Trends in Kansei Engineering and

Statistical Design for Innovation

September 20, 2009
14.00-17.00
Chalmers University of Technology
Goteborg (Sweden)

Innovation means introducing something new in a system (product/service) to improve its quality; it can be realized by implementing a specific performance in the system in order to satisfy new user needs. In the current market innovation is a critical activity to be performed through user involvement. Among the more spread methodologies for user need identification, Kansei Engineering (KE) allows designers to capture user emotions and to link them to product features. For this reason KE offers many advantages to detect latent emotional user needs.

The main topic of this half-day workshop is innovation in product design through the improvement of KE methodology. The goal is to develop innovative tools (eg Virtual Reality tools) and statistical methods to give to KE an effective role in the product design process.

The workshop has an international profile; it has an open forum structure, aiming to favour the exchange of opinions and experience about statistics for innovation. In the opening session a short summary of the recent literature on Kansei Engineering and Statistical Design for Innovation will be presented; then, all participants will be invited to introduce their organization and some insights related to the workshop topic. A discussant will involve everybody for an active a participative discussion.

The participation to the workshop is free. The official language is English. The proceedings will be collected on a CD. A certificate of attendance can be issued on request.

Presentations by:

·    University of Newcastle upon Tyne (UK)

·    Technical University of Catalonia (Spain)

·    Chalmers University of Technology (Sweden)

·    IWU Fraunhofer (Germany)

·    University of Naples Federico II (Italy)

·    K.P.A. Kenett - Preminger Associates LTD (Israel)