5. Identifying requirements

What has to be installed and programmed in a certain home depends entirely on the habits and lifestyles of the residents. Hence, the installer has to use them as a basis for developing and implementing the specific integrated home system functions. It is not good to let the integrated home system functions provided depend upon the capabilities of the integrated home system. The choice of an integrated home system has to be determined by the user requirements and lifestyles and not because the installer always uses the same integrated home system out of habit and is not familiar enough with other systems.

Nevertheless, there is a practical problem. How does the installer and/or architect detect and list the integrated home system requirements of the customer? To our knowledge, there are currently no suitable tools for doing this in a way that is not time consuming. All kinds of integrated home system applications can be discussed in meetings with the customer. The disadvantage, however, is that this takes up a lot of the architect’s and installer’s time. The customer can also become overwhelmed by an overabundance of options that do not apply to him and thus decide that he does not want an integrated home system installed.

One of the ways to solve this problem is to present various integrated home system options, that are geared to specific age groups, family situations, financial capacities, homes, etc., to the end user in a highly visual manner using a CD-ROM or the internet. With every integrated home system function, the customer is given the opportunity to specify whether or not he wants the proposed function implemented in his home, or to say that the proposed function interests him, but he does not want it implemented yet, but the possibility for later implementation must be provided. A printout or e-mail of his desires is sent to the installer. He now has a lot of firm information about the desires of the customer. The installation will thus be much closer to the integrated home system desires of the customer than the integrated home system desires of the installer. If a number of installers are asked to provide a quotation on the basis of such a list, the various quotations must be able to be compared to one another. They must all meet the desires of the customer. It all too often happens that the quotations cannot be compared to one another properly because the installer generally decides what he will install in the integrated home system. With such quotations, the customer does not completely know what integrated home system functions and options he will get for the asking price. Only upon completion will it become clear that the installed facilities do not correspond to the integrated home system concept that the customer had in mind. A lot of work is still ongoing in this area.