Middle-East Journal of Scientific Research 12 (8): 1111-1118, 2012ISSN 1990-9233© IDOSI Publications, 2012DOI: 10.5829/idosi.mejsr.2012.12.8.1639

Corresponding Author: Muhammad Imran Qureshi, Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS Institute of InformationTechnology, Abbottabad, Pakistan.

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Quality Function Deployment in Higher Education Institutes of Pakistan

Muhammad Imran Qureshi, Khalid Khan, Mansoor Nazir Bhatti, Aamir Khan and Khalid Zaman

Department of Management Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad, Pakistan

Abstract: Quality of higher education is its ability to produce a steady flow of people with high intelligenceand commitment to learning that will continue the process of transmission and advancement of knowledge.Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is one of the Total Quality Management (TQM) techniques which can beapplied for process and design improvement. This study uses QFD as a tool for quality improvement andbenchmarking in higher education institutions of Pakistan. The study is based on primary data collected fromfive hundred students which is considered as customers and five hundred teachers, considered as technicaldescribers from six Pakistani national degree awarding universities. A self designed questionnaire was usedfor data collection. The data was analyzed using the techniques of QFD on higher education institutes ofPakistan. On the basis of these feedback, a house of quality is developed, which highlighted the majorconcerned areas of quality improvements in teaching and also highlighted some benchmarks where otherinstitutions are more productive.

Key words: Quality Function Deployment Higher education Relationship matrix House of quality Pakistan

INTRODUCTION rest [9, 10]. Educations services are often difficult to

Quality is the most important factor of competition outcome are in the transformation of knowledge inworldwide and this competition intensified the demand for individuals, change in their characteristics and behavior.quality products and services. To meet these challenges, Therefore, there is no mutually accepted definition ofmany businesses have adopted the strategies of total quality which can be applied to the higher educationquality management (TQM). TQM is effort to achieve sector specifically [11].quality organization-wide. TQM refers to managing Further more, in assessing quality of higherquality aspirations which involves every department to education institutions, issues like autonomy andachieve excellence in business, with regard to customer independence make complications for the whole processsatisfaction. TQM focuses on the improvement of quality [12]. In this context, each country has accreditationof products and services in business corporations [1, 2], agencies that are assessing the quality of educationorganizations of health care [3] and also at government offered by the higher education institutions byagencies level [4]. To meet the needs of quality in accrediting and evaluating their degrees and also theeducation, higher education institutions have also educational work offered by the universities. However,adopted TQM principles to improve the education quality these agencies have not influenced the quality perception[5, 6, 7]. in the education sector and didn’t clarify the main issues

Universities are the main source of provision of on the assessment of quality of institutes [13]. Quality inhigher education, so they are very concerned about their higher education institutions is not a simple issue [14].quality of services to bring a quality product in market [8]. This purpose of the study is to measure theUniversities strive to improve the quality of their determinants of service quality within the Highereducation system which makes them distinctive from the Education sector of Khyber Pakhtoonkhawa (KPK)

measure because of they are intangibles, because the

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province of Pakistan. Furthermore, the study focuses on so more complications arise to define the quality inestablishing and testing dimensions to measure service sector [27] owing to the properties thatservice quality in higher education institutions which differentiates services from goods. However, when mostassess the student’s preferences and perceptions of the quality definitions are applied to services sectorregarding the available educational services. This study usually turn to customer-centered [27], so customeris organized as follows: after introduction in section 1, satisfaction is considered as a function of perceivedliterature review is carried out in section 2. Research quality [23].methodology is mentioned in section 3. Result and A definition for the “quality in education” falls in thediscussion is provided in section 4. Final section category of the general quality definition. Thus, differentconcludes the study. researchers defined the term in their own way like

Literature Review: The word “Quality” is actually derived education” by [17]; “fitness of educational outcome andfrom the Latin word which is “qualis”, means, “what kind experience for use” by [18]; “conformance of educationof”. As quality has a variety of connotations and output to planned goals, specifications and requirements”meanings attached to it that’s why quality is a sort of by [29, 30]; “defect avoidance in the education process”difficult term to define. It is usually referred as a “slippery by [19]; and “meeting or exceeding customer’sconcept” [15]. The term quality is defined from different expectations of education” by [14]. Thus Quality inorientations and perspectives, according to the definition Education has variability of concepts and this createsmaking at individual level, the applied measures and with problem in formulating a single and much comprehensivereference to the context within which it is taken [16]. definition. According to Sahney et al. [31, p.3], theDifferent researchers defined quality differently like, definition of TQM in Education as follows:Peters and Waterman, 1995 defined quality as“excellence”, according to Feigenbaum, [17], quality is “Total quality management in education is multi-“value”, Juran and Gryna, [18], defined as “fitness for faceted. It includes within its ambit the quality ofuse”, according to Crosby, [19], quality is “conformance inputs in the form of students, faculty, support staffto requirements”, “defect avoidance” [20] and [14, defined and infrastructure; the quality of processes in thequality as “meeting and/or exceeding customers form of the learning and teaching activity; and theexpectations. quality of outputs in the form of the enlightened

As TQM is currently widely practiced but in fact a students that move out of the system.”single and a homogenous theory and concept of TQM islacking. While in theories, broadly in compliance with one Like in other services sector, education sectoranother, it’s been noted a significant differences do exist. stakeholders consist of students, staff, faculty,TQM is of course considered as a tool to underpin the organizations, parents and society - so they all have anfacilitation of quality. TQM seem to be explained in terms interest to deliver quality of education being byof the organizational culture to “quality” and further educational institutions. According to Madu et al. [32]improvements. From the consumers/users point of view, customers can be classified into input customers,defining quality on the basis of product or service is transformation customers and output customers. So inconsidered more useful. education system parents and students can be

However, if we put light on quality from the categorized as input customers, faculty and staff can beperspective of the organization which provides goods or treated as transformation customers and outputservices, the perspective more relevant to TQM, is customers are corporations and the society. Customers ofreferred to the process-perspective which is more useful. higher education can be classified into two groups i.e.,In quality management, organizations need to have a primary and secondary groups usually done on the basisproper mechanism to meet customer expectations and of their locations like internal or external and on the basisrequirements within available resources. The last decade of frequency of interactions between institution andof the century has observed the increase in acceptance customers [10]. Educator is the primary internal customerand utilization of TQM in the services sector [21], and the student is considered as the secondary internalespecially considering service quality as an important customer. The students are considered as the primaryfactor of growth, organizational survival and success external customer and their parents as secondary external[22, 23, 24, 25]. Just like quality is difficult to define [26], customers.

“excellence in education” by [28]; “value addition in

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In appraising the previous studies, higher education [39 examined that how to make students’ evaluationsinstitutions have a number of complementary and also of teaching more effective. According to the researchers,contradictory “customers”. However it is also essential they found that students’ evaluation of teaching isthat customers should be identified and then processes multidimensional, stable, reliable, related with instructorsbe established accordingly in order to find out the specific and unaffected by factors like workload, class size,needs and also to maintain customer-oriented service module difficulty, etc. Similarly, researchers like [36] have[33, 34]. It is important to identify the customer’s used the tool of quality function deployment (QFD),requirements in order to better satisfy them. The customer mainly for services sector, to transfer the voice ofrequirements are referred to the expectations made by customers (students) in stages into operationscustomers from an educational system. The design requirements. [40] presented a systematic approach forcharacteristics are referred as the design elements that the courses development process, which focuses mainlycontribute to make a system and then act on or are acted on student satisfaction and learning. The technique QFDon by the transformation system. If a higher educational is also used by some other researchers like [41, 42], whereinstitution adopts and implements the components/ QFD is complemented by Analytical Hierarchical Processelements and then designs its system considering these (AHP) for creating priorities after applying “Voices ofas bases, the requirements made by various customers Customer” and for each group of customer separately.should be met easily and educational system will providesatisfaction. MATERIALS AND METHODS

The debate on the crucial and important role ofservice quality in Higher Education Institutions and its Quality Function Deployment (QFD) is a structuredmeasurement has been discussed in a number of studies. method for listening to the customers and optimizingA most commonly approach for evaluating quality in designs, materials and processes to ensure the customers’Higher Education Institutions is called quality function expectations are best satisfied. Quality functiondeployment (QFD). QFD is one of the important tool of deployment (QFD) is a method to transform user demandstotal quality management (TQM), which is most often into design quality, to deploy the functions formingused for process and design improvement [35, 36, 31]. quality and to deploy methods for achieving the designThe main purpose of QFD is to visualize the cause-and- quality into subsystems and component parts andeffect relationships taking a start from the customer needs ultimately to specific elements of the manufacturingand then all the way down till the production process. process, as described by [43]. QFD is designed to helpNumber of reports has documented the benefits and planners focus on characteristics of a new or existingresults gained by adopting TQM principles in many product or service from the viewpoints of marketcolleges and universities [36]. QFD is a structured segments, company, or technology-development needs.approach to find out the customer requirements, The technique yields graphs and matrices. QFD helpsspecified with products and service design. The benefits transform customer needs (the voice of the customerof design are focused on customer requirements, [VOC]) into engineering characteristics (and appropriateprioritizing design activities and it also reduces the design test methods) for a product or service, prioritizing eachcycle. product or service characteristic while simultaneously

QFD is referred as a process which includes (a) setting development targets for product or service.identifying and ranking the relative importance of The present study focus the customers demandcustomer requirements; (b) identifying design parameters (students perceptions about teaching quality) and its(or engineering characteristics) that contribute to the relationship with teachers requirements from thecustomer requirements; (c) estimating the relationship institution. Data is collected through the feedback ofbetween design parameters and customer requirements questionnaire filled by the five hundred students and fiveand among different design parameters and (d) setting hundred teachers of different universities of Pakistan.target values for the design parameters to best satisfy Students requirement are categorized as:customer requirements. A QFD matrix which is also calledhouse of quality is used to help the decision makers to Knowledgemake the design decisions and predict the right one. QFD Use of instructional materialhas been successfully used for both product and service Practical skillsdesign by many organizations [20, 37, 38]. Appreciation

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Motivation from teacherPractical experienceOpportunitySelf regulated learningFeed backTeacher personality

While Teachers Requirements are categorized though:

KnowledgeCommunication skillsPerformance evaluationCourse DevelopmentLearning EnvironmentWork loadEncouragementFlexible workingMethodologyQuality Standards

On the basis of students and teachers requirement,the present study develops a framework of house ofquality.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONS

The following steps are used to construct house ofquality i.e.,

Table 1: Demanded Quality from Customers

Table 2: Customer Rating

Table 3: Customer’s Competition

Step 1: Customer Requirement: The first step in QFD isto analyze the customers and develops the questionnaireregarding teachers which is considered as a technicalexpert and student as customer requirement. Followinginformation is gathered from the customers by distributingthese questionnaires which shown in QFD matrix 1.

Step 2: Data Gathering from Customers: Thequestionnaires were distributed among students fromEngineering and management departments of differentuniversities. A total of 500 questionnaires were found tobe complete and valid for analysis from the student side.

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Table 4: Relationship Matrix Symbols

Table 5: Correlation matrix scale and symbols usedDescription Scales SymbolsStrong positive correlation 0.5--1 ++Positive correlation 0--0.5 +Negative correlation -0.5--0 -Strong negative correlation -1-- -5

Step 3: Sampling Technique: The present study usedconvenient sampling technique for data gathering andcollecting response from students as well as teachers ofdifferent departments.

Step 4: Customer Rating: On a scale from 1-10, customersthen rate the importance of each requirement. Thesescales will be used later in the relationship matrix,however, it depicts in Table 2.

Step 5: Customer’s Competition: In the next step of QFDprocess, customer rates their competition with the otheruniversities which are shown in Table 3.

Step 6: Technical Descriptors - "Voice of the Teachers”:The study further develops the questionnaire for thetechnical descriptors to know their needs in order tomeasure the quality performance.

Step 7: Data Gathering from Technical Descriptors:The questionnaires were distributed among Faculty.A total of 29 questionnaires were found to be completeand valid for analysis from the teacher.

Table 6: QFD Matrix for Quality Dimensions

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Step 8: Relationship Matrix: The study determines the REFERENCESrelationship between the variables on QFD matrix in termsof symbols which representing scales, then assign signsto them.

Strong relationMedium relationWeak relation

Table 4 shows the symbols for relationship matrix.

Step 9: Organizational Difficulties: Rate theorganizational difficulties that is basically ‘technicalexpert’ responses which ranges from 0 to 10.

Step 10: Correlation Matrix: In final step, the studycalculates correlation coefficient between technicalrequirements. The description of correlation matrix isgiven in Table 5.

The most commonly used categories of ‘strong’,‘medium', ‘weak’ and no relationship with the values of9, 3, 1 and 0 respectively were applied. In order to rank thespecified enablers according to students and teachers.The importance rating given by each group wereconsidered in the Table 6, the importance rating weremultiplied by weight and accumulated to give an overallscore for each process. The result of the QFD applicationshows very high score for 1 enablers; it can be attributedst

to the fact that knowledge is the most important aspectfrom the customer point of view for each process.

CONCLUSION

QFD is a useful technique for the improvements inquality in the manufacturing industry; however, it doesnot mean that its effectiveness can be neglected in theservice industry as well. Modern research showed itseffectiveness in the service industry. Higher educationinstitutions have a concern with their quality improvementand these institutions are continuously looking newmethodologies for the betterment of their teaching quality.The present study used QFD as a tool for improvement ofteaching quality and also for the Benchmarking toimprove their overall quality. QFD assessment showed thecomparison of different universities in certain areas oftheir quality teaching. Result shows the area in which auniversity is performing best, so other universities canuse this performance as a benchmark for theirimprovement in certain area.

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