Customer Requirement Analysis Based on an Analytical Kano Model

To facilitate effective analysis of customer requirements, the Kano model for customer satisfaction has been proposed to classify customer requirements based on survey data. However, traditional Kano is inadequate in quantitative evaluation and it lacks proper criteria for requirement classification. In this regard, this paper proposes an analytical Kano (A-Kano) model to address the key issues of customer requirement analysis. A set of Kano indices is defined to estimate customer preference based on quantitative measurements. Next, the Kano classifiers are defined as the criteria for classifying the customer requirements. The merit of the classification is evaluated against a Kano evaluator, which is a shared surplus of customer-perceived utility and the producers´ capability. The A-Kano model is expected to classify functional requirements into logical groups, which leads to an optimal tradeoff between customer satisfaction and producer capability.