Quality Function Deployment: A Bibliometric-Based Overview

Quality function deployment (QFD), an important technique in quality management, has been studied extensively and has already been tested in various areas of real-world applications. In this article, we provide a bibliometric analysis on the development of QFD between 1983 and 2019 on the basis of 1856 literature works retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection database. The results indicate that QFD is considered to have come into its flourishing stage over the past decade, and more than 3000 scholars from 1400 institutions and 82 countries/regions have made important contributions to its development. In addition, we elaborate the research contents and the evolutionary process of eight research branches of QFD, with full-scale details, combining the traditional survey and the bibliometric method. Finally, in order to envisage its future development, this article initially proposes the research potential evaluation model, which is used to assess research potential through two indicators: "recent attention (RA)" and "maturity." Through applying this model to QFD, the findings show that integrating environmental issues into QFD has been an increasing trend in this area, stimulating the growth of a series of promising research domains, such as environmental product development and sustainable supplier selection, among others. In the end, some general trends of this area are recommended to open insights for further research.