ICADS: Intelligent Car Audio Design System for product planning

This paper describes the development of a system, ICADS (Intelligent Car Au dio Design System), that can be used to effectively support product develop ment engineers in car audio product design. We have demonstrated the use of expert system technology and the technique of quality function deployment (QFD) in supporting car audio design planning. QFD is applied as a knowledg e acquisition method in this study to support car audio design teams in the development of products in a structured way that relates market demand via engineering specifications to parts specifications. We believe that other industries can use a similar approach for developing an expert system that can support product design planning.