Developing a new product via modern QFD: an application for bedding of laboratory animals

摘要

Laboratory animals play a crucial role in early testing of new drugs or methods in medical sciences such as pharmacology and surgery. Since the primary concern of medical scientists is to look for scientific medical outputs only, other factors regarding animal welfare such as environmental factors, feeding and bedding need to be considered to insure that the living conditions of laboratory animals is comfortable and healthy. The purpose of this study is to develop a bedding material for laboratory animals by implementing the basic steps of the Modern QFD methodology which is a new area of research for these kinds of products. Our findings show that Modern QFD can be effectively implemented in developing a new bedding material for laboratory animals. This study is a new implementation for determining the needs of laboratory animals using such a method and is an example of a unique case in the QFD domain.