Clients identification and their role in multidisciplinary design team.

Mihartescu, Ana Andreea ; Mazilescu, Crisanta Alina ; Negrut, Mircea Liviu 等

1. INTRODUCTION

There are many aspects to consider when designing a product. When the client has extensive interaction with the product, the design issue becomes even more complicated as the product developer also has to think of the product's applications for the right client and the actual use situation. Thus, aspects such as ergonomics, aesthetics and semantics have to be taken into consideration.

Since it is essential for the design team to arrive at a coherent picture of the client and the design problem, it is relevant to find methods that support communication and the focus on the client and which bring the team members closer each other. Communication and cooperation in product development work are key factors for product/project success (Griffin & Hauser, 1996).

During the XX Th century the design process evolved and enriched. In the design process are involved different specializations (departments) in order to optimize the quality, to reduce the delays and costs and to conceive innovative products. In this moment the design team is a multidisciplinary one.

2. THE METHODOLOGY FOR IDENTIFICATION THE CLIENTS

The methodology is aimed at identifying and defining the clients of the product to be designed and moreover investigating the clients' relations to the product and other clients. On the basis of the statements above, the aim has been to develop methods or tools, for identification of clients that:

* stimulate and support the communication and correlation between different parties in the design multidisciplinary team during early stages of product development;

* are fruitful for the product development team's common understanding of the user and the use situation;

* are uncomplicated and stimulating to use;

* elicit new product requirements or ideas about the design problem.

Four different clients categories can be identified in this methodology: primary clients, secondary clients, side clients and co-clients, see Table 1.

The members of a design team should identify all the possible clients of their product within these four classes and should also consider the different demands that clients could set on the product.

To test the methodology of identification of customers, we developed a research instrument (questionnaire) that we applied to a sample of 50 subjects, in order to improve a generic product--a means of locomotion, as can be seen in Table 2, on the 4 categories of clients.

There was no problem for the test groups in finding clients in all of the four categories; primary clients, secondary clients, side clients and co-clients. The number of clients identified can be seen in Table 2. Finding and categorizing the user groups was easy or moderately easy. However, a difference was noticed in the test groups.

Identify the clients, stimulate communication between the members in the design team.

Identify the clients, are fruitful for understanding the design issue. The benefit from Relations between clients is dependent on the product. It requires many closely involved clients in order to be rewarding (Janhanger & Hagman, 2004).

The ever increasing market pressure to compress time to market expands the scope of the product development team to move closer to clients for whom all the products are designed to serve.

3. CLIENT ROLE IN MULTIDISCIPLINARY DESIGN TEAM

Starting from multidisciplinary design, based on the involvement of the various specializations, we have developed a multidisciplinary team that highlights the role of each actor in the process of conception.

Starting from the model proposed by Aoussant (1990) on multidisciplinary product design, we propose also the involvement of other specializations in the conception, formation of multidisciplinary design teams in which all actors of design process are represented. Actors in the multidisciplinary design team are:

* Project manager, coordinates the team, design engineers, transforming ideas into design specifications (defining functional components);

* designers, defining aesthetic functions of the product in conjunction with the functional,

* system engineers ensure conditions for the activity in optimal conditions;

* marketing specialists, collect information from CLIENTS;

* specialists in ergonomics, developing products according to anthropometric size of potential customers / users;

* economists, providing the necessary financial resources to develop new products;

* CLIENT provides information for product development that will offer SATISFACTION.

However, the relation between clients and product development team differs from the established research results in bridging the gap of design and manufacturing:

* Clients, as a group, are much less defined and usually, they are scattered outside the enterprise;

* It is a common practice that product development team enlists marketing personnel acting as the agent to collect, validate and synthesize requirement information. However, the information transfer from clients to product development team can be problematic. This is often due to marketing person's lack of technical understanding and design expertise (Wang & Tseng, 2008)

The research on the nature of clients' requirements has drawn much attention from marketing, economics, psychology, and management science. It studies both the internal factors and the external influences on the client's requirement.

Communication inside the multidisciplinary design team is based on information technology, which allows members separated geographically and temporarily to take part in the product development.

Complex nature of the multidisciplinary teams require special attention to intercultural differences existing as they might appear communication and understanding problems in them.

4. CONCLUSIONS

Novelty brought by paper consists in defining the role of client in the multidisciplinary design team, as seen in figure 1.

[FIGURE 1 OMITTED]

Client who order what needs to be satisfied by the product, and by default also the functions it needed to include and also he decide if the product will be accepted or not. That is the reason why they have to identify groups of clients participating in the survey.

The efficient process of used product development, in a given environment, with multidisciplinary teams, performing and creative, offer the possibility to a fast development of quality products and with competitive costs. These product development processes have to be: integrated, multidisciplinary, flexible and interactive.

5. REFERENCES

Buur, J. & Windum, J., (1994). "MM Design--Man-Machine Interface", Danish Design Centre, Denmark, ISBN 8787385-33-3

Griffin, A. & Hauser, J. R., (1996). Integrating R&D and Marketing: A Review and Analysis of Literature, Journal of Product Innovation Management, 13:191-215

Janhanger, J. & Hagman L. A., (2004). Approaches for the Identification of Users and Their Relations to the Product, Proceedings of the TMCE, Lausane, Switzerland, Millpress, ISBN 90 5966 018 8

Souder, W. E., (1988). Managing Relations Between R&D and Marketing in New Product Development Projects, Journal of Product Innovation Management, 5:6-19.

Wang, Y., & Tseng, M.M. (2008). Incorporating probabilistic model of customers' preferences in concurrent engineering, CIRP Annals--Manufacturing Technology 57 (2008) 137-140

Tab. 1. The four clients categories that should be identified

Clients categories Explication

Primary client A person who uses the product for its
 primary purpose (Buur, J. & Windum, J)

Secondary client A person who uses the product but not
 for its primary purpose

Side client A person who is affected by the product,
 either negatively or positively, in daily
 life but without using the product

Co-client A person who co-operates with a
 primary or secondary user in some way
 without using the same product

Tab. 2. Structure of the study participants on the four
categories

The questionnaire results can be seen in Table 3.

Identify the clients Number clients

Number of primary clients 10
Number of secondary clients 20
Number of side clients 15
Number of co-clients 5

Tab. 3. Results from the questionnaires

 Agreement Identify
 Questions (5=high) the clients

It was easy to understand 5 10
 how to use 4 40
 3 0
 2 0
 1 0
It was easy to apply 5 0
 4 20
 3 20
 2 10
 1 0
New ideas were created 5 6
 4 12
 3 20
 2 12
 1 0
Communication was 5 13
 stimulated 4 21
 3 8
 2 8
 1 0
It was valuable for 5 14
 understanding the 4 22
 design issue 3 14
 2 0
 1 0
A similar approach has 5 0
 been used before 4 10
 3 20
 2 20
 1 0