A three‐dimensional service HOQ based on economic perspective

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to establish a three‐dimensional service house of quality (HOQ). The new service HOQ adds a dimension of quality economics to solve the problems of economic evaluation in the process of transferring customer requirements into service characteristics by traditional HOQ.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the traditional two‐dimensional HOQ, this paper constructs a three‐dimension service HOQ by adding an economic dimension into the traditional structure, so that the transformation process from customer requirements into service characteristics can be evaluated with quality economic perspective. The key concern of this new model is to balance the quality improvement and economic gain of a service. The other improvement of this paper is that it uses structural equations to present the coefficient matrix in the new HOQ model to avoid human errors in the evaluation. A case study is used to verify the effectiveness of the new model.

Findings

Quality gains and costs should be considered in service design and quality improvement. The three‐dimensional service HOQ uses the dimension of quality economics to balance customer requirements and service characteristics, which is more effective than the traditional one.

Practical implications

The method exposed in the paper can be used by service companies for decision making in service design and quality improvement.

Originality/value

This paper establishes a new three‐dimensional HOQ, by which quality economics can be effectively analyzed in service design and quality improvement.

Citation

Zhang, Z. and Wang, Y. (2012), "A three‐dimensional service HOQ based on economic perspective", Kybernetes, Vol. 41 No. 5/6, pp. 725-735. https://doi.org/10.1108/03684921211243374