Founded in 2008, PuntoBoX Furgoni s.r.l. of Forlimpopoli (FC) has become one of Italy’s leading companies in the design and outfitting of isothermal vans. The secret of PuntoBox’s success lies in its ability to customize vans to its customers’ needs, attention to detail and use of high-quality materials.
PuntoBox has recently initiated the “flexbox” project, that is, a family of refrigerated vans that can be supplied in “kits” with pre-assembled wiring and systems and with panels already cut to size with easy-to-assemble profiles and edging and pre-assembled doors. The kit is very compact in size, has low shipping costs and is easy to assemble.
The refrigerated van kit can be shipped in reduced time and cost to industrial body shops that directly assemble and mount it on the tractor unit.
Roncucci&Partners, as part of a consulting effort aimed at increasing PuntoBox Furgoni’s presence in international markets, assisted the company in defining the commercial and design features of flexboxes through the use of the QFD methodology, or Quality Function Deployment, aimed at optimizing the definition of new products to make sure they fully meet the needs for which they are designed.
The QFD analysis was developed in successive steps and made it possible to define flexbox features in such a way as to harmonize the costs related to the technical solutions adopted with the needs of customers:
- Â As a first step, based on the market analysis conducted by PuntoBox Furgoni, the perception of customers’ needs and the analysis of competitors, the so-called “functional needs” of flexboxes were defined.
- As a second step, the “technical characteristics” needed to meet the functional needs of flexbox as defined were defined.
- Next, in order to assess the responsiveness of flexbox’s technical features to customers’ needs, i.e., their value, the “cost index” was calculated to verify that the cost of the technical solutions adopted was related to the degree of importance of the technical solutions.
- Â The cost index analysis identified some critical flexbox issues, i.e., costs that were not justified by the degree of importance of the technical solutions adopted, corresponding to disharmonies between proposed solutions and their functional needs.
It is possible that the analysis of the so-called criticalities in the cost index will result in the need to make revisions to the technical solutions, sometimes not insignificant. This is the strength of QFD, i.e., the ability to correct upstream the disharmonies of a product and make it capable of responding from its inception to the customer needs that have been highlighted and to respond to which that product was designed.
The final solution-cost table with cost index values for the flexbox project is shown below for demonstration purposes:
PuntoBoX Furgoni s.r.l. was very pleased with the analysis performed, and Roncucci&Partners is along with it.
Luigi Travaglia
