A methodology to generate a belief rule base for customer perception risk analysis in new product development

New product development (NPD) is crucial for a company’s success in a competitive market. Meanwhile, NPD is a process associated with great complexity and high risk. To ensure its smooth operation, risks involved in an NPD process need to be analyzed in a proper way. In this paper, a novel method is proposed to generate a belief rule base (BRB), which is the basis of the Belief Rule-Base Inference Methodology using the Evidential Reasoning (RIMER). Due to its capability in dealing with complex reasoning problems under uncertainty, RIMER is then applied to assess customer perception risk (CPR) in an NPD process. To test and validate the method proposed in this paper, a case study of an ‘‘Interactive Doll’’ is conducted at the end of the paper. 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.