This, however, became a possibility only after the development of advanced quality improvement concepts and methodologies such as Six Sigma. Six Sigma started out as a means to deliver quality improvements in existing business processes, but over the years many new branches were added to it - one of the most noteworthy being DFSS, short for Design For Six Sigma.

Since its inception, DFSS has catered specifically to the design and development of new products and services and still continues to do the same, albeit much more successfully than earlier.

What Exactly Is DFSS?

DFSS is quite similar to other popular Six Sigma methodologies, with the only difference that it is deployed only when there is a need for the design and development of a new product or service.

In effect, we can say that DFSS treats the design and development of a new product or service as a business process and tries to make improvements in that process using Six Sigma concepts and methodologies.

DFSS has been quite successful, probably because it stresses understanding customer needs and expectations prior to the actual development of a product or service. This helps a lot-, obviously because when customer needs, requirements, and expectations are integrated into a new product or service, it significantly reduces the probability that the product or service will fail to generate the requisite interest among the target audience.

This is why many products and services backed by DFSS have turned out to be huge successes.

Explaining the DFSS Process

The DFSS process starts with the collection of critical data and information related to customer needs and expectations as applicable to the basic design or nature of a given product or service.

The data, most of which is usually based on human emotions, is then classified, analyzed, processed and quantified in order to make it usable for the design and development of the targeted product or service. The thing to remember here is that only the most comprehensive of needs and expectations are targeted, obviously because there can never be a product or service that can suit all the varying tastes and preferences of potential customers.

Once comprehensive needs and expectations have been identified, DFSS then tries to integrate those in the targeted product or service design.

Just like other Six Sigma methodologies, DFSS is also a continuous process. It happens to be continuous because customer needs, requirements and expectations are things that keep changing with time.

In effect, we can say that the DFSS process stops only when a new product or service achieves its targeted goals - and when it may not be possible to make any more productive quality improvements.

That's the stage when the search for a completely new product or service starts all over again, resulting in the need for DFSS.