Putting your customers to work : the design of Internet environments to facilitate customer participation in the conceptual design of new products

Abstract

An architecture for a new customer interface tool is proposed ·which facilitates the customer's participation in the conceptual design of new products. Customer design activities including geometry manipulation, feature selection, allocation of constrained attributes and design comparison .:ire combined to enable customers to explore a defined solution space to identify solutions which maximize their utility. The tool provides a means of communication between a customer with a rich knowledge of need'i but having weak design skills and a new product designer armed with strong design skills but a knowledge of only the most codified of customer needs. When provided with an easy to use design tool based on use relevant language, the customer can perform a large number of the design iterations typical of the multi-attribute, high bandwidth conceptual design phase. Conjoint analysis is proposed to expand understanding of customer needs at design points surrounding the maximum utility solution idemified by customer design activities. The Internet with rapidly expaning bandwidth and new graphical tools is shown to be a very effective medium for customer design. the assitability of customer design across differential product and customer types is explored. Customer design is identified as a tool to support the rapidly growing trend of mass customization.