CUSTOMER-BASED DESIGN

DETERMINING CUSTOMER NEEDS

16-SEP-99

W. Durfee

A lecture for ME 4054

Ref: Ulrich and Eppinger, Chap. 3 (an excellent reference)

Bring product examples (ThinkPad, snakelight, power shot,….)

Bring survey/interview script examples

- Sit in your groups

x (days to Design Show)

STUDENTS SHOULD LEAVE KNOWING

Who are the customers (how to identify)
How to gather customer needs

How to translate needs into product requirements comes in the product requirements lecture.

INTRO TO CUSTOMER-BASED DESIGN

Chrysler ashtray

No good creating a product no one is going to buy

Design technology is a small part of picture

Cool technology not enough by itself

Example: Pillsbury. Microwave hot fudge sundae on a brownie. Brownie hot, i.c. frozen, fudge hot. Technical marvel.....but $4.95. Customer survey said no. Project canned.

Bob Hershoek (3M)

Old: Sell what we want to sell, "what’s good for GM is good for the world"

70’s: Technology driven

80’s: Quality (TQM) driven (manufacturing)

90’s: Customer driven (relative customer value)

Gaging customer reaction is hard!

Could you predict the bread machine?

.....but, there are methods

Engineers MUST be involved

Toro: Consumer division is $500M/year. VOC team forms 100 "I wants". Every member talks with 10 customers. Every member attends focus groups. Results are needs statements.

Bostich nailer: power/speed/weight tradeoff

Construction projects are driven by time/money/specifications

Product design projects are driven by time/money/specs/customer satisfaction. No point in doing design or product development if it doesn’t meet customer needs!

DESIGN PROCESS

*****show NPD ovhd

STEPS:

1. Define project scope (Mission Statement)

2. Define possible markets/customers

3. Understand customer needs (VOC) (see below)

4. Analyze the data (Develop needs statements)

5. Use the data:

* more VOC

* Product Def

* QFD/HOQ

******What’s your mission statement??

******Who are your customers????

**Chap 3 (VOC) and 4 (data analysis, PDS) of Ulrich and Eppinger for details

METHODS FOR GATHERING CUSTOMER DATA

(see Chapt 2 of U&E; has some good tips)

Interviews / observations / focus groups

1. To find opportunities. 2. To gage customer reaction to prototypes

Think local, regional, national, global.

Formal (scripted) and informal (stop and ask) methods

Qualitative (recommended) and quantitative (formal survey with statistics…need large N for validity)

1. INTERVIEWS

Use a script
Keep it simple, be flexible
Keep your opinions out of it ("what do you think of....." vs "what don’t you like about....")
Record raw data, keep customers words
Write a TY note (might use ‘em again.....they might hire you)

2. OBSERVE ON THE JOB

Stanley example: The team was developing a cordless nailer. To understand product requirements, the team spent lots of time observing out at home construction sites.

4. SURVEYS

Telephone, mail, internet
Can reach a lot of people
Easy, cheap
Limited response rate
Limited responses
Biased sample (only those who returned)
Web surveys are easy, but can be very biased (responses from techies only)
Not flexible, unlike an interview script, you can’t change in the middle if something interesting comes up.

4. FOCUS GROUPS

More than getting a bunch of people together

Art and science to eliciting needs

Scripted, timed

Professional: 112 mkt research firms in Mpls Yellow pages

Axiom: $12,000 for 3 sessions....including rpt.

(Specialties: food testing, mall intercepts)

5. GET LEAD USERS

Early adopters. Work with team.

Whirlpool gives washing machine prototypes to engineers moms....the engineers won’t argue with those customers!!

Include customer on the design team.

METHODS FOR DATA ANALYSIS

Goal: develop customer needs statements, use it to develop PDS.

1. Translate into "Needs Statements"

2. Sort

3. Categorize

The "Needs Statements" can then be translated into product requirements and engineering specifications.

KEEP YOUR SPONSORS/CLIENT INFORMED. KEEP YOUR SPONSORS INVOLVED. Show your "Needs Statements" and product requirements to your client/customer and get buy-in.

****EXERCISE

List titles of all people who might be interested in your project (end users/oem/distributors/.....), and that it would be useful for your design team to interview.
Pick one category
Write down 3 interview script questions for that target
Names of those attending on paper, turn in at end of class.

****ALTERNATIVE EXERCISE (See text Chap 3 for hints)

Within your team, generate a list of needs for a student book pack.

Generate raw data

Sort the data

Translate into key needs

CASE STUDY: SNAKELIGHT

Source: PDMA meeting notes

Fred Grunwald

VOC: Seeing and observing as good as more formal methods

Fast cycle (22 months)

High quality 285 failures/million

Its big... record sales for B&D

1995, $8M at $27 each

Used an NPD process

CASE STUDY: THINKPAD 701

Source: I.D. Sept 1995

Code name: Butterfly

Customer need: reduce size

Successful: First-day (March 95) orders broke records for any PC

Keyboard developed by John Karides, IBM Mech E.

Area of 10.5" display and keyboard were =, proportions weren’t

Wanted to overlay

April 93, playing blocks with daughter

CASE STUDY: CITIBANK ATM FOR

BLIND, VISUALLY IMPAIRED

Source: I.D. Sept 93

Worked with Citicorp Bank Customer Interaction Lab

Advise by disability organizations

Tested on disabled customers

Blind: 4 corners, audio script

Limited vision: correct font, lighting

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