3.3.1 Consumer product development: A systems engineering approach to the derivation of design requirements from stakeholder needs

This paper reports results of research into the engineering design of consumer electromechanical products. The research dealt with the derivation of design requirements from stakeholder needs. An approach based on principles of systems engineering was developed, applied and evaluated through a number of case studies that were carried out in three industrial domains. The evaluation showed that the approach can significantly improve the quality of product designs. The revision of the expressed stakeholder requirements and the expression of stakeholder requirements as stakeholder needs and stakeholder attributes were found to be key factors towards the improvement of product designs. It is recognised that there are many difficulties associated with the identification of stakeholder needs for both existing and new products. However, given a need, benefits can be gained from providing information to support traceability between design parameters, design requirements, stakeholder attributes and stakeholder needs; such traceability is a key enabler to downstream integration management.