Customer Productivity: A Measure for Product and Process Development With Customers

Author(s):  
Shuichi Fukuda

Although workforce productivity is widely used today, production is quickly moving toward product and process development with customers. Creative customers would like to get more and more involved in product development and furthermore, they would like to get satisfaction not only from the final product but from the processes as well. So we have to introduce a new measure for productivity, which focuses more on how much satisfaction a customer obtains from production. So the new definition of productivity in this sense will be: Customer productivity = Amount of satisfaction / Customer’s psychological time and money (physical and virtual involvement in production) This is different from the current customer satisfaction. Current one is focused on how much satisfaction a customer will have for a final product. This is a definition from the standpoint of the producer. The new definition is from the standpoint of the customer. This paper points out that if we introduce Mahalanobis Taguchi System, such a measure can be established and we can introduce a new metric for measuring customer’s satisfaction for the new type of prosumer system or co-production.

Author(s):  
Amanda Bligh ◽  
Manbir Sodhi

Even though the literature on product and process development is extensive, not much attention has been devoted to categorizing the product development process itself. Existing work on product development processes such as Total Design, Integrated Product and Process Design among others advocate common approaches that should be followed throughout the organization, without any consideration of product characteristics. In this paper we review several existing development methodologies. Extensions of these are categorized by their applicability to different classes of products. We propose that development processes should be matched to product attributes and organization goals. Towards this end, we associate development processes along with their components such as House of Quality, Robust Design, TRIZ etc. with goals such as time to market, customer needs satisfaction, intellectual property generation, protection and exploitation, quality, product cost and others. We examine the impact of this association on the development process itself and propose guidelines for constructing specific processes associated with one or more goals. Tools and benchmarks for various applications are discussed, along with some case studies on the design of different development processes.


2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 569 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yuri Borgianni

Purpose: Although firms try to shorten time-to-market, the duration of product development projects might anyway jeopardize the assumptions made at the beginning of the design process. This includes the definition of product attributes for ensuring customer satisfaction, thus forecasting techniques could be worthwhile. Within Kano’s method, trajectories of quality attributes have been identified and they can be potentially useful to the scope, but they have not been carefully verified.Design/methodology/approach: The paper takes on the above verification challenge by exploring studies of customer satisfaction conducted by means of Kano’s model regarding manifold industrial fields. The paper focuses on changes in the relevance of customer requirements reported in different contributions and analyses data statistically.Findings: The dynamic trajectories outlined in Kano’s model are partially confirmed and they are valuable in the mid-term to predict changes in customer preferences. The use of quantitative indicators portraying the extent of customer satisfaction and dissatisfaction leads to more reliable predictions.Research limitations/implications: In order to use as many data as possible, information has been used from different industrial fields, which can exhibit different paces in changes of customer preferences.Practical implications: The results benefit firms willing to have a clearer picture of customer main drivers for customer satisfaction at the time of market launch, although customer surveys are conducted at the beginning of product development projects.Originality/value: The paper puts into question previous assumptions about modifications of customer preferences, which, however are just empirically supported and assesses how these can be exploited in a reliable way.


Author(s):  
Florian Hoffmann ◽  
Vanessa Wesskamp ◽  
Raphael Bleck ◽  
Jochen Deuse

AbstractProduct life cycles change, market developments and quantities are increasingly difficult to predict, as is the case in the production of charging stations. For these reasons, scalable assembly concepts with an adaptable degree of automation are becoming increasingly important. Currently, charging stations are still manufactured manually. With increasing quantities, however, manual production is no longer economical. New technologies such as lightweight robotics offer a great potential for making production more flexible in terms of quantity. At the same time, new challenges arise because these requirements must be taken into account from the very beginning of product development and process planning. Currently, there are no planning approaches and recommendations for action that take this into consideration. Therefore, the research project “Simultaneous product and process development of a charging station outlet module suitable for automation” (SUPPLy) develops an integrated, digital and simultaneous product and process development of a modular charging station suitable for automation. The aim of the project is to develop an assembly process which enables an economic production of charging stations in case of fluctuating sales figures. The focus is not only on changes in the production process but also on a product design that is suitable for automation. The paper presents the ideas on a conceptual level.


2021 ◽  
pp. 0958305X2199348
Author(s):  
Noureddine Dahmani ◽  
Amine Belhadi ◽  
Khalid Benhida ◽  
Said Elfezazi ◽  
Fatima Ezahra Touriki ◽  
...  

Lean manufacturing accomplishments have led researchers and practitioners to consider extending lean to different engineering enterprise parts, including product and process development. However, in the early phases of product development, it is important to both reduce costs and improve a product's sustainability performance. This paper develops a framework to guide designers and manufacturing managers to design products that better meet customer needs and requirements for sustainable products and services. To achieve this, a critical review of the existing literature in the field of lean design, and eco-design was conducted to fill the research gap and then develop the proposed methodological framework. The integration aimed to create synergies to extend the integration benefits and promote rational use of resources and time to create value for customers by eliminating waste and unnecessary actions in the product development process. The main objective is to ensure the development of products with minimal negative impacts on the natural environment. To our knowledge, this is the first time in the literature that an integrated framework is bringing together lean design and eco-design principles, practices, guidelines, drivers, barriers, and success factors. The framework can potentially serve product designers, manufacturing engineers, sales/marketing personnel, in fact, anyone who has a vested interest in designing environmentally friendly products.


2021 ◽  
Vol 1 ◽  
pp. 2691-2700
Author(s):  
Stefan Goetz ◽  
Dennis Horber ◽  
Benjamin Schleich ◽  
Sandro Wartzack

AbstractThe success of complex product development projects strongly depends on the clear definition of target factors that allow a reliable statement about the fulfilment of the product requirements. In the context of tolerancing and robust design, Key Characteristics (KCs) have been established for this purpose and form the basis for all downstream activities. In order to integrate the activities related to the KC definition into product development as early as possible, the often vaguely formulated requirements must be translated into quantifiable KCs. However, this is primarily a manual process, so the results strongly depend on the experience of the design engineer.In order to overcome this problem, a novel computer-aided approach is presented, which automatically derives associated functions and KCs already during the definition of product requirements. The approach uses natural language processing and formalized design knowledge to extract and provide implicit information from the requirements. This leads to a clear definition of the requirements and KCs and thus creates a founded basis for robustness evaluation at the beginning of the concept design stage. The approach is exemplarily applied to a window lifter.


Symmetry ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 32
Author(s):  
Pragati Gautam ◽  
Luis Manuel Sánchez Ruiz ◽  
Swapnil Verma

The purpose of this study is to introduce a new type of extended metric space, i.e., the rectangular quasi-partial b-metric space, which means a relaxation of the symmetry requirement of metric spaces, by including a real number s in the definition of the rectangular metric space defined by Branciari. Here, we obtain a fixed point theorem for interpolative Rus–Reich–Ćirić contraction mappings in the realm of rectangular quasi-partial b-metric spaces. Furthermore, an example is also illustrated to present the applicability of our result.


2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 92-101
Author(s):  
Marina V. Pimenova ◽  
◽  
Aigul A. Bakirova ◽  

The article analyzes the cognitive signs of the macroconcept universe in Russian linguoculture. The relevance of the research is determined by the prospect of studying a new type of mental structures - symbolic macroconcepts. The purpose of the article is to describe the specifics of the macroconcept universe structure formation from the standpoint of the definition of syncretic primordial signs. The main methods in the work are the historical and etymological analysis of the studied macroconcept representative, descriptive and interpretive methods. During the study, seven motivating signs of the macroconcept universe were noted: 'earth', 'live', ‘world’,‘inhabit’,‘inhabited’,‘settlement’,‘light’. All identified motivating signs are syncretic symbolic primordial signs 'house' (conceptum, according to V. V. Kolesov). Motivating signs express two main symbolic meanings of Russian linguoculture: home is a place where people live, settle; home is the world of people and all living beings, this world-light (unlike that world-light where the souls of the dead go: that world-light is located in the sky), it is built on earth. The macroconcept universe is objectified by erased metaphors of a closed space (in particular, the metaphor of a key), which has an internal volume, center-middle, limits, parts, edges, corners, people live in this house, they live and exist in it, it is inhabited and settle down in Russian linguoculture. The model of the universe in the Russian language picture of the world is three-parted: the middle part in it represents the human world, in which the principle of anthropocentrism is manifested - a person measures space and chooses himself as a reference point. The syncretic primary sign ‘house’ unites in itself all the motivating signs of the studied macroconcept, keeping their relevance to our days. Keywords: macroconcept, motivating signs, first sign, language picture of the world, linguoculture, comparative studies


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