Digital Commons Network^™

Narrowing The Cognitive Distance Between Engineers And Customers: A Novel Approach, Based On Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping, Byung Sung Yoon

Dissertations and Theses

During concept development, product developers consider product users and their future experience, cost, development and manufacturing efficiency, product function/quality, and differentiation of the product in the market. Development teams often struggle to adequately address all of these considerations, due to the following reasons: (1) Differences in technological and experiential knowledge, methods used, and communication styles that make it difficult for customers/user, marketing, and engineering to communicate effectively. As a result, important factors may not be sufficiently considered. (2) Product design factors, including technological alternatives, functions, features, benefits, and customer value are interdependent: in some cases, customers are willing to sacrifice …

Developing A Mixed-Methods Method To Model Elderly Health Technology Adoption With Fuzzy Cognitive Map, And Its Application In Adoption Of Remote Health Monitoring Technologies By Elderly Women, Noshad Rahimi

Dissertations and Theses

Providing healthcare to the ever-rising elderly population has become a severe challenge and a top priority. Emerging innovations in healthcare, such as remote health monitoring technologies, promise to provide a better quality of care and reduce the cost of healthcare. However, many elderly people reject healthcare innovations. This lack of adoption constitutes a big practical problem because it keeps the elderly from benefiting from technology advances. The phenomenon is even more pronounced among elderly women, who represent the majority of the elderly population.

A plethora of studies in the field of technology adoption resulted in sound, but highly generalized theories …

Multi-Perspective Technology Assessment To Improve Decision Making: A Novel Approach Using Fuzzy Cognitive Mapping For A Large-Scale Transmission Line Upgrade, Richard Chad Sperry

Dissertations and Theses

The objective of the technology assessment (TA) process is to understand problematic and undesirable consequences from the development and application of technology. TA advocates for the engagement of technology experts and stakeholders to understand the effects of technology. However, TA is often criticized that the decision-making process is not transparent - leaving stakeholders wondering if their contributions were heard. Furthermore, the methods have limited capability for conducting tradeoff analysis between the organizational objectives and conflicting stakeholder perspectives that can result in unintended consequences. Finally, these methods are static making it difficult to update and reassess decision alternatives when new information …