“Hows” of quality for remote sensing data user-A house of quality approach

House of Quality (HOQ) is the first phase of Quality Function Deployment (QFD)-A Total Quality Management (TQM) technique of translating customer expectations-Voice of Customer (VOC)- into product specifications-Voice of Technician (VOT). The QFD has been successfully used by manufacturing sector in new product development. This paper demonstrates how the requirement of user of scientific product like Remote Sensing Data Product (RSDP) can be translated to technical specification through HOQ, the most crucial phase of QFD. The paper lists out the organs of HOQ, their significance and also lists out the quality parameters of RSDP. The paper explains the challenges of defining quality of RSDP as perceived by the RSDP user owing to its 4-dimensional dependency-its intended use, satellite, sensor and data product generation. However, first-ever attempt to use HOQ to understand “Hows” of Quality for RSDP users concludes with optimism about the usability of this technique which will help in customizing the product to suit user requirement and increase its utilization in decision-making process related to management of natural resources. Because the fulfilling of user requirement extend beyond the scope of just the data product generation process, a broader study encompassing other dimensions need to be undertaken.