| Customer Requirements (CRs) of products are no longer limited to the scope ofproducts functions, because of a large number of products with similar functions.Under the background of cut-throat competition among companies, obtaining CRsbecomes the key to success. Traditional product design methods focused on thesatisfaction of researchers and designers. Therefore, there is deviation form the CRs.There are some design methods advocating market survey and study, but theydose not focus on customers across the whole design process. There is a lack ofsystematic design method in new product design. This paper aims to construct acustomer-oriented design methodology in new product development (NPD).Quality Function Development (QFD) theory took roots in quality managementtheory. Its main tool is a House of Quality (HOQ) can take the CRs as its inputs andtranslate CRs into Technical Requirements (TRs) which are the outputs of HOQthrough some matrix operations. It is known as a customer-oriented new productdesign method.Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) theory developed from computer andsoftware fields. Customer tests are carried out during the design process andcorrespondent changes can be made according to customers’ will. HCI is anothercustomer-oriented design method.However, the two methodologies have their own limits. With the hope ofovercoming their limits in NPD process. This paper proposed a customer-orientednew product design methodology based on QFD and HCI. There are five phases inthe method: Phase1, market survey and obtain the CRs; Phase2, translate CRs intoTRs; Phase3, find the most excellent design solutions; Phase4, design thelow-fidelity prototype; Phase5, design the high-fidelity prototype and detailed design.Each of five phases concentrates on the CRs to guarantee the customers can besatisfied as much as possible.After the introduction of customer-centered design method, a design case with detailed implementing procedure was given to test the feasibility and effectiveness ofthis design method. This design process was used in a new product design project of acompany in Shenzhen. And the customer-oriented new product design method wasalso introduced into the company. |
