Methods, work measurement and work design: Are we satisfying customer needs?

Based on current total quality management principles, it is very important to satisfy customer (future industrial engineers) needs in the work measurement and design area. To test the premise that universities are fulfilling this need, a survey was mailed to 141 practicing industrial engineers and the heads of the 100 U.S. industrial engineering programs. The 39% response rate yielded interesting trends. Some traditional work measurement tools are both commonly taught and used. Basic science principles are popularly taught by professors but little used by the practitioners. Real-world applications, highly used by practitioners, are rarely taught by educators. A cross-correlation of the ranked topics was not significant (p = .28). Thus, one might conclude that educators aren't satisfying customer needs. On the other hand, one might conclude, that it is the educators' duty to provide information that should be used and that the customers are not using it.