Robust design approach with fuzzy-AHP for product design to enhance aesthetic quality

Abstract

Visual shape parameters and aesthetic aspects of a product are one of the decisive factors for the success of a product in the market. Since designers are responsible for the visual appearance of a product, they tend to be critical in their decisions concerning the type and the values of the shape parameters. Inclusion of aesthetic aspect in product design and development has been challenging task for the researchers. Fuzzy based approach has been appropriate methodology to convert the customer emotion into usable design data. This study presents an integrative design approach incorporating the fuzzy AHP, Taguchi method and grey relation analysis (GRA) to obtain the optimal combination of shape parameters and aesthetic aspects. The method has been illustrated to evolve a profile of car.