ADDRESSING CHANGING CUSTOMER NEEDS BY ADAPTING DESIGN REQUIREMENTS

One of the most important aspects of the product development process is to develop an understanding of the true needs of the customer that must be satisfied by the design. While fine in principle, this understanding is very difficult to achieve in practice, as there is usually not a one-to-one correlation between the stated needs of the customer and the corresponding requirements that the design must satisfy. Accordingly, great effort must be made by product designers to translate the needs and desires of the customer into appropriate functional requirements and constraints for the design. Because customer needs often change during the product development cycle, the requirements of the design may change dynamically. For a design to be a success, therefore, it is vitally important for designers to understand the impact of changing customer needs on the design requirements. A design enterprise can be modeled as interfaces between product development, manufacturing, suppliers, customers, and support/field servicing. In order for the enterprise to be successful, effective communication across these interfaces is essential. This paper, therefore, examines the interface between product development and the customer in detail, in order to better understand what information is and should be exchanged, so that customer satisfaction with the design process can be improved, especially in response to changing customer needs. Furthermore, a system design technique based on Axiomatic Design theory is discussed as a tool that can be used to improve communication between the customer and design engineers, once the initial design concept is established.