An integrated approach to innovative product development using Kano’s model and QFD

Abstract

Under rapidly changing and highly competitive circumstances, the timely design, development and marketing of new products or services with creative and innovative features are essential for a company’s survival. In order to capture and retain market share, customer requirements and expectations should be met and exceeded through product innovation. For effective new‐product‐development project management, a systematic approach to understanding customer requirements and further embedding them into the future product is desirable. This paper analyses the notion of customer satisfaction based on the Kano model and points to the importance of product innovation in exceeding customer satisfaction. It further proposes an integrated process model for innovative product development by incorporating Kano’s model and the quality function deployment (QFD) technique. Analyses suggest that the proposed approach would contribute to the creation of attractive product attributes and product innovation.