This book serves as a good starting point for QFD topics. For instance, the topics relating to software QFD, management support of QFD and TRIZ are not found in something like Cohen's "Quality Function Deployment: How to Make QFD Work for You" (Cohen's book is a reasonably good tutorial). But Revelle's book serves as a resource for some initial ideas on how to apply QFD to strategic and daily tasks. As with all QFD books that I have seen, there are almost no real-life examples. In this book, you will find one semi-real example that the author applied to his service-related business (Japanese translating).

The chapters on management support of QFD are good, but not as helpful to someone trying to bootstrap QFD techniques into a organization. I don't believe that one must have much top management support in a larger organization in order to introduce QFD - a more realistic approach would be to use QFD on a succession of more tractable, smaller problems below senior management levels, then gain support from on high. I suspect that there may be some "axe grinding" in the book as the author apparently makes a living out of QFD consulting.

What would be really useful would be a resource on actual QFD case studies, even if the authors scrambled the importance weightings in order to protect any organizational secrets. In particular, I would like to see case studies as applied to more common services such as public education (imagine the utility of coming to agreement on that subject!) or company-level and department-level charters related to items such as Deming's 14 points, TRIZ, Taguchi robust design or DFSS. These subjects are fodder for true "design reuse". I would also like more discussion on cultural issues and QFD ... I find that these are issues for the determined and focused QFD student.

The QFD Handbook is a great surprise. A surprise for what it actually delivers compared to similar books. This book is not another mechanics "how to" book. Rather, it is an applications "how to" book. It does not tell you how to form and quantify QFD matrices. It tells you how and where to apply QFD and how to integrate it with other valuable tools of advanced quality. That approach creates enormous added value.

The QFD Handbook is also a surprise because its contributors are among some of the most respected practitioners in the world. These experts provide insight into the integration of many Quality Improvement tools into QFD. The result is an approach that provides guidance to the concurrent use of these tools which, when used in the proper context, produce an output far greater than QFD alone.

In addition to the text, facilitating software is included. QFD/Pathway provides exactly what it says, a pathway through the planning and performance of the QFD process. If one considers the knowledge base provided by the book's contributors alone, it is an excellent buy. When one adds in the software, it is invaluable.

This book is not for the faint of heart. But if you really want to understand the concept and benefits of Quality Function Deployment and learn how to effectively implement it in your business, this book will cover everything you will need to know. Your time and money investment will be returned to you tenfold when you discover what your customers are truly looking for from your company after following the guidelines outlined in this book.