Linking Quality Function Deployment and Conjoint Analysis for New Product Design

Abstract

In this paper we develop a new approach to evaluate the importance of technical features and engineering characteristics in the eyes of the customer by combining (1) the estimated influence of these so-called product characteristics on relevant product attributes in the eyes of the customer with (2) the estimated importance of these attributes for the customer. For both estimations conjoint analysis is applied. The new approach is compared to the traditional one w.r.t. predictive validity. Two sample applications are used for demonstration. We show that the new approach outperforms the traditional approach.