For reasons of the comprehensibility and clarity of the questionnaire and because
of the fact that a lengthy questionnaire scares off the interviewee, it was essential
to limit the object of the survey “cutlery” – a term which according to the IVSH
Industrieverband Schneid und Haushaltswaren (a German industrial association
for cutlery and household goods) can be sub-divided into 12 different classes of
goods – and to distinguish it from other similar products and product groups.
After defining several selection criteria, the group of goods to be selected ought to
occupy an excellent position within the product group “cutlery”; furthermore, it ought
to be possible to describe it with diverse product attributes which are relevant to its
saleability and the product properties which can be technically influenced. The group
of goods “knife with fixed blade” (household knives, knives for professional use and
sets of knives) was chosen to be the object under survey in the Kano project.
Phase 2 in designing a questionnaire dealt with identifying potential customer
requirements regarding the object of the survey.
Research in pertinent literature and the internet, the authors’ own considerations
and explorative brief interviews during which participants from the end-customer field
Figure 1.
Kano model for classifying
product attributes
One-dimensional
requirements (O)
- Articulated
- Specified
- Deliberate
- Measurable
Must-be/basic
requirements (M)
- Taken for granted
- Not articulated
- Obvious
- Almost no longer
deliberate
Attractive
requirements (A)
- Not articulated
- Unexpected
- Not yet deliberate
Customer satisfaction
high
Customer satisfaction
low
Source:
Sauerwein (2000)
Degree of
performance
high
Degree of
performance
low
Time
Indifferent
requirements (I)
IJQSS
2,3
354
named all the criteria they could think of regarding the quality of a household knife
and then evaluated these during the course of the interview resulted in 60 quality
criteria being given for a knife with a fixed blade.