Application of quality function deployment and axiomatic design for design choice of intercity bus seats

Abstract

Competition between companies is increasing due to a rapidly developing global market. Companies that want to be a leading competitor have embarked on new quests and begun to strengthen their R&D activities. Currently, customer satisfaction has a significant impact on the work of designers. A company that satisfies customer requests is always one step ahead of its competitors. The purpose of this paper is to select a suitable design for an intercity bus seat that meets the highest level of customer requests. First, the quality function deployment (QFD) methodology is applied to consider the “voice of the customers,” and the expected features of the seat are determined. Then, an axiomatic design (AD) is used, and the seat that meets the highest number of customer requests among the three designed seat alternatives is obtained. As a result, a roadmap for achieving the best design that satisfies the end user's requests is presented.