Title: Developing a new product via modern QFD: an application for bedding of laboratory animals

Authors: Sabri Erdem; Güzin Özdağoğlu; Osman Yılmaz

Addresses: Faculty of Business, Dokuz Eylül University, Tınaztepe Yerleşkesi, 35390 Buca, Izmir, Turkey ' Faculty of Business, Dokuz Eylül University, Tınaztepe Yerleşkesi, 35390 Buca, Izmir, Turkey ' The Institute of Health Science, Division of Laboratory Animals Science, Dokuz Eylül University, Mithatpaşa cad. No 1606 İnciraltı yerleşkesi 35340 Balçova, Izmir, Turkey

Abstract: Laboratory animals play a crucial role in early testing of new drugs or methods in medical sciences such as pharmacology and surgery. Since the primary concern of medical scientists is to look for scientific medical outputs only, other factors regarding animal welfare such as environmental factors, feeding and bedding need to be considered to insure that the living conditions of laboratory animals is comfortable and healthy. The purpose of this study is to develop a bedding material for laboratory animals by implementing the basic steps of the Modern QFD methodology which is a new area of research for these kinds of products. Our findings show that Modern QFD can be effectively implemented in developing a new bedding material for laboratory animals. This study is a new implementation for determining the needs of laboratory animals using such a method and is an example of a unique case in the QFD domain.

Keywords: QFD; new product development; NPD; laboratory animals; animal bedding; animal welfare; quality function deployment.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPD.2016.078856

International Journal of Product Development, 2016 Vol.21 No.2/3, pp.79 - 96

Received: 23 May 2015
Accepted: 20 Apr 2016
Published online: 03 Sep 2016 *

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