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Thoreau heartily accepted the motto, ‘that government is best which governs least’. Our forefathers braved treacherous oceans and alien lands emboldened by that belief, after enduring the Crown's heavy hand invading and restricting their religious and personal lives. That is why, among the many freedoms embodied in our Constitution, the right to privacy was included in the Fourth Amendment to protect individuals from arbitrary intrusion by the state. The right has been fundamental to the establishment of a more tolerant society devoted to the principles of liberty and justice for all.

The paper aims to review the fundamental concept of quality function deployment (QFD) and discusses the fact that a road to success for a new product development is the identification of customers' requirements and their conversion into engineering design requirements. Thereafter, it seeks to review the subject and to study four new cases on the topic of QFD.

The paper discusses key elements of QFD and the fact that the vision for the development of a comprehensive quality system can be built upon the principles of QFD taking customer requirements into consideration and relating that to the design requirements.

To make product development task successful and bringing competitive advantages to the core business, management must be committed to the needs of the customers through marketing surveys and implementing that into the process of product development by converting them into engineering design requirements.

The method has been used successfully in practice in areas such as: facility locations, marketing strategies, robot selection, ERP selection, software development, and sports.

The paper reviews QFDs, and its extensions such as fuzzy QFD, analytic hierarchy process, analytic network process and QFD, statistically extended QFD, dynamic QFD, and other extensions of that. In addition to that, cases covering topics of: ship of quality, cost‐design parameter modeling, enhanced version of the quality function development, financial factors and uncertainties in the product design process with fuzzy formulation, and a model for prioritizing and designing rule changes for the game of soccer, are also reviewed.

The author aims to review the fundamental concept of quality function deployment and to discuss the facts that the road to success for new product development is the identification of customers' requirements and their conversion into engineering design requirements. Thereafter, the author seeks to present an in‐depth review of the subject and to study five new cases on the topic of quality function deployment.

The paper discusses the key elements of quality function deployment and the fact that the vision for the development of a comprehensive quality system can be built on the principles of quality function deployment taking customer requirements into consideration and relating them to design requirements.

To make the product development task successful and bring competitive advantages to the core business, management must be committed to the needs of customers through marketing surveys and implementing these in the process of product development by converting them into engineering design requirements.

This article reviews quality function deployment and its extensions such as fuzzy QFD, AHP and QFD, statistically extended QFD, dynamic QFD, and other extensions. In addition, cases covering the topics of a ship of quality, cost‐design parameter modeling, an enhanced version of quality function development, financial factors and uncertainties in the product design process with fuzzy formulation, and a model for prioritizing and designing rule changes for the game of soccer, are also reviewed.

Examines the Japanese food distribution channel structure with special emphasis on food wholesalers and food retailers. Contrasts these two areas with the comparable US functions. Reviews channel inefficiencies in Japan with attention to historical development, regulations, consumer attitudes and food shopping behaviour, transportation and logistics, transportation alternatives, consolidation and new developments, distribution centres and information processing. Presents key issues for Japanese logistics in the future.

The purpose of this paper is to review the development of leave policies in Europe, both at a regional and national level, and to consider what future directions such policies might take to meet changing conditions and emerging needs.

The paper draws on the work of an international network that the authors founded in 2004, which brings together experts on leave policy from over 40 countries, and in particular on an annual review of national leave policies conducted by network members.

The article presents developments in European legislation on leave policy stretching from 1883 to the present day, and outlines the extent of leave policies in European countries and the wide variations in the design of these policies. It suggests that future directions in leave policy need to address the relationship between this and other policy areas; the need for a life course perspective to leave policy, getting beyond parental leave; and that leave should turn away from being considered an employment benefit towards becoming a universal right to care.

The paper provides a concise overview of leave policy in the global region where leave policies began and are today most developed, at both a regional and national level. It is also intended to stimulate debate about the future directions that leave policy might take.