Towards an approach integrating various levels of data analytics to exploit product-usage information in product development

Abstract

By applying data analytics to product usage information (PUI) from combinations of different channels, companies can get a more complete picture of their products' and services' Mid-Of-Life. All data, which is gathered within the usage phase of a product and which relates to a more comprehensive understanding of the usability of the product itself, can become valuable input. Nevertheless, an efficient use of such knowledge requires to setup related analysis capabilities enabling users not only to visualize relevant data, but providing development related knowledge e.g. to predict product behaviours not yet reflected by initial requirements. The paper elaborates on explorations to support product development with analytics to improve anticipation of future usage of products and related services. The discussed descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytics in given research context share the idea and overarching process of getting knowledge out of PUI data. By implementation of corresponding features into an open software platform, the application of advanced analytics for white goods product development has been explored as a reference scenario for PUI exploitation.