The current ISO 16355 series is written intentionally independent of industry because the principles of applying statistical methods for product and technology development are similar for all types of products. However, when applying the standard for the development of fully or partially digitized products in practice, specific characteristics of digital goods in product development (such as measurability, immateriality, economies of scale effects, etc.) are taken into account.

This document gives guidelines for adapting the quality function deployment (QFD) process, its purpose, users, and tools as they are described in the ISO 16355 series that consider these specific characteristics for developing digitalized products and services. Table 1 illustrates the scope of this document by stating examples of the types of products the standard focuses on.

Users of this document include all organization functions necessary to assure customer satisfaction, including business planning, marketing, sales, research and development (R&D), engineering, information technology (IT), manufacturing, procurement, quality, production, service, packaging and logistics, support, testing, regulatory, and other phases in hardware, software, service, and system organizations.