Title: Remote customer interaction in frugal product development: model with customer evaluation

Authors: Ravi Kumar Gupta; Caglar Ucler; Alain Bernard

Addresses: Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, Manipal Institute of Technology Bengaluru, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India; Department of Mechanical Engineering, Manipal University Jaipur, Jaipur 303007, India ' Faculty of Aviation and Aeronautical Sciences, Ozyegin University, 34794 Cekmekoy, Istanbul, Turkey ' LS2N UMR CNRS 6004, Ecole Centrale de Nantes, Nantes Université, Nantes, France

Abstract: The objective of this paper is to deliver an efficient structured methodology for spatially distributed but collaborative frugal product development to fulfil the requirements of emerging markets. The utilisation of local content, customer feedback, and preferences are respected to enable the customisation of products and attributes in the customer's environment. Virtual customer inspection tool based on augmented reality is developed and presented for remote customer interactions, recording feedback, preferences, and customisations. The developed tool enables the interaction of the customer with the product in digital, semi-finished, and finished form, which is capturing customer experiences, integrates geographical spread, and validates the product in the customer's environment. To achieve this, the tool uses intelligent decision-making with the incorporation of analytic hierarchy process, where satisfaction evaluation of the customer is used to achieve optimal requirements for frugal product development. The developed tool and associated remote virtual customer interactions are demonstrated with use cases.

Keywords: frugal product development; collaborative product development; augmented reality; customer experience; product interaction; virtual customer inspection.

DOI: 10.1504/IJPLM.2022.127119

International Journal of Product Lifecycle Management, 2022 Vol.14 No.4, pp.367 - 392

Received: 08 Dec 2021
Received in revised form: 18 Aug 2022
Accepted: 06 Sep 2022
Published online: 22 Nov 2022 *

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