Product design development by integrating QFD approach with heuristics - AHP, ANN and fuzzy logics - a case study in miniature circuit breaker

Quality function deployment is a customer oriented approach which captures customer voices and subsume these in the final product. In this paper, a case study has been stated on MCBs. In this case study, the author and co‐author tried to prioritise the needs of the customer through the AHP technique. Then with expertise of technical personnel they converted these raw voices into technical aspects. The HOQ formulated by the author and co‐author has led to the establishment of vague qualitative relationships between WHAT'S and HOW'S for which they aptly used fuzzy logics to quantify them with certainty. The customer comparison ratings between case study firm and its competitive firm is precisely given through ANN technique which are parallel computational models comprised of densely interconnected adaptive processing units. An additional column in QFD is added describing % improvement required in the particular technical aspect of the product for its enhancement and augments its utility among its customers.