Consideration-Constrained Engineering Design for Strategic Insights

Consumer behavior can be modeled using a decision-making process termed “consideration” in which consumers form requirements, “consideration rules,” in order to narrow their options for further evaluation. One type of consideration rule is the conjunctive rule, where a consumer makes a list of requirements and a product must meet all of the requirements in order to be considered for purchase, such as “the vehicle must get 25 miles per gallon or more”; “it must be priced at $22,000 or less”; and “it must be a standard-sized sedan.” This paper offers a design framework for linking these consideration rules with design. We demonstrate the use of our framework with a case study, namely the Volkswagen (VW) “clean diesel” scandal, which investigates the design strategies used in response to the scandal by capturing considerations within the marketing product planning subproblem and assuring engineering feasibility within the engineering design subproblem.