Integrated Methodology for the Design of Formulated Products
Incorporating Consumer Preferences and Heuristic Knowledge
Abstract
This work proposes a systematic approach for the design of formulated
products incorporating consumer assessment and heuristic knowledge. The
methodology is divided into two main phases: Consumer assessment and
product realization. In the first part, product attributes valued by
consumers and their interactions are identified through usability tests
performed on a reference product, and fuzzy integral analysis. In the
second phase, alternative product formulations are generated using a
mixed-integer optimization approach, which incorporates heuristic rules
regarding the choice of ingredients and their amounts. The results from
the consumer assessment phase are transformed into additional heuristics
and incorporated into the design. Using two commercial skin moisturizers
as references, different alternative formulations are generated at a lab
scale. Those formulations that included additional heuristics are shown
to be more similar to the references. As a result, the incorporation of
consumer preferences significantly reduced the time and resources spent
on the design process.