A REVIEW OF LITERATURE AND IDENTIFICATION OF TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM) TOOLS FOR PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND DESIGN INTEGRATION; AND THE ERGONOMICS PRINCIPLES FOR CUSTOMER SATISFACTION

Product design, Ergonomics and Total Quality Management (TQM) are three fields of engineering. They all aim for customer satisfaction, indigenously. Literature available entails that, mechanical engineers design products for the customers and realize that the inclusion of principles of ergonomics and TQM is there. The methodology of inclusion of these principles is limited to the particular designers, and there is no standard method for it. Ergonomists also talk about incorporating the principles of product design and quality characteristics in product, during the development stage. But, as ergonomics is a costly affair and designers do not want to change the design for the sake of ergonomics, it has to take a back seat many a times. The customers may not know about the principles of design or ergonomics, but good quality in the product decides the future of the product. So, it can be said that, these three fields have a common goal of the customer satisfaction. At the same time, it is also realized that, there is need for uniting one field in other fields for the enhancement of customer satisfaction. In this paper, analysis is done to identify the total quality management tools, which can be used to incorporate the principles of product development and design and ergonomics for better customer satisfaction.