Noriaki Kano (狩野紀昭 ''Kanō Noriaki,'' pronounced ) is a Japanese educator, lecturer, writer, and consultant in the field of quality management. He is the developer of a

customer satisfaction Customer satisfaction (often abbreviated as CSAT) is a term frequently used in marketing. It is a measure of how products and services supplied by a company meet or surpass customer expectation. Customer satisfaction is defined as "the number of c ...

model (now known as the

Kano model The Kano model is a theory for product development and customer satisfaction developed in the 1980s by Professor Noriaki Kano, which classifies customer preferences into five categories. Categories These categories have been translated into E ...

) whose simple ranking scheme distinguishes between essential and differentiating attributes related to concepts of customer quality. He is a professor

emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

of the

Tokyo University of Science , formerly "Science University of Tokyo" or TUS, informally or simply is a private research university located in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. History Tokyo University of Science was founded in 1881 as The Tokyo Academy of Physics by 21 graduates ...

. He was Visiting Professor at the University of Rome III during the academic year 2010-2011.

Contributions to quality

In the late 1970s and early 1980s Kano and his colleagues laid the foundation for a new approach to modeling

. Kano challenged the conventional beliefs that improving each attribute of a company's product or service will lead to increased customer satisfaction. Kano believed that not all attributes of product or service performance are equal in the eyes of the customer, and that some attributes create higher levels of

customer loyalty The loyalty business model is a business model used in strategic management in which company resources are employed so as to increase the loyalty of customers and other stakeholders in the expectation that corporate objectives will be met or sur ...

than others. One of his well-known books is the ''Guide to TQM in Service Industries.''

Academic achievements, awards and honors

Noriaki Kano completed his undergraduate, masters, and doctoral degrees in the engineering school of the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

. He retired from the Tokyo University of Science (TUS) after 35 years in research and education, as a lecturer and associate professor at the

University of Electro-Communications The is a national university in the city of Chōfu, Tokyo, Japan. It specialises in the disciplines of computer science, the physical sciences, engineering and technology. It was founded in 1918 as the Technical Institute for Wireless-Commun ...

and a full professor and head of the Department of Management Science at TUS. He was the 1997 recipient of the

Deming Prize The Deming Prize is the longest-running and one of the highest awards on TQM (Total Quality Management) in the world. It recognizes both individuals for their contributions to the field of Total Quality Management (TQM) and businesses that have s ...

for Individuals, administered by the

Japanese Union of Scientists and Engineers The Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) ( ja, 日本科学技術連盟), was established in May 1946 by the Science and Technology Agency (now known as the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) of the Govern ...

(JUSE). In 1997 he also received the Deming Lecturer Award of the American Statistical Association; his paper for the annual Deming Lecture was titled "Business Strategies for the 21st Century and Attractive Quality Creation." Kano is the only honorary member of three societies i.e. International Academy for Quality (IAQ),

American Society for Quality The American Society for Quality (ASQ), formerly the American Society for Quality Control (ASQC), is a society of quality professionals, with nearly 80,000 members. History ASQC was established on 16 February 1946 by 253 members in Milwaukee, ...

(ASQ) and Japan Society for Quality Control (JSQC). He was the recipient of two ASQ Medals of Distinction: the E. Jack Lancaster Medal for 2002 and the E. L. Grant Medal for 2007. Kano is a recipient of the Georges Borel Award for international contribution by the European Organization for Quality (EOQ). Kano is the Honorary Chairperson of Asian Network for Quality (ANQ).

Publications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kano, Noriaki Tokyo University of Science faculty Quality experts 1940 births Living people University of Tokyo alumni