2010 Awards for Excellence
Article Type: Awards for Excellence From: Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management, Volume 21, Issue 8
Outstanding paper, Literati Award Winners
Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management
Evaluation of customer satisfaction for PSS design
Koji Kimita and Yoshiki ShimomuraDepartment of System Design, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Tokyo, JapanTamio AraiDepartment of Precision Engineering, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan
Purpose – Combined offerings of products and services,that is, a product-service system (PSS), have been attracting much attention. Consequently, a good design methodology of services as well as that of manufacturing products is needed. The purpose of this paper is to propose a method for estimating customer satisfaction that enables designers to compare design solutions in the conceptual stage.Design/methodology/approach – In the proposed method, first, the models that represent PSS features with relation to a customer’s state is adopted. Then, the authors propose the estimation procedure that utilises a non-linear value function called the satisfaction-attribute (S-A) function to quantify customer satisfaction.Findings – The proposed method centres on the estimation of customer satisfaction. It enables the designers to evaluate design candidates in the conceptual stage where little information is available,and therefore supports iterative improvements without the designer needing to hesitate under the weight of market analysis.Research limitations/implications – In this paper, the estimation is limited to a single transaction with a customer, rather than cumulative satisfaction that represents a customer’s imprints about the provider accumulated by repeating purchases. In future, therefore, the authors need to integrate the concept of effects over time such as loyalty and defection into the proposed framework.Practical implications – In the application, the proposed method is statistically proven to effectively illustrate customer satisfaction.Originality/value –This paper proposes the estimation method of customer satisfaction for PSS design. The proposed method allows designers to choose a design solution from the customer viewpoints.
Keywords: Customer satisfaction, Design for quality,Services
www.emeraldinsight.com/10.1108/17410380910961046
Journal of Manufacturing Technology Management Volume 20 Number 5,2009, pp. 654-673Editor: Professor David Bennett
Highly commended
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“Product design for product/service systems: Design experiences from Swedish industry”, Erik Sundin, Mattias Lindahl and Winifred Ijomah, Vol. 20 No. 5, 2009
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