۱- Introduction

۲- Literature review

۳- Framework for customer feedback during aircraft production

۴- Implementation of the proposed framework for customer feedback during aircraft production

۵- Virtual customer inspection and feedback recording

۶- Customer feedback evaluation and management from a product development perspective

۷- Discussion

۸- Conclusion

References

Abstract

This paper proposes a systematic approach for gathering requirements during production through customers’ remote access to the partially and fully assembled aircraft and its modules. The paper also proposes an evaluation and management of these recorded requirements and their utilization in the development of an aircraft. Modular product architecture is used for the modular organization of the product, product-service, and production system for the gathering, evaluation and management of feedback for product development perspectives. A mobile and wearable augmented reality system is used to virtually walk through the partially or fully manufactured product and to compare the status of the production with the product model to be produced. Change requests are captured as customer feedback. The knowledge thus acquired can be overlaid (augmented) on the real product, i.e. the aircraft. This approach is able to record the dynamic requirements of targeted customers. These changes can be carried out in the current version of the aircraft, and also incorporated into future versions. The implementation using case studies is presented for gathering feedback during assembly as well as for evaluating and managing the recorded feedback for exemplary modules (cabin and galley) of an aircraft. The use of the evaluation results in the development of an aircraft is also presented in the paper.

Introduction

The economy is changing rapidly with strong budgetary pressures. Therefore, companies aim at reducing costs and increasing customer satisfaction. They need to be aware of the prevailing economic trends and living standards for the product markets and countries in order to make more accurate and effective plans for product development. The frugal strategy by removing unimportant functions/features and cutting costs is able to adapt household goods to market needs and the changing behaviour of customers (Berger, 2013; Bhatti, Khilji, & Basu, 2013; Ucler, Vayvay, & Cobanoglu, 2006; Zeschky, Widenmayer, & Gassmann, 2011). The frugal innovation of investment goods such as aircraft and production systems is studied in the ProRegio project (ProRegio, 2017). Customers usually define the aircraft request (configuration) based on the intended usage of the aircraft in operation e.g. short or long distance flights, and airline business models e.g. low-cost carriers or legacy carriers (Wensveen, 2007; Wensveen & Leick, 2009). These business model practices can vary slightly depending on the customer’s geographical location (e.g. head-up-displays are more likely to occur on Chinese aircraft than on European aircraft due to local regulations).1 The duration between placing the requirements for an aircraft and its delivery is quite long e.g. 12–۱۸ months, as it depends on the availably of production slots. Some of the requirements defined in the proposal phase may change during this period, depending on market trends and customer requests (Belkadi et al., 2016). Components and modules in an aircraft are governed by predefined configurations. Deviation in the configuration can potentially have an impact on time as well as cost and can also disrupt production and supply of parts. Small deviations (for example placements of placards and markings) occur in production and may be requested by the customer. These changes of requirements can arise during customer inspection on the ongoing production of an aircraft.