Quality management techniques as support for designing automated domestic appliances for people with special needs

Every product has to respond to certain needs with the relative special requests. Both needs and requirements are expressed specifically by customers or users. People with special needs represent a continuously growing part of the population of modern world. Products that satisfy the special needs and requirements of these new market niche so that they can be used by a wide range of people as possible, represent a great challenge for product designers. In the present paper authors propose a structured approach for the conception and development of such products, using instruments and techniques of quality management and engineering. A case study is made on a home appliance, precisely on an automated washing machine.