Kano's model for multiple product development

Journal of the Academy of Business and Economics, March, 2005 by Yesim Sireli, Paul Kauffmann, Erol Ozan

ABSTRACT

Development of product families or multiple generations of products rather than designing one product at-a-time is becoming more and more essential due to shortening product life cycles and ever increasing competition. Companies need to approach product development by simultaneous design for multiple products and by accurate identification of customer expectations. Kano's customer satisfaction model can help organizations to address both of these issues. In traditional customer satisfaction analyses, linearity is assumed between product performance and customer satisfaction. However, product performance does not always mean a proportional increase or decrease in customer satisfaction since this change also depends on the "type" of the expectation. Kano's customer satisfaction model addresses this issue and assigns a specific category to each customer expectation. Based on the classifications of customer requirements, customer-tailored product development is possible. In addition to Kano model's ability of providing in depth customer requirement information, this study uses Kano classifications to design simultaneous products that may be considered either as product families or multiple generations depending on the nature of the product. Therefore, this study, first, develops a method for using Kano classifications to define multiple products, and then demonstrates the performance of this method on a NASA problem: development of cockpit weather information systems.

Keywords: Kano's Model, Customer Satisfaction, Multiple Generations, Product Families, Aviation, Cockpit Weather Information Systems

1. INTRODUCTION

Achieving success with new product development in many markets is becoming more and more challenging due to two main reasons: 1. Product life cycles are shortening (Bayus, 1998). 2. Customers are demanding the fulfillment of their needs faster and with customized products (Feitzinger and Lee, 1997). The combination of these two issues forces companies to be more responsive to changes in the business environment and to act proactively to market trend (Tam et al, 2000). Accurate identification of customer expectations, based on those expectations, simultaneous multiple product design can help companies to provide faster and more satisfactory solutions to their target customers.

According to various researchers, product life cycles are getting shorter, and for this reason, businesses are looking for ways to reduce product development time and to introduce their products to the market more quickly (Tam et al., 2000, Bayus, 1998, Patterson, 1993, Stalk and Webber, 1993). Additionally, in many markets, customers are getting more selective, demanding sophisticated features in products and satisfaction of their increasing requirements. As a result, identifying customer needs and transferring this information along to the product design phase is essential for any business to be able to stay competitive in the market (Sireli et al., 2003, Tontini, 2003, Cristiano et al, 2001, Sethi et al, 2001). In order to meet customer needs while addressing the shortening life cycle phenomenon, product developers must concentrate on simultaneous design of customer-tailored product families and product generations, rather than focusing on one product at-a-time (Molina et al., 1999, Jiao at al., 1998, McDermott and Stock, 1994). Hence, this study describes the following two issues as the two goals that companies must accomplish to be competitive: Accurate identification of customer requirements and simultaneous design of multiple products.

To help businesses achieve these two goals, this study proposes using Kano's model of customer satisfaction, a unique and flexible model for gathering and characterizing customer expectations (Kano et al., 1984). In traditional customer satisfaction analyses often employed to evaluate surveys, interviews, and questionnaires, linearity is assumed between product performance and customer satisfaction. For example, customer satisfaction is assumed to increase or decrease linearly when the product performance is improved or weakened respectively (Huiskonen and Pirttila, 1998). However, increasing fulfillment of customer expectations does not always mean a proportional increase in customer satisfaction since this change also depends on the "type" of the expectation (Matzler et al., 1996). Different types of customer expectations have different effects on customer satisfaction. Kano's model addresses this issue and provides more realistic understanding of these expectations by assigning certain types (e.g., attractive, must-be, indifferent) to each expectation. This can help businesses achieve their first goal of understanding customer requirements. Furthermore, this study proposes a new method that uses the results of this model to define multiple products simultaneously to assist companies achieve the second goal. According to this method, more than one product can be designed concurrently such as basic, entry-level, advanced, and high-end products that may be defined as a product family, or as multiple generations depending on the industry, and the objectives of the product developers.