Identifying Customer Requirements.

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Identifying Customer Requirements

• MEC

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Contents

• Introduction.
• Identifying Needs.
• Market Analysis.
• Techniques of Market Analysis.
• Market Research.
• Defining the Problem.
• Developing a Strategy.
• Prioritising Customer Requirements.
• Organising Customer Requirements.

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Needs and Requirements

• Need statements not well defined.
• Designer to make sure that what he is developing
  is what the customer needs.
• Need for improving and making new designs.
• Application of scientific knowledge to satisfy
  needs.

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Needs and Requirements

• Ability to design the characteristic of a design
  engineer.
• Goals often are not specifically stated.
• Problems may be presented vaguely.
• Vague statement of need will lead to a vague
  understanding.
• Determining the real problems.
• Determine the extent and confines of the goals.

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Needs and Requirements

• Formulate a clear, exact statement of the
  problem.
• Isolate the problem from the general situation
  and to delineate its form.
• Clearly identify every aspect of the problem on
  which attention should be concentrated.
• Nonessential to be stripped away.

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Needs and Requirements

• Individual characteristics of the problem to be
  differentiated.
• Determine whether or not the immediate problem is
  part of the larger problem.
• Relationship to the total part to be determined.
• Asking the right question requires engineering
  knowledge, practice, and common sense.
• Clear understanding for solution to the specific
  problem.

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Identifying Needs

• Designer approached with a specific problem.
• Designer finds market opportunity by identifying
  a need for a new or improved product.
• To determine if business opportunity exists for a
  product.
• Need thorough study of total market.
• Products fail when market analysis only skims the
  surface.

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Market Analysis

• Analyse the trend, competition, volume, profit,
  opportunities, consumer needs, and some
  indication of customer feeling for the product.
• Market analysis
• - at the start of the design process.
• - to define further the need statement.
• - to review other attempts at solving the
• problem at hand.
• - knowing other solutions.

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Market Analysis

• Gather information to provide a better solutions.
• Not to provide solutions.
• Opportunity to review what others have done in
  solving the same problem.
• What is available in the market.
• Will help you identify the size of the need.
• Whom you are competing with.

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Techniques for Market Analysis

• Direct Search.
• - information directly from the consumer,
• manufacturers, salespeople etc.
• - interviews and surveys.
• Indirect Search.
• - Information from public sources
• patents, journal reports, government
• analysis, and newspapers.

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Market Analysis

• Systematic and objective.
• Consider all information relevant to the product.
• Unbiased outlook to analyze data.
• Formulate a market analysis report.

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Conducting a Market Analysis

• Resources all present some variation of the same
  information.
• May not be in the form a designer need.
• Information collection is an essential element of
  the design process.
• Product/market research requires use of
  unfamiliar information sources, produces huge
  quantities of information.

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Skills for Market Analysis

• Engineering skills to be applied when planning
  and dealing with market analysis.
• Skills include
• - Critical thinking.
• - Strategy.
• - Analysis.
• - Time management (it takes longer than
• you think).

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Market Research

• Conducted initially to assess
• - market potential.
• - market segments.
• - product opportunities.
• - to provide production cost estimates.
• - information on product cost.
• - sales potential.
• - industry trends.
• - customer needs and expectations.

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Steps in Market Search

• Define the problem.
• Develop a strategy.
• Organize and check the information gathered.

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Define the Problem

• Knowing what to look for before start gathering
  information.
• Redefine the problem, not provide a solution.
• Developing a new product or solving a problem in
  an existing product?
• Who the customers are end users/ everyone who
  deal with the product at some stage during its
  lifetime.
• Why they want/need to buy the product.

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Define the Problem

• Main needs of the customers.
• Define the problem at hand.
• How to go about getting the product to customers.
• Development cost, time, manufacturing, production
  investment, etc.

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Market Survey

• To identify the needs in a prioritized manner.
• Methods
• 1. Focus group meetings.
• 2. Telephone interviews.
• 3. One-on-one interviews.
• 4. Questionnaires.

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Focus Group

• A group of 6 to 12 potential customers meet and
  discuss their needs and other aspects of the
  product.
• Satisfaction based feedback in terms of what
  they liked, what they disliked, and what they
  would like to see improved if the product exists.

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Focus Group

• For a new product
• Wishes and desires in a particular market
  segment.
• What they would like to see introduced to improve
  their lives.
• What current problems exist in the similar
  products on the market.
• Potential solutions filtered out and converted
  into a neutral need.

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Questionnaire

• Opinion of a large number of people (sample) at a
  relatively low cost.
• Construct a questionnaire carefully to provide
  meaningful, useful, and unbiased feedback.
• - Standard set of questionnaire.
• - Easy to read and complete.
• - Identify the demographic you want to
• target.

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Questionnaire

• - Test the questionnaire initially on a pilot
• sample.
• - Iron out any ambiguous questions.
• - Observe whether or not you are obtaining the
  desired information.
• - Introduce only one issue per question.
• - Unbiased questions.
• - Avoid negative questions.
• - Ask a few conflicting questions to know if the
  respondent has read the questions.

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Interviews

• Can eliminate some of the ambiguities that arise
  for questionnaires.
• Expensive.
• Chance of interviewer domination.
• Bias prone.

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Developing a Strategy

• Set a plan for the search process.
• Efficient use of time.
• Identify what pieces of information may be
• needed.
• Then select where to begin the search.
• Identify keywords relevant terms.
• Write a Plan contextualise information.
• Know the framework within which you are working.

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Organising Information

• Preparing checklist.
• As a planning tool for information collection.
• Information on products, companies, industry,
  market information and demographics.

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Information Resources

• Categories
• 1. Product information.
• 2. Industry information.
• 3. Company information.
• 4. Market information.
• Journal databases will provide relevant
  information.
• Eliminating repetition of resources.

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Product Information

• Patent Information, but no immediate rights.
• Patents may contain the idea one is looking for.
• Patent prevents others from making and selling
  your novel idea.
• From the patent office or online.

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Industry Information

• Who are the major players?
• What are the current trends?
• How large (in currency amounts) are the relevant
  industries?
• What materials are used by the relevant
  industries?
• Information available from trade associations,
  industry classification manuals and directories,
  through surveys.

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Company Information

• Company sources provide information on the
  players.
• Information on the company financials, products,
  brands/trade names, and other nuggets that can
  help with overall market assessment and analysis.
• Company web pages, directories and corporate
  reports.

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Market Information

• Market research reports by companies, industrial
  groups, market research companies, consulting and
  advisory firms.
• Information on market share from publications and
  other information providers.
• Demographic information purchasing power,
  consumption rates, economic conditions and
  population statistics.

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Prioritising Customer Requirements

• Prioritise and organise requirements.
• Designer to identify customer priority.
• Assign an importance rating for each requirement
  from 1 to 10, 10 - most important, 1 - least
  important.
• Whether a particular requirement for the product
  is essential or not.
• Essential classify as Demand (D), rating 10.

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Prioritising Customer Requirements

• Non-essential consider as Wishes(W), ratings
  from 1 to 10.
• Wishes having same importance assigned the same
  value.
• Each wish given a value according to importance,
  weighing factor could be a percentage figure.
• Feedback from the customers and market research
  to determine the importance rating from each
  requirement.
• Rank the wishes in order or conduct a survey.

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Prioritising Customer Requirements

• Importance rating to quantitatively assess how
  well the design of the product is progressing
  using Quality Function Deployment (QFD).

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Organising Customer Requirements

• Helps clarify the objectives of the design.
• Develop an objective tree.
• - a clear and concise method to represent
• the requirements of the project to be
• carried out.
• - help to minimize any confusion between
• the customers and the design team.

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Objective Tree Method

• Prepare a list of design objectives.
• - design briefs prepared from questions to
• the client.
• - from discussion with the design team.
• Order the list into sets of higher-level and
  lower-level objectives.
• Draw a diagrammatic tree of objectives, show
  hierarchical relationships and interconnections.

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Ordered List of Design Objectives

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Objective Tree
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Thank You