Lingannavar, Ravi G2019-07-122023-10-202019-07-122023-10-202018ROLL NO.146105010http://172.17.1.107:4000/handle/123456789/1174Supervisors: Pradeep G. Yammiyavar and Vinayak KulkarniThe contribution of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) to the economy and employment market is growing. They are involved in manufacture of products that range from simple to complex in terms of engineering and design. However, it is widely known that MSMEs in India are slow in adopting innovation practices. MSMEs are slow in focusing on the need for innovation in line with current government initiative and policies that encourages as many products as possible to be made in India. However, it is observed that most small and medium enterprises have not developed inherent capacity for absorbing subsidies and funds earmarked for innovation by the Government nor do they have resources for practicing Innovation. As a result, MSMEs in India lag behind those in other Asian countries such as China, Singapore and Malaysia in embracing the practice of continuous innovation and benefit from it.Initial studies on small enterprises conducted in the course of this research reveal that enterprises lack methods of incorporating innovation during the design upgradation phase in their product development process. Most medium scaled enterprises depend on vendor industries to give them designs along with job orders which they produce. They seem to be content at being ancillary to industries. They have not developed in-house Design capacity and capabilities. Reverse engineering is relied upon. Small enterprises and medium enterprises seem to be clueless as to how to innovate, how to generate new ideas and how to continuously improve their products’ quality and variety. The research reported in this thesis aims to investigate the state of art as prevalent amongst MSMEs with respect to their practices and efforts to improve product quality and thereupon propose novel methods to measure and incorporate innovation through design which is specifically developed for the type of products manufactured by them.enDESIGNThesis