A Methodological Framework for New Product Development in Fuzzy Environments

New product development (NPD) is crucial for helping companies to maintain competitive advantages. In this study, a methodological framework is presented combining a novel Kano model and fuzzy axiomatic design (FAD) for improving the product development capability in the whole NPD process. In the Kano model, a novel mixed-class classification method is presented to classify each evaluation indicator agreed on by the majority, and to calculate the affiliation value based on category strength (CS) to display the degree to which the indicator belongs to a certain attribute. A new importance ratio is also proposed to adjust the importance of each indicator attribute. This helps to achieve higher customer satisfaction and improve the attractiveness of the product or service. FAD is then used to measure the gap between customer satisfaction and the company’s expected levels of satisfaction in terms of product functions. This enables the company to obtain more comprehensive information for decision-making. A case study is provided to verify the practicability of the proposed method. Sensitivity analysis proves the robustness of the results based on the number of respondents. Finally, comparative analysis with existing approaches demonstrates the strengths of the proposed method.