Performance Assessment of Product Modules Based on Usage Data Collected Through Embedded Sensors

Customer needs elicitation is critical to the improvement and development of products. Due to the lack of relevant knowledge, some needs are difficult to perceive or express for ordinary customers in the traditional survey- based techniques such as interviews, questionnaires, and online reviews. Recent advances in technologies for information gathering make it possible to monitor and collect the usage data continuously during the product usage stage. In this research, a new approach is developed to assess the performance requirements of smartphones based on analysis of the operating data collected through embedded sensors. In the proposed approach, customers of the same product are first classified into different segments based on their usage patterns. Then, a data-based performance assessment method is developed to assess the performance of the product for each user considering product modules. A case study is presented to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.