Project Design and Development

ME 645
Lecture 8 & 9

Identifying Customer Needs

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 Product Development Process

Concept
Concept System-LevelDetail
System-Level
Detail Testing
Testingand
and Production
Production
Planning
Planning Development
Design
Development Design Design
Design Refinement
Refinement Ramp-Up
Ramp-Up

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 Concept Development Process

Mission Development
Statement Identify Establish Generate Select Test Set Plan Plan
Customer Target Product Product Product Final Downstream
Needs Specifications Concepts Concept(s) Concept(s) Specifications Development

Perform Economic Analysis

Benchmark Competitive Products

Build and Test Models and Prototypes

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 Customer Needs Example:
Cordless Screwdrivers

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 Goals of the method
 Ensure that the product is focused on the customer
needs.
 Identify latent or hidden needs as well as explicit
needs.
 Provide a fact base for justifying the product
specification.
 Create an archival record of the needs activity of the
development process.
 Ensure that no critical customer need is missed or
forgotten.
 Develop a common understanding of customer needs
among members of the development team.
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 Customer Needs Process
• Define the Scope
– Mission Statement
• Gather Raw Data
– Interviews
– Focus Groups
– Observation
• Interpret Raw Data
– Need Statements
• Organize the Needs
– Hierarchy
• Establish Importance
– Surveys
– Quantified Needs
• Reflect on the Process
– Continuous Improvement
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 1: Define the scope of the effort
• Use the project’s mission statement
– Brief (one sentence) description of the product
– Key business goals
– Target market(s) for the product
– Secondary market
– Assumptions that constrain the development effort
(boundary, scope, limit)
– Stakeholders (end users, retailers, sales, service centers,
production, legal, etc.)

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 Mission Statement
Example: Screwdriver Project
Product Description
•A hand-held, power-assisted device for installing threaded fasteners
Key Business Goals
•Product introduced in 4th Q of 2000
•50% gross margin
•10% share of cordless screwdriver market by 2004
Primary Market
•Do-it-yourself consumer
Secondary Markets
•Casual consumer
•Light-duty professional
Assumptions
•Hand-held
•Power assisted
•Nickel-metal-hydride rechargeable battery technology
Stakeholders
•User
•Retailer
•Sales force
•Service center
•Production
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 2: Gather raw data from customers
(methods)
• Methods
– One-on-one interviews
– Focus groups (selected customers in a discussion with a moderator
• Better than one-on-one as shown in Fig 4.4 on page 57
– Observing the product in use
– Survey
• Customer selection matrix
– Applications (industrial, household, personal) vs. customer types
(user, lead user, retailer, service center, etc.)
– Lead users & extreme users.

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 How Many Customers?
100
Percent of Needs Identified

80

60
One-on-One Interviews (1 hour)

Focus Groups (2 hours)

40

20

0
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Number of Respondents or Groups

From: Griffin, Abbie and John R. Hauser. “The Voice of the Customer”,
10/04/21 Marketing Science. vol. 12, no. 1, Winter 1993. 10
 The Art of Eliciting Customer Needs Data
Prepared interview guide:
•When and why do use this type of product?
•Walk us through a typical session using the product.
•What do you like about the existing products?
•What do you dislike about the existing products?
•What issues do you consider when purchasing the product?
•What improvements would you make to the product?

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 General hints for effective interaction with the
customer
• Go with the flow
• Use existing and competitor’s products, or other stimuli
• Have the customer demonstrate the product and/or typical
tasks related to the product
• Be alert for surprises and the expression of latent (non-
articulated) needs
• Watch for nonverbal information (comfort, image, or style)

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 Documenting interactions with
customer
• Customer statements, accompanied with the
documentation methods
– Audio recording
– Notes
– Video recording
– Still photography

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 3: Interpret raw data in terms of
customer needs
Multiple analysts may translate into different notes.
•Guidelines
– Express the need in terms of what the product has to do,
not in terms of how it might do it.
– Express the need as specifically as the raw data
– Use positive, not negative, phrasing.
Not rigid guideline ex: Screw driver does not strip screw heads.
– An attribute of the product.
– Avoid the words must and should.

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 Five Guidelines for Writing Needs Statements
Guideline Customer Statement Need Statement-Wrong Need Statement-Right
“Why don’t you put The screwdriver battery The screwdriver battery
What Not
protective shields around contacts are covered by is protected from
How the battery contacts?” a plastic sliding door. accidental shorting.

Specificity “I drop my screwdriver all The screwdriver is The screwdriver

the time.” rugged. operates normally after
repeated dropping.

Positive “It doesn’t matter if it’s The screwdriver is not The screwdriver
Not raining, I still need to disabled by the rain. operates normally in
Negative work outside on the rain.
Saturdays.”

Attribute “I’d like to charge my An automobile cigarette The screwdriver battery

of the battery from my cigarette lighter adapter can can be charged from
Product lighter.” charge the screwdriver an automobile cigarette
battery. lighter.

Avoid “I hate it when I don’t The screwdriver should The screwdriver

“Must” know how much juice is provide an indication of provides an indication
and left in the batteries of my the energy level of the of the energy level of
cordless tools.” battery. the battery.
“Should

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 4: Organize the needs into a hierarchy
• Print each need statement on a separate card or a self stick note
• Eliminate redundant statement
• Group the cards according to the similarity of the needs they express
• Novice development teams often create groups
• according to technological perspective, ex materials, packaging or power
• according to assumed physical components .
• Choose a label for each group
• Consider creating super-groups consisting of two to five groups.(Groups
more than 20)
• Review and edit the organized need statements(Different markets
segments-either different color or different grouping)

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 5: Establish the relative importance of
the needs
• Relying on the consensus of the team
members based on their experience with
customers.
• Use the customers (to rank importance as well
as criticality)
 Trade off between cost and speed vs. accuracy.
 Teams works with only a subset of needs.

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 A Survey Design for Ranking
Customer Needs

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 6: Review the Result and Reflect on
the Process
• Whether the product is focused on needs of
customers
• Whether all critical needs are addressed
• Whether we sent out “thank you” notes to
customers.
• Whether there are rooms to improve the process for
future efforts.
• Whether the entire team understands the needs

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