Strategic conceptual design of mid-sized passenger aircraft based on future market performance prediction

Abstract

In this study, we propose an enhanced strategic concept selection method based on concurrent consideration of future market performance. In the strategic conceptual design of a product, the relationship between the product attributes and market performance (i.e. customer preference in a market) is modeled. The historical relationship shows how the trend in customer preferences has changed over the period and we observed this trend is closely related to economic conditions of a market. The trend of customers' preferences is again modeled in terms of related economic factors. Finally, the estimated model is used for predicting the market performance of a concept and selecting the best concept. Demonstrating the usefulness of the approach, we employ the conceptual design of mid-sized passenger aircraft in this work. Market performances of 15 concepts of future mid-sized passenger aircraft that will be sold in 2020-2030 are predicted considering global economic conditions of the global oil price, global gross domestic product, and the net profits of airlines. In the high and reference oil price scenarios, the turboprop aircraft with a large number of seats performs best. However, this concept is very sensitive to oil price fluctuations. In contrast, the market performance of a turbofan aircraft with a large number of seats is predicted to be consistently high in all oil price scenarios, as well as robust to the uncertainty in future market conditions.