Quality Function Deployment (QFD) for Bridge Maintenance

摘要

Most bridge agencies have well established quality control programs with the intent of achieving effective bridge maintenance. However, consumers are becoming more involved in economic, environmental, social, and other issues related to infrastructure. Therefore, a valid "quality" program would be definitive by involving voice of the customer in the maintenance decision-process. In this paper, an innovative approach for achieving quality in bridge maintenance is proposed by implementing the Quality Function Deployment (QFD) approach. Any non-routine major bridge maintenance can involve three scenarios for decision-making -"rehabilitate", "replace" or "no action". For each of these scenarios, a House of Quality is prepared for translating consumer demands (WHATs) into implementation requirements (HOWs). In the next step, the HOWs are prioritized and a decision is made based on ranking of the alternatives. The prioritization is done using QFD-based processes and the correlation between WHATs and HOWs are obtained using subjective judgment of the experts. To highlight utility of the proposed QFD approach, a case study is furnished for a bridge located in Victoria, BC, Canada.