Title: The management of customer requirements in a product-service system context: a case study in the medical equipment sector

Authors: Nicolas Haber; Mario Fargnoli

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Sapienza – University of Rome, Via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Rome, Italy ' Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Sapienza – University of Rome, Via Eudossiana 18, 00184 Rome, Italy

Abstract: The paper addresses the evaluation of customer requirements (CRs) in the implementation of services in a product-service system (PSS) context. The extension of services has expanded considerably, yet their correct combination with products is still problematic to manufacturers. Services are characterised by ambiguities and vagueness, hindering their effective implementation. Conventional product design tools such as quality function deployment (QFD) are limited when comprehending the intangibility of services and hence, evaluating and prioritising customer requirements. To address this topic, QFD is adapted to a service context through the integration of the fuzzy logic and the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) as a means of reducing inaccuracies. The approach is applied to a case study in the medical field and its results are compared to the traditional QFD to analyse its outcomes and the effectiveness of the augmentations in increasing the usefulness of QFD in a PSS context.

Keywords: service requirements; product-service systems; PSSs; customer requirement prioritisation; QFD; analytic hierarchy process; AHP; quality function deployment; QFD; fuzzy logic.

DOI: 10.1504/IJSOM.2020.110336

International Journal of Services and Operations Management, 2020 Vol.37 No.2, pp.145 - 169

Received: 10 Nov 2017
Accepted: 25 Aug 2018
Published online: 15 Oct 2020 *

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