Industrial Engineering Standards in Europe : industry needs versus education

Abstract

This paper describes and discusses the project ‘Industrial Engineering Standards in Europe’ (IESE). The project is funded by the EU Leonardo da Vinci Partnership program with partners from universities and organizations offering engineering education and continuing education in the field of industrial engineering. There are two main objectives in the project. The first is to use the European Qualification Framework (EQF) as a benchmark against the National Qualification Framework (NQF) of the partner countries and the Industrial Engineering educations offered by the partner institutions. What seemed to be a relatively straightforward task showed to be more complicated. Iceland, the Netherlands and Denmark have adopted the EQF approach with 8 levels - BSc, MSc and PhD as the top three levels. Ireland has adjusted to their national educational system with 10 levels, Germany is still discussing their NQF and Sweden has decided not to adjust to the EQF for the moment. The second objective in the project is to conduct a survey among industries employing industrial engineering in order to investigate a possible gap between the educational programs and the needs of the industry for competences in the field of industrial engineering. A survey has been carried out in Ireland, the Netherlands and in Iceland and the results are indicating gaps in various topics.QC 20120329Industrial Engineering Standards in Europe (IESE