Applying quality function deployment in open innovation engineering

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to identify the customer requirements and engineering attribute expectations of an innovative product to which a Kano’s model and quality function deployment (QFD) analysis was applied. In order to accomplish the research, a new water filling machine design was used as the case study. This alternative machine was aimed at making life more convenient and to support people interested in small businesses, since a Do-It-Yourself (DIY) filling machine saved production costs. This research began by classifying the obtained answers from questionnaires into groups. We then conducted a statistical analysis on potential users. The number of elements of the customer requirements was 11 and the number of engineering attributes expected was 5. The customer requirements of the innovated automatic filling machine was quickly identified. The machine, therefore, was designed and evaluated according to the considerations and relationships between customer requirements and engineering characteristics, where the cost and the machining capacity were considered important factors in the analysis.