Concept design of commercial diesel engines reflecting customer preference

Owing to strengthened environmental regulations concerning climate change issues, commercial diesel industry is focusing on technology development for reducing emissions but is making fewer efforts to reflect customer needs. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the part-worths of attribute levels representing customer needs for commercial diesel engines so that this information can be utilised to suggest new designs. We apply an adaptive conjoint analysis (ACA) to identify the optimal design considering not only the technology affecting emission and performance, but also the customer perception of commercial diesel engine used in buses and trucks. The results highlight key components for manufacturer and end user customer groups, respectively. In addition, we employ a choice simulation to understand market attractiveness for three potential products reflecting the actual commercial diesel engines being sold in South Korea.