Design information management for product sound quality: Requirement definition

In a current design information management of consumer products, it is difficult to take into consideration of the sensory preference of users in requirements definition phase. Especially, sensory preference on sound of products might be different individually and depend on environment where the products are used. The engineering metrics are necessary to be connected to the sensory preference of users to design the right products to user preferences. In this paper we propose a process to manage design information considering product sound quality, and investigate a consistent description method using SysML (Systems Modeling Language) from requirement definition to engineering metrics setting. Picking up a camera as an example of consumer products we extract customer demands using the evaluation grid method according to the cases where the camera is used. By applying the DSM (Design Structure Matrix) clustering analysis to the results of the interview, we cluster the fundamental requirements relating functional and performance requirements which include sound quality. Also a stepwise refinement from the requirement definition to the architectural design is performed using SysML diagrams, and the appropriate engineering metrics are derived.