Design of Individualized Wheelchairs Using AHP and Kano Model

• Main Authors: Yanli Yuan, Tianmin Guan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: SAGE Publishing 2014-06-01
• Series: Advances in Mechanical Engineering
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/242034

To study how to design different grades of individualized wheelchairs according to users' needs, a personalized wheelchair design method based on AHP and Kano model is proposed. The AHP model determines the relative importance of characteristics of customers' demands. The subfunctions of manual wheelchairs and their attributes are given. The weight coefficients are calculated. 20 experts (10 are the members of the research team, 5 are doctors, and 5 are wheelchair designers) are involved in the above two parts of the work. Kano model represents the types of user requirements. 30 participants' (wheelchair users) needs are divided into 5 categories: M, O, E, I, and R. According to the types of user needs and the weight of each subfunction, three manual wheelchair models are built. Traditional design method usually cannot satisfy the requirements of users and product structure, so this paper makes a contribution to solve this problem. The method can be used to design individualized wheelchairs which may improve the product quality and customers' satisfaction. Meanwhile it also can reduce the design time, thereby reducing the design cost.