A new conceptual framework based on the ECSI model to support axiomatic design

Abstract

According with Axiomatic Design (AD) theory, the world of design is made up of four domains: the customer domain, the functional domain, the physical domain and the process domain. Therefore, to proceed in the design process, firstly, its necessary to determine the Customers Attributes (CAs), established in the Customer domain, and translate them into specific requirements, the Functional Requirements (FRs), formalized in the functional domain. This task is considered essential because a major reason for customer dissatisfaction is that the design specifications quite often do not adequately link to customer use of the product, a fact which is being pointed out as the most common cause for product design failures [1-2]. The European Customer Satisfaction Index (ECSI), as a Structural Equation Model (SEM), links customer satisfaction to its main drivers and consequences in terms of causal relationships. We will therefore introduce in this paper a new conceptual framework, aimed at addressing the development and validation of a model based on ECSI that supports the determination of the critical-to-satisfy (CTS) requirements, which are then used to determine the FRs. In order to validate the proposed approach, it was applied to the Portuguese plastic injection moulds sector.