A prescriptive approach to qualify and quantify customer value for value-based requirements engineering

Abstract

Recently, customer--based product development is becoming a popular paradigm.Customer expectations and needs can be identified and transformed into requirements for product design with the help of various methods and tools. However, in many cases, these models fail to focus on the perceived value that is crucial when customers make the decision of purchasing a product. In this paper, a prescriptive approach to support value--based requirements engineering is proposed, describing the foundations, procedures and initial applications in the context of requirements engineering for commercial aircraft. An integrated set of techniques, such as means--ends analysis, part--whole analysis and multi--attribute utility theory is introduced in order to understand customer values in depth and width. Technically, this enables identifying the implicit value, structuring logically collected statements of customer expectations, and performing value modelling and simulation.Additionally, it helps to put in place a system to measure customer satisfaction that is derived from the proposed approach. The approach offers significant potential to develop effective value creation strategies for the development of new products.

Specifications of a method and tool to support the management of systems engineering projects

“…We focus on the evaluation, verification and validation processes which are poorly instrumented using regular project management or engineering tools but which form the backbone of the critical decisions made during project reviews. These proposals are based on previous studies aiming to prove the concept and feasibility of such a tool [11,12,13]. On the industrial side, a market analysis shows that the industrial tools available only partly meet the needs.…”

Replacing target setting by value models in the ‘house of quality’ for value-based requirements specifications

“…[6][7][8][9][10] Especially, setting independent targets for each engineering characteristic (EC) could lead to value trade-offs between the ECs that are inconsistent with the customer value model and the system value model. Additionally, the fixed targets are unable to cope with the uncertain performance levels of ECs.…”

Value‐Driven Design – A methodology to Link Expectations to Technical Requirements in the Extended Enterprise

“…The CODA model presented here uses a relative value indicator which can be seen as a percentage scale describing design merit or overall customer satisfaction level. More economic based models utilizing surplus value as the objective function for design assessment , Cheung et al, 2012 and utility theory based models for conflicting customer needs (Zhang et al, 2012a, Zhang et al, 2012b exist in the recent literature.…”