Use of Quality Function Deployment for Gold Mining Feasibility Study (Case Study: Designing Explosive Storage Area)

Abstract

In the mining industry, at the beginning of development of a project, a consultant is assigned to build a design feasibility study to incorporate the client requirement, government regulation, and other inputs into the design. The consultant usually faces overwhelmed stages due to changes caused by the client and other stakeholders and has to repeat the process of inputting requirements into the design, which will cause delays for the projects. To enhance this design process and improve the quality, the use of “ House of Quality (HoQ)" as part of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) was carried out. In this study it was attempted to improve the design of the Explosive Storage Area, which is the most complicated area where client expectations on the design are required, to meet the regulation. This study also aims to see how much time is saved during the design stages by using the HoQ. From the study, the technical importance rating of the containerized building showed the highest point (13%) followed by a radius between detonation and ammonium nitrate storage area (11%). The improvement design was developed and prioritized based on the rating from technical importance and the results of the design showed great satisfaction of the client. The duration of the design stage was also saved by almost 3 days of the normal design process without using QFD. This study showed the ability of QFD to enhance and assist during the design phase in the feasibility study, and resulted in great client satisfaction for the final product.