lengthy washing cycles’ and the ‘possibility of washing partial load while maintaining
the same efficiency’. According to the proposed model, this step is described
in process I (needs interpretation) and produces Ni variables.
Then, the designers have formalised the above interpreted needs by means of
a set of measurable parameters (i.e., Ri): the maximum duration of a washing
cycle and the maximum water and energy consumption for each fraction of the
nominal load. The proposed model represents this activity with process II,
which is the transformation applied to better comprehend and classify the collected
customer needs and to perform, as stated above, a type of preliminary feasibility analysis.
By considering now the second set of ‘potential’ needs, which was proposed by the design team through the study of the clothes cleaning cycle, among the other issues that emerged from the study, two candidate features of an innovative green washing machine can be identified: