How the Kano model contributes to Kansei engineering in services

Recent studies show that products and services hold great appeal if they are attractively designed to elicit emotional feelings from customers. Kansei engineering (KE) has good potential to provide a competitive advantage to those able to read and translate customer affect and emotion in actual product and services. This study introduces an integrative framework of the Kano model and KE, applied to services. The Kano model was used and inserted into KE to exhibit the relationship between service attribute performance and customer emotional response. Essentially, the Kano model categorises service attribute quality into three major groups (must-be [M], one-dimensional [O] and attractive [A]). The findings of a case study that involved 100 tourists who stayed in luxury 4- and 5-star hotels are presented. As a practical matter, this research provides insight on which service attributes deserve more attention with regard to their significant impact on customer emotional needs.

Statement of Relevance: Apart from cognitive evaluation, emotions and hedonism play a big role in service encounters. Through a focus on delighting qualities of service attributes, this research enables service providers and managers to establish the extent to which they prioritise their improvement efforts and to always satisfy their customer emotions beyond expectation.     

Using Kano model to differentiate between future vehicle-driving services

Services are constantly changing with the introduction of new technologies, which affect the service systems of both conventional and autonomous driving. New theories and technologies are also key factors affecting the design and development trends of service models and solutions. Major automobile manufacturers aspire to provide customers with unique services and experiences, resulting in a growing demand for systematic approaches to characterize customer behaviors and scientific methods to accurately interpret data stored in databases. This study proposes a scientific engineering and operation framework for driving services that enables conventional automobile manufacturers to re-evaluate their service models and solutions as they expand into the domain of autonomous driving, integrating customized consumer interactions and mass production efficiency to develop new technologies, and subsequently applying these technologies to innovate their driving services, form service innovation guidelines, and accelerate the development of smart applications for the automobile industry. A Kano two-dimensional model of quality was employed. A Kano questionnaire was administered to analyze consumers' perceived satisfaction concerning different service quality elements; the elements were then ranked in the order of requiring improvement to determine the elements that are essential in conventional vehicles. Finally, suggestions were proposed for improving the service quality of driving products and evaluating driver satisfaction. A total of 56 valid questionnaires were collected from potential buyers of four-door sedans. The questionnaire evaluated respondents’ perceived value and satisfaction of 30 product elements categorized into two groups (specific functions and intangible value-added services) across eight major quality dimensions (basic safety functions, multimedia entertainment systems, information and communication systems, value-added systems, active matching, automatic service systems, hardware–software integration, and customer service and support). In addition, Kano quality categories were statistically analyzed to elucidate whether significant differences existed between groups. Using the Kano quality categories, 30 design elements were classified: 10 as “attractive,” 7 as “one-dimensional,” 3 as “must-be,” 4 as “indifferent,” and 6 as “reverse.” Enterprises can effectively reduce customer dissatisfaction and enhance customer satisfaction based on the quality category of the product and the product improvement order proposed in this study.Relevance to industryThis study determined that using the Kano quality categories, enterprises can effectively reduce customer dissatisfaction and enhance customer satisfaction based on the quality category of the product and the product improvement order proposed in this study.     

Applying Kansei engineering to industrial machinery trade show booth design

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.     

How to improve computer advisory services

There are an increasing number of active computer users who are not computer professionals and so require continuous guidance in order to effectively employ computer facilities. In universities such guidance is provided by a formal advisory service. While advisory services play a vital role for university users, there are numerous problems which can detract from their effectiveness. This paper identifies many of these problems, and recommends ways of overcoming them. These suggestions are largely based on the results of a research project carried out for the past four years at the University of Liverpool. Topics considered are: (i) the assessment of various methods for organizing advisory services; (ii) the specific needs of inexpert users and strategies for effectively advising them; (iii) problems of the comprehension of computing information; (iv) guidelines for good advisory communication; (v) methods for improving the professional status of the advisory function.     

如何在工业自动化中使用Web服务

这篇文章将介绍新一代的因特网Web Services（Web服务），包括其背景技术、如何影响工业自动化行业以及为此行业带来哪些相关的效益。     

软件工程人才的培养思路

本文结合南京邮电大学软件学院培养软件工程人才的实践经验,分析了计算机科学研究人才和软件工程人才的区别,探讨了如何培养高素质的软件工程人才,如何将理论教学体系与实践教学体系相结合,最后说明在实际教学环节中总结出的教学方法。     

Kano’s model in Kansei Engineering to evaluate subjective real estate consumer preferences

Kansei Engineering is a product development tool used to identify users’ perceptions and find quantitative relationships between their subjective responses and design features. This paper proposes the use of Kano’s model in this process to analyse the impact of different subjective attributes on consumers’ purchase decisions. A practical example of real estate promotions design is presented. In the first stage, semantic differential is used to measure the subjective component of the emotional state. In the second stage, regression analysis and Kano’s model are used to define the relative weight of each emotional attribute in the purchase decision. Besides linear attributes, Kano’s model identified two other kinds of attributes that present a non-linear performance: basic attributes and exciting attributes. Therefore linear models could underestimate the effect of such kind of attributes.

Relevance to industry

This information is very relevant for architects and designers as it enables them to determine the extent to which they must direct their efforts at improving certain attributes with the object of improving the global evaluation.     

Constructing a hybrid Kansei engineering system based on multiple affective responses: Application to product form design

This study proposes an expert system, which is called hybrid Kansei engineering system (HKES) based on multiple affective responses (MARs), to facilitate the development of product form design. HKES is consists of two sub-systems, namely forward Kansei engineering system (FKES) and backward Kansei engineering system (BKES). FKES is utilized to generate product alternatives and BKES is utilized to predict affective response of new product designs. Although the idea of HKES and similar hybrid systems have already been applied in various fields, such as product design, engineering design, and system optimization, most of existing methodologies are limited by searching optimal design solutions using single-objective optimization (SOO), instead of multi-objective optimization (MOO). Hence the applicability of HKES is limited while adapting to real-world problems, such as product form design discussed in this paper. To overcome this shortcoming, this study integrates the methodologies of support vector regression (SVR) and multi-objective genetic algorithm (MOGA) into the scheme of HEKS. BKES was constructed by training SVR prediction model of every single affective response (SAR). The form features of these product samples were treated as input data while the average utility scores obtained from all the consumers were used as output values. FKES generates optimal design alternatives using the MOGA-based searching method according to MARs specified by a product designer as the system supervisor. A case study of mobile phone design was given to demonstrate the analysis results. The proposed HKES based on MARs can be applied to a wide variety of product design problems, as well as other MOO problems involving with subjective human perceptions.     

Comparison of multi-objective evolutionary algorithms in hybrid Kansei engineering system for product form design

Understanding the affective needs of customers is crucial to the success of product design. Hybrid Kansei engineering system (HKES) is an expert system capable of generating products in accordance with the affective responses. HKES consists of two subsystems: forward Kansei engineering system (FKES) and backward Kansei engineering system (BKES). In previous studies, HKES was based primarily on single-objective optimization, such that only one optimal design was obtained in a given simulation run. The use of multi-objective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA) in HKES was only attempted using the non-dominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II), such that very little work has been conducted to compare different MOEAs. In this paper, we propose an approach to HKES combining the methodologies of support vector regression (SVR) and MOEAs. In BKES, we constructed predictive models using SVR. In FKES, optimal design alternatives were generated using MOEAs. Representative designs were obtained using fuzzy c-means algorithm for clustering the Pareto front into groups. To enable comparison, we employed three typical MOEAs: NSGA-II, the Pareto envelope-based selection algorithm-II (PESA-II), and the strength Pareto evolutionary algorithm-2 (SPEA2). A case study of vase form design was provided to demonstrate the proposed approach. Our results suggest that NSGA-II has good convergence performance and hybrid performance; in contrast, SPEA2 provides the strong diversity required by designers. The proposed HKES is applicable to a wide variety of product design problems, while providing creative design ideas through the exploration of numerous Pareto optimal solutions.     

由感性工学浅析建立设计统计学

随着计算机技术的不断发展,简化了传统统计学的计算过程,使统计技术得到更广泛的应用,并且促使其应用学科得到前所未有的发展。本研究旨在探讨在感性工学的基础上将其中原统计学的研究分析方法进行系统化的整理;并加入统计学的基础知识,参照医学、生物、工程等统计学,尝试建立完整的设计统计学的知识体系,从而为工业设计理论和方法的发展提供一个新的思路。     

A heuristics-based approach to reverse engineering of electronic services

Since the beginning of the electronic era, public administrations and enterprises have been developing services, through which citizens, businesses and customers can conduct their transactions with the offering entity. Each electronic service contains a substantial amount of knowledge in the form help texts, rules of use or legislation excerpts, examples, validation checks, etc. This knowledge has been extracted from domain experts when the services were developed, especially in the phases of analysis and design, and was subsequently translated into software. In the latter format though, knowledge cannot be readily used in organizational processes, such as knowledge sharing and development of new services. In this paper, we present an approach for reverse engineering electronic services in order to create knowledge items of high levels of abstraction, which can be used in knowledge sharing environments as well as in service development platforms. The proposed approach has been implemented and configured to generate artifacts for the SmartGov service development platform. Finally, an evaluation of the proposed approach is presented to assess its efficiency regarding various aspects of the reverse engineering process.     

How to identify the trends of services: GTM-TT service map

Recently, due to the explosive increase of services, firms have faced with challenges to analyze patterns and trends in services in an intuitive but objective ways. The notion of service map can be adapted to this end. Maps, in general, have been receiving a great deal of attention because of their potential as visualization tools that can allow people to visualize massive amounts of information. Specifically, the generative topographic mapping through time (GTM-TT) algorithm is suitable for dynamic analysis since GTM-TT provides a time-based clustering and change path. In response, this study proposes an approach for developing and using GTM-TT service maps consisting of a service clustering map and a service sequence map for analyzing service trends. The proposed approach, broadly, is comprised of four steps: (1) the construction of a database, (2) data preprocessing, (3) development of a GTM-TT service map, and (4) interpretation. The proposed approach is expected to aid in the identification of dynamic service trends.     

Optima: a domain-specific model for prioritization and conflicts management in requirements engineering for services intermediaries

New business models are set up, thanks to Web technologies. In this work, we focus on services intermediary companies. They generate value through the (automatic) selection of third-party services and the (automatic) delivery of the combinations of these services to consumers. Such companies face the problem of deciding which services to select and deliver in order to maximize their profit. The two main paper objectives are (i) to design the generic business model of services intermediaries and (ii) to propose an optimization model. The latter enables to choose the consumer requirements that will be satisfied in order to maximize profit. This model ranks implementable solutions based on various financial aspects. They are related to cost and revenue information that is associated with the requirements. It can support the decision-making process that aims at selecting a profit-maximizing set of requirements for services intermediaries’ system-to-be. Indeed, the proposed model solves the conflicts between requirements and prioritizes the optional requirements. We argue for the relevance of the optimization model via an example and simulations.     

A dominance-based rough set approach to Kansei Engineering in product development

Keen competitions in the global market have led product development to a more knowledge-intensive activity than ever, which requires not only tremendous expert knowledge but also effective analysis of design information. Kansei Engineering as a customer-oriented methodology for product development, often has to analyse imprecise design information inherent with nonlinearity and uncertainty. This paper proposes a systematic approach to Kansei Engineering based on the dominance-based rough set theory. Two novel concepts known as category score and partition quality have been developed and incorporated into the proposed approach. The new approach proposed is able to identify and analyse two types of inconsistencies caused by indiscernibility relations and dominance principles respectively. The result of an illustrative case study shows that the proposed approach can effectively extract Kansei knowledge from imprecise design information, and it can be easily integrated into an expert system for customer-oriented product development.     

一种面向并行工程的统一产品BOM模型*

为解决传统的串行演化过程中各种BOM之间的不一致性问题,提出一种面向并行工程的统一产品BOM模型。该模型重构组织结构,建立面向并行工程的组织体系;重构BOM过程,构建并行的BOM应用架构;分析产品生命周期所涵盖的BOM信息,提出集成化BOM信息模型,该BOM信息模型由物料项信息模型、产品结构信息模型和零件信息模型三个模型构成。实际项目应用表明,提出的面向并行工程的统一产品BOM模型是有效可行的。     

Quality function deployment implementation based on Fuzzy Kano model: An application in PLM system

Product lifecycle management (PLM), a strategic business system allows more effective communication among different groups at dispersed locations to share ideas and access information needed for developing new products and executing innovative processes. The main function of PLM is to develop an attractive system which ensures customer satisfaction. Therefore, one of the important topics of the PLM system developments is to take customer requirements into consideration. Quality function deployment (QFD) has been widely used for numerous years; it is one of the structured methodologies that are used to translate customer needs into specific quality development. However, in the traditional QFD approach, each element’s interdependence and customer requirements are usually not systematically treated. Additionally, the Kano model can effectively classify customer demand attributes, but to make Kano model more objective in the course of weighing, we have also included Fuzzy mode in our discussion. This study presents an integrative approach by incorporating the Kano model with Fuzzy mode into the matrix of QFD and adjusting customer requirement weights. This approach can fulfill two objectives, First, through the Kano model with the Fuzzy mode, it will not only discriminate out options for the required attributes in much more breadth but also simultaneously render the discretions on the linguistic implications much more accurate with the aid of the ambiguous questionnaire response method. Second, combining the Kano model and QFD, can not only provide a new way to optimize the product design but can also enhance customer satisfaction and loyalty, and minimize dissatisfaction. The proposed methods can be useful to both practitioners and researchers. To illustrate our findings, we have incorporated an example which suggests that the proposed approach can contribute to the creation of attractive PLM attributes and PLM innovation.     

服务计算环境下的信任评估模型

分析了传统信任评估模型,论述了基于信任的扩展SOA模型和信任建模方法,根据第三方代理的推荐信誉看法和团体信誉看法,提出了一种新的服务计算信任评估安全模型(SOC-TrustSM)。SOC-TrustSM在传统信任评估模型的基础上,引入了第一手、第二手、第三手的推荐信誉看法及团体信誉看法,能够较准确地获得服务计算环境下获信代理的信任值,可以有效地抵御代理间的恶意推荐行为。     

Database reverse engineering: From the relational to the binary relationship model

This paper describes an algorithmic method for transforming a relational database schema to a binary-relationship one. The source schema may consist of relations that are at any level of normalization, and the designer may add semantic information on the source schema, such as the definition of candidate keys, foreign keys, functional dependencies of various types, multi-valued dependencies, many-to-many constraints, inclusion dependencies, and others. Based on this information, the multi-stage transformation algorithm applies mapping rules to generate object-types, binary-relationships and constraints in the target conceptual schema. The method is implemented as a PC-based tool, utilizing Ingres, SQL and C, and is part of a comprehensive database design tool for both forward and reverse engineering.     

A systematic approach to the Kansei factors of tactile sense regarding the surface roughness

Designing products to satisfy customers' emotion requires the information gathered through the human senses, which are visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, or tactile senses. By controlling certain design factors, customers' emotion can be evaluated, designed, and satisfied. In this study, a systematic approach is proposed to study the tactile sense regarding the surface roughness. Numerous pairs of antonymous tactile adjectives are collected and clustered. The optimal number of adjective clusters is estimated based on the several criterion functions. The representative average preferences of the final clusters are obtained as the estimates of engineering parameters to control the surface roughness of the commercial polymer-based products.     

感性微分法在产品设计中的探讨

感性工学是将感性与工学相结合的一种技术,其在产品设计中的应用,主要通过分析人的感性来建立产品构想模型,并据此来设计产品。感性微分法是感性工学中的一种定性研究方法,这种方法可以通过感性概念的逐步细分从而和设计元素建立起一一对应关系,本文试图应用感性微分法在产品设计中的作用进行探讨,并以行李箱的拉杆设计为例就感性微分法的应用进行探讨。