Human sensory evaluation of tennis balls for quality improvement

Tennis balls are one of the most widely used commodities in the sporting goods industry as pressurized balls can be deemed unfit for play as soon as nine games after opening. This paper utilizes sensory evaluation techniques to collect aesthetic quality attribute information for tennis balls at varying stages of wear. These quality attributes play an important role in quality function deployment and are of particular importance when considering differentiation between commodity products. Professional tennis players performed ranking evaluations with two trials of worn tennis balls, eliciting characteristics associated with aesthetic quality and performance. Five customer quality attributes were identified from the trials: ball colour, logo condition, stiffness, size and shape, and fuzziness. Quality rankings suggest an optimum range of fuzziness, surrounding the condition of a new ball, that is preferred by players. As visual evaluations also influenced the perception of non-aesthetic ball properties, it is suggested that these quality attributes offer manufacturers design solutions to suit a range of customer product preferences and improve product differentiation in the commodity market.