Preliminary Study on Kano Model in the Conceptual Design Activities for Product Lifecycle Improvement

Abstract

Product manufactured with short life cycle had only one major issue, it can lead to increasing volume of waste. Day by day, this untreated waste had consumed many landfill spaces, waiting for any possible alternatives. Lack of product recovery knowledge and recyclability features imprinted into product design are one of the main reason behind all this. Sustainable awareness aspect should not just be implied into people’s mind, but also onto product design. This paper presents a preliminary study on Kano model method in the conceptual design activities to improve product lifecycle. Kano model is a survey-type method, used to analyze and distinguished product qualities or features, also how the customers may have perceived them. Three important attributes of Kano model are performance, attractive and must-be. The proposed approach enables better understanding of customer requirements while providing a way for Kano model to be integrated into engineering design to improve product’s end-of-life. Further works will be continued to provide a better lifecycle option (increase percentage of reuse, remanufacture or recycle, whereby decrease percentage of waste) of a product using Kano model approach.