DECISION SUPPORT TOOL FOR HYGIENIC PRODUCT COMPANY : INDUSTRIAL TACTILE SENSORY PANEL ANALYSIS IMPLEMENTATION

Abstract

In the last few years, there has been a growing interest in hygienic product, and particularly in baby diaper. Those products are very complex structures, they are mostly constituted from wood pulp, superabsorbent material, and polymer derived nonwoven materials. This can engender a difficult assessment of comfort parameter and specifically the touch. The main goal of this work is dedicated to nonwoven fabric hand touch analysis and the formation of a group of professional testers to provide the required product quality check. In fact, this study is conducted in collaboration with an industrial partner. The creation of professional testers for the assessment of hygienic product can be a valuable tool to predict consumers’ needs and satisfaction.The remainder of this paper is organized into four section: section I describes the sample preparation environment, which involves test room and assessment booth. Section II outlines the recruitment of five panelist after an interview and a selection test. Section III is devoted to the descriptors selection; that is, the selection of a set of terms required for properly identifying the non-woven fabric to be used in the hygienic product. This involves both qualitative and quantitative filtration. This filtration leads to shortlisting the descriptors and assessment techniques. Section III describes the first training sessions of panelists. Lastly, section four summarizes the final list of attributes and assessment techniques and adopted references for each selected descriptor.