Applying Kansei engineering to industrial machinery trade show booth design

Abstract

Trade shows are considered an important marketing channel for companies since they provide manufacturers and purchasers with a vital commercial platform. Traditionally, plastics and rubber industry trade shows have been ineffective due to poor booth planning. Nevertheless, few studies have examined trade show booth design and planning. Actually, most companies lack distinct goals, and their decisions regarding trade show participation may influence decisions regarding which products should be demonstrated, size of trade booth, and level of advertising. Such a decision-making is a problem involving multi-criteria decisions, and requires a logical and objective operating procedure. This work thus devises an objective procedure for trade show. This investigation focuses on booth design for plastics and rubber industry trade shows and comprises three parts: (1) selecting appropriate assessment criteria for trade show design using the Delphi method and Kansei engineering. (2) Establishing suitable booth design principles and procedures for plastics and rubber industry trade show using fuzzy product positioning. (3) Further employing the proposed method to design trade show booths and verify their performance. The results demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed method. Relevance to industry This study was conducted to support machinery vendors as a systematic design flow chart and related criteria to provide an objective approach to trade show booth planning.