Influence of the end customer on the car development
Year: 2008
Editor: S. Vajna
Author: Dauletova, A.
Abstract
This paper describes the result of the research done by me and my project group during the Integrated Product Development (IPD) minor program in the Fontys University of Applied Sciences. Four interviews were held with the production managers from different companies who are involved in the automobile industry. The special literature dedicated to the topic of customer involvement also had been used in the research. The research showed that term ‘customer’ is interpreted in different meaning for different companies. The customer could be a designer, an ordinary driver or just a car expert. The involvement of the customer in all four companies is carried out only in the phase of ‘identifying customer needs’, most of the times done by marketing department. Further on customer involvement is not needed as companies try to avoid interruption of ‘unnecessary eyes’ due to the tough competition on the market. To find out what influence the end customer has on the new car model development I conducted further research. I found some interesting articles that proved me that such brand automobile companies as Audi and BMW are starting to involve the end customer in the development process and the integration is not going to stop only on the online website communication.
Keywords: customer involvement, new product development, automobile industry, customer integration in the process development