempts to construct a novel quality function deployment (QFD) model under a pure linguistic environment by assessing customer needs, evaluating the relationship between customer needs and solution schemes, and prioritizing the solution schemes. Customer needs that are difficult to quantify can be properly characterized using linguistic variables. The tolerance capacity of the results can also further enhance by the linguistic QFD, especially in the gap generated when converting customer needs to solution schemes. Hence, the essence for the proposed approach differs from the common numerical or approximate linguistic QFD model. Operation of the linguistic QFD is described in detail using an algorithm and simple example.