Title: CREAMS: a customer requirements elicitation and management system for product conceptualisation

Authors: Wei Yan, Chun-Hsien Chen, Li Pheng Khoo

Addresses: Logistics Engineering School, Shanghai Maritime University, 1550 Pudong Dadao, Shanghai 200135, P.R. China. ' School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798, Singapore. ' School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, 639798, Singapore

Abstract: In this paper, a Customer Requirements Elicitation and Management System (CREAMS) is proposed to effectively support product conceptualisation decisions by integrating various multidisciplinary requirements and concerns. A two-module CREAMS has been established for the purpose of eliciting and managing customer requirements for developing product concepts. During the process of customer requirements elicitation, the web-based survey is utilised to obtain customer information. The Intelligent Agent (IA), which consists of a pattern recognition engine and a query engine, is employed for further customer requirements evaluation and management. The system has been validated using a case study on the design of a wood golf club head.

Keywords: product conceptualisation; design decision making; web-based survey; radial basis function neural networks; intelligent agents; relational database; customer requirements; product development; product design; golf club design; design process; product concepts.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPD.2005.008004

International Journal of Product Development, 2005 Vol.2 No.4, pp.303 - 320

Published online: 25 Oct 2005 *

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