Industrial

Ergonomics
ELSEVIER

International Journal of Industrial Ergonomics15 (1995) 1

Preface

Kansei Engineering: An ergonomic technology

for product development
Kansei Engineering was born in Japan, strictly
speaking at Hiroshima University, in 1970, and it
has spread out in Japanese industries as well as
in the world. For many decades, manufacturers
have provided hundreds of products which were
developed from the manufacturer's intention.
However, wise customers want products that fit
their demand. This implies that manufacturers
should incorporate the customers' needs and mind
in the product. To be able to do this, they should
know what the customers' needs are and what
their feeling regarding the new product is.
"Kansei" in Japanese means the customer's
feeling and need relating to the product. The
Kansei includes the customer's feeling about the
product design, size, color, mechanical function,
feasibility of operation, and price as well. Therefore, if the manufacturers desire good sales, they
have to identify the present Kansei of customers
and implement it in the product.
Kansei Engineering is an ergonomic technology of customer-oriented product development. It
focuses not on the manufacturer's intention of
the product, but rather on the customer's feeling
and needs (Kansei). Nagamachi, one of the editors of this Special Issue, has been engaged in
this field for more than two decades and has
experienced good sales due to satisfying the customer's needs. Japanese industries have introduced Kansei Engineering in their products, especially in houses, automobiles, construction machines, electrical appliances, clothing, household
articles, and so forth. It is very interesting that all
automotive industries in the world approached
Hiroshima University to obtain information con-

cerned with Kansei Engineering. Nowadays we

have many examples of the application of Kansei
Engineering. They are Persona (Mazda), Miyata
(Mazda), Taurus (Ford), March (Nissan), Domani
(Honda) and others. Both the Japanese and the
Korean government are very eager to foster Kansei Engineering technology in their countries and
they are willing to invest a lot of money.
Siz papers make up this Special Issue on Kansei Engineering. Nagamachi addresses general information about Kansei Engineering in the first
paper. Ishihara et al. discuss the introduction of a
neural network model to enrich Kansei Engineering in the second paper. The other papers address the applications of Kansei Engineering.
Horiguchi and Suetomi have applied the technology to a driver/vehicle system, and Shimizu and
Jindo have used Fuzzy Logic to analyze the Kansei. Jindo et al. have successfully applied Kansei
Engineering to the development of a tool for 3-D
presentation of chair design. Finally, Fukushima
et al. have implemented the Kansei intelligent
system in a color copy machine.
These are just research or applied samples
concerning Kansei Engineering. Kansei Engineering is the most recent ergonomic technology
aimed at the development of customer-oriented
products. It is conceivable that this technology
will be utilized in virtual reality as well as in
multi-media in the near future. The editors are
grateful to the contributors of this Special Issue.

0169-8141/95/$09.50 1995 ElsevierScience B.V. All rights reserved

SSDI 0169-8141(94)00070-0

Mitsuo Nagamachi and Andrew S. Imada

Special Issue Editors