PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT FOCUSED ON PEOPLE WITH SPECIAL NEEDS

Timea GYÖRKE, Dan HURGOIU, Florin POPIŞTER

Abstract


Persons with special needs express special requirements towards products and services in order to maintain or improve the quality of their life in means of reasonable costs for the individual as well as for the society. Elderly people form a continuously expanding group of the special needed, the development of products that meet their requirements being one of the major preoccupations not only of the manufacturing companies but of the entire society. Technical requirements of a product are affected by the constraints resulted from the special needs expressed by these persons. This paper contains an argumentative introductory part based on which further it also proposes an algorithm for product development in order to meet the requirements of the old persons. A theoretical case study highlights the effect of elders’ special needs on the product development process.

Key words: product, people with special needs

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