Can a House Without a Foundation Support Design? Available to Purchase

The House of Quality is a popular tool that supports information processing and decision making in the engineering design process. While its application is an aid in conceptual aspects of the design process, its use as a quantitative decision support tool in engineering design is potentially flawed. This flaw is a result of assumptions behind the methodology of the House of Quality and is viewed as an important deficiency that can lead to potentially invalid and poor decisions. In this paper this deficiency and its implications are explored both experimentally and empirically. The resulting conclusions are important to future use and improvement of the House of Quality as an engineering design tool.