SATISFYING THE DEMANDS OF TODAY’S INDUSTRY THROUGH UPDATING THE MECHANICAL ENGINEERING CURRICULUM USING A TWO-STEP QUALITY FUNCTION DEPLOYMENT

Meeting the needs of today’s industry plays a prominent role in the progress and competitive strength of any country. Therefore, it is necessary to align the curriculum of engineering courses with them. In this research, the focus has been on the mechanical engineering curriculum, especially in the universities of Iran. For this purpose, first by surveying the industry owners and reviewing the literature, these expectations have been identified and prioritized. Accordingly, the most important of these needs are creativity, visualization ability, familiarity with manufacturing processes, and agility in learning new concepts. Then, using a two-stage quality function deployment method (QFD), these expectations are translated into curriculum specifications. The results show that the most effective groups of courses in this field are elective courses, skill courses such as engineering graphics (including technical drawing and drawing courses), design of machine components, and practical workshops. In the existing programs, compared to courses in specialized theory and basic courses, some of them have received less considerable attention in quantity and quality.