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Click Here Lecture Program 21Mar 2009 Photos
Conjoint Analysis (CA) and Quality Function Deployment (QFD) are two popular tools for supporting new product design; marketers frequently use the former and engineers the latter. Typically, in a conjoint study, the attributes and their levels are determined through focus group discussions or market surveys. Sometimes, the market researchers exclude some critical features or include unrealistic attribute levels resulting in infeasible product profiles. Inappropriate selection of attribute levels may make the conjoint study less useful. In QFD, the New Product Development team attempts to identify the technical characteristics (TCs) to be improved (included) to meet the customer requirements (CRs) through a subjective relationship matrix between CRs and TCs. At present there is no methodology that uses the output of QFD to generate feasible product profiles to be used in CA and hence improve its usefulness. In this paper, QFD is used along with an integer programming (IP) model to determine the appropriate TCs and hence the right attribute levels. These attribute levels are then used in a conjoint study. It is also proposed to measure the elements of the so-called relationship matrix in QFD in a way so that the right levels of the attributes can be generated from the IP solution. The proposed method is applied to a commercial vehicle design problem with hypothetical data.
About the Speaker Dr. Atanu Chaudhuri is an Assistant Manager at Deloitte Research, specializing in Consumer & Industrial Products Industries. He is involved in driving thought leadership pieces on critical issues in global manufacturing. During his tenure at Deloitte research, he has worked on diverse topics like Managing the Talent Crisis in Global Manufacturing, Mastering Finance in Business and Made in North America. He co-authored an article titled “Necessity Breeds Opportunity: Constraints, Innovation and Competitive Advantage” which was published in the January 2009 issue of Deloitte Review. Prior to joining Deloitte, Dr. Atanu worked with Tata Motors and Eicher Consultancy Service (ECS). He brings with him rich industrial experience being involved in planning for new products and in analyzing design for manufacturing issues. In his consulting career, Atanu has been involved in Improvement Initiatives like Six Sigma and TPM implementation for firms in multiple industries like chemicals, cement, paint and pharmaceuticals. He has published research papers in Industrial Engineering Journal, Journal of Academy of Business and Economics and has forthcoming publications in International Journal of Production Research and in a book titled “The Art and Sciences behind Successful Product Launches”, published by Springer publications. He has presented papers at conferences in India and abroad. Dr. Chaudhuri holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Jadavpur University in India and is a Fellow in Operations Management (PhD) from Indian Institute of Management, Luck now. He is a member of Society of Operations Management and Product Development & Management Association. |
