Interpreting the Sources of Market Value in a Capital Goods Market: R&D Management in Industrial Sensors

This paper presents an integrated model for evaluating purchasers' perceptions of science-baded products. The model combines a new approach to benchmarking, known as technometrics, that provides a quantitative profile of a product's key attributes, with direct and indirect methods for measuring buyers's perceptions regarding the relative importance of product attributes as a source of value. A new measure for the demand orientation is proposed, which shows the extent to wich a product 'supply' of characteristics matches the 'demand' for them in the market place. The model is illustrated using several types of industrial pressure sensors. The paper also demonstrates how the integrated model may be made effective for quality function deployment (QFD) during the R&D phase.