In Brazil the quality required by dairy is established through regulations 76 and 77. This chapter aims to identify the technical quality requirements evaluated in the supply of raw milk by dairy companies located in the state of São Paulo. Using the voice of the customer (VOC) it is possible to identify compatible internal requirements to drive the improvement process. The results indicate the need for actions to raise awareness of the agents involved in the dairy production chain. First, the role of the dairy, in understanding that the legal parameters must be measured and controlled, given the perishability of milk. Second, producers and dairies must understand that superior milk quality results in better quality products, and to achieve this, the actions carried out on the property and evaluated parameters must be worked out through action plans. Finally, that action plans will only be successful if they are carried out in partnership with the rural producer, understanding that the gain will occur if everyone works collectively and not individually along the production chain.
TopOrganization Background
Agribusiness represents a production chain, which begins with the rural producer and extends to the final consumer. The agents in this chain correspond to manufacturing of inputs, production in agricultural establishments, technical assistance, transformation and processing by agro-industries, commercialization, distribution, transport, manufacturing, and retail (Gasques, 2004).
It is an economic sector that promote important socio-economic development in Brazil and is essential to food safety of Brazil and world. In view of this, the investments made in agribusiness stand out in relation to other sectors, a reality that can be seen in Brazil and in other countries (Costa et al., 2013).
Therefore, the quality of consumer goods that will be produced by this sector is important for its competitiveness. However, the concept of quality corresponds to a variable concept which allows for different interpretations, once the quality concept required by the consumer may not be compatible with the quality concept proposed for the industry (Telles, 2014). For this reason, For this reason, to create and develop products outside of imitation or copy standards along with total quality requirements, Yoji Akao and Shigeru Mizuno created one method for applying the quality function deployment, originally called Quality Function Deployment (QFD).This theory refers to a way of translating customer needs from their requirements or specifications which is used in the correction, improvement or development of a product or service, so that it is as close to the real needs of the customer (Akao and Mazur, 2003).
According to Wu and Chan (2002), the application of QFD unfolds over product development, quality management and analysis of customer needs. However, the purpose for the application of this method is to give “voice to the customer”, because by listening and understanding their desires and needs, the process of developing or improving a product or service becomes assertive, aspects that can provide an increase in product quality and a reduction in development time or production costs. Therefore, its application unfolds over product development, quality management and analysis of customer needs.
The voice of the customer (VoC) transfers what they need and seeks the organization's internal quality requirements (Lorenzo et al., 2004). The most effective way to hear the VoC is to unfold that voice; verify which are the main functions that the customer considers important in the product, identify, and systematize the implicit and explicit desires of the customer, making sure that all needs are identified, analyzed, and transformed into project parameters (Abreu, 2010). As a result, the actions necessary to achieve this satisfaction are planned, which intervene in the design and development of the product or service. In short, it is a system to plan and develop services or products and ensure that they meet or exceed the expectations of its customers (Lorenzo et al., 2004).
The quality requirements in the milk chain are in new Normative Instructions Number 76 and 77, of November 2018, which came into validity in May 2019, and which set new maximum temperature limits, as well as sensory characteristics to be monitored in the reception, conservation, and dispatch of milk as well as its conservation in milk processors (MAPA, 2018 a, b). In this way, new product quality standards started to be demanded by the customers (dairies) and their suppliers (farmers) who sometimes do not know, as well as making it difficult to direct improvements in the production process.