Quality function deployment in recycling network improvement: An application in an aluminium manufacturing enterprice

Environmental issues in today's manufacturing enterprises need more and more attention because of increasing awareness of environmental concerns by customers and some domestic and international regulations. One of the most powerful techniques to use for being an environmentally sensitive enterprise is to recycle its scraps and wastes as much as possible. Some enterprises can do this useful technique by constructing a recycling unit in their manufacturing facilities. Because of this reason, some operational and transportation activities regarding recycling take place in their facilities and a recycling network becomes structured eventually. Hence, this structured recycling network needs some improvements in order to be more competitive and cost efficient. Quality function deployment (QFD) is a very useful technique to improve quality in many manufacturing and service applications. In this study, QFD was used for the improvement of aluminium recycling network of an aluminium enterprise, which is located on Marmara region in Turkey. Unlike many other studies in literature, two quality houses were developed in order to improve this network. After identifying customer needs and technical characteristics to fulfill those needs in the first quality house, the second quality house was structured in order to deploy those technical characteristics and some detailed activities to fulfill them. In the first and second quality houses, all technical characteristics and detailed activities were arranged in an importance order by using QFD procedure.