Today, product success more than ever depends on the satisfaction of consumer needs. Besides, manufacturers need to shorten development cycles and accelerate product release in order to stay competitive. This is achieved by applying customer-oriented methods allowing for fast and reliable acting. During the early phase of product development, requirements acquisition is crucial for later success of products, since specifications are most influenceable at this point. Referring to the decisive concept generation phase, material and production definition is difficult due to the highly complex interrelations between material properties, production process capabilities, and resulting product characteristics. Especially in the context of lightweight design, concurrent material and processing technology selection must be considered due to its various possible interfaces.

Thus, this contribution outlines an integrated approach towards an enhanced material and process related, customer-oriented requirements acquisition during the early phase upstream of product detailing. Here, conventional multi-criteria decision-making and tactile recognition are employed in an agile transformation model.