Recent analysis has shown deteriorating traffic conditions in urban areas, caused by an increase in the motorization rate, which has risen to 66.6 vehicles per 100 inhabitants. As a result of the pandemic, individuality has grown, hence private vehicles are becoming more prevalent whilst public transport and sharing are negatively affected. Therefore, European policies have encouraged and innovated more sustainable mobility. Thus, the developed project aims to achieve more efficient mobility and more sustainable environments, towards social and economic well-being. The proposed means of transport aims to appeal to an audience with a reduced ability to drive a car as intended. The IDeS methodology was applied to develop a self-driving, urban micro mobility vehicle, aimed to give enough room and equipment for people with moving disabilities. The innovation of the IDeS method is state-of-the-art and ought to satisfy current product needs, which leads to an innovative micromobility vehicle and portrays a design for a car that will help to close the gaps in urban mobility. These design processes, which are distinguished by the fusion of several industrial techniques, enabled the development of a plan that addresses current mobility issues for disabled people and opens to new mobility prospects.

Urban mobility scenarios are constantly evolving, and today’s solutions may not be adequate in the future. Through innovative analysis and design methods encapsulated by the IDeS methodology, it is possible to plausibly hypothesize a number of key scenarios to be analyzed, for which vehicles can be designed in order to solve the main problems. Scenarios such as the steady growth in public mobility, based on the sharing of electric mini-buses at the expense of the privatization of the means of transport, lead to the gradual rethinking of citizens’ needs and the supporting infrastructure. Problems such as the lack of privacy of public vehicles, the efficiency of the infrastructure and recharging modes of e-buses, and autonomous driving are addressed here through methods such as QFD (quality function deployment) and SDE (stylistic design engineering), with the aim of outlining a proposal that, to date, is futuristic but is designed to be concrete and feasible within the next decade. These methodologies were applied to the design of a sustainable urban transport system consisting of an electric mini-bus, effected by rethinking the layout of the interior spaces in favor of areas enabling greater privacy and a mobile recharging system (MBS) capable of offering a new management strategy for the non-stop recharging phase. Through the use of an MBS, which functions as a mobile ‘energy bank’ module that is capable of autonomously reaching a mini-bus in need of recharging and extending its autonomy by connecting and recharging it, the proposed system can potentially be enabled to perform its required service during the day without any need to spend time making intermediate stops for the purpose of recharging.

PurposeThe aim of this research is to enlighten the methodology model of Industrial Design Structure (IDeS) that integrates the internal and external customer feedback embodied both in methods of quality function deployment (QFD) and as basis of design for six sigma (DFSS) steps to systematically bring the information across the entire organization, saving overall product development time and resources.Design/methodology/approachThe paper describes the state of the art enlightened to establish the disadvantages and challenges of other methods taken into consideration in the study like QFD and DFSS that, together with the need of companies to react fast to changes they need to straightforwardly implement product development information across all departments, leading to a mass customization infrastructure. Several application trials of this methodology have been cited.FindingsThe IDeS method has established to been able to integrate other well-known methodologies to gather technical specifications starting from voice of customers (VOCs) like QFD that served to canalize the generalist approach of define, measure, analyze, design and verify (DMADV) of DFSS in order to reach into a larger share of the organization and englobe by following the overall product design steps of an industrial project.Research limitations/implicationsThe research approach chosen for this document presents the concept of a methodology ought to operate most internal branches in a company driven by product design requirements and guidelines. Therefore, researchers are encouraged to develop further studies on the IDeS method are required in order to adapt this methodology to specific management tools that would help to ease information gathering for immediate analysis and modification.Practical implicationsThe paper implicates that a need to interchange information systematically across all subdivisions in the organization, as brisk response to VOC reactions is needed to thrive in the market nowadays, leading to a fast product customization scene. However, the industry is heading into adopting an individual customer-centered product conceptualization ought to be driven by design as a key for individualizing an object. Afterward by taking this concept broadly and adopting it would lead to implement a company organization that would be directly affected by the customer's input.Social implicationsThe methodology described aims to enable organizations to portray fast and accurate product prototyping, by exploiting technologies from Industry 4.0.Originality/valueThis concept proposes a method to canalize the implementation of DFSS by using the DMADV approach, whilst assessing the challenges of adaptation and keeping up with cultural pace that impacts the behavior of buying and consumption and moreover implementing a seamless communication within all departments in the organization to share the development progress and change requests by using similar information technology tools. This would imply important savings in resources, whilst delivering quality products to the society.

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