An approach for handling individual customer preferences and emotional needs Yielding 3D product assembly generation
The development of fully personalised product design solutions for customers is hindered by lack of a satisfactory means of interaction. Mass production techniques used by manufacturing firms cannot be applied for user centred design. A stronger interaction between customer and product can only be achieved when the customer guides the product generation via individual preferences and emotional needs. The aim of this article is to introduce a Kansei engineering (KE) based methodology that involves customers in the product generation process by taking their preferences and emotional needs into account. The methodology is integrated by a CAD environment to provide a 3D dynamic product representation which is generated by individual customer preferences via fuzzy logic (FL) reasoning. For validation, the methodology was demonstrated by using the case study of an ironing board. Both functional and emotional needs were handled by KE implementation. By combining KE and FL, the methodology enabled the multiple quantitative demands of the customer to be addressed in order to generate a more personalised product in a responsive manner. Located in shopping venues, fixed and mobile stations for the customer decision making process could facilitate increased customer satisfaction without need of a customer assistance desk.