The increasing cost of seeds for small grain crops makes it necessary to develop seeders with a more effective control over the stand of plants. This could be accomplished with the use of precision planters, but such equipment is only available for large seed crops. Because this is a new product, especial attention must be paid to the design process to be used, in order to consider all attributes involved in the fulfillment of such task, including those related to the machine functional performance as well as those expressing the product quality, market and production needs. Therefore, this study has the objective of presenting the client's requirements to design a precision meter for small seeds identified through the application of a field questionnaire to farmers, agricultural researches, salespersons, designers, and other information gathered in the bibliography. Forty clients' needs were brought about from the answers of the 55 questionnaires and bibliographical data. With the analysis of these needs, it was possible to identify 27 clients' requirements along the life cycle of a seeder, to be used in the product design.
precision planters; design methodology; product life cycle
