Total quality systems: Using a multidisciplinary preparation course for teaching quality improvement

The Total Quality Systems course is an innovative approach to University/Industry Quality Partnerships for improving engineering education. The course introduces students to the education and application of total quality and continuous improvement. The students take the information learned in the course and apply it in industry. A formal process of Preparation, Identification, and Action (PIA) has been developed as the overall framework for the partnership effort. This cycle establishes cross-disciplinary, multi-institutional teams of students and faculty to work with industrial partners on continuous quality improvement projects. Preparation is a three-semester hour course, including the methods and tools of total quality management (TQM), safety, teamwork, communications, lifelong learning for continuous personal development, time management, diversity, and problem solving. Identification is teams of students, faculty and industrial partners working on-site at the industrial partnerʹs facilities, identifying quality improvement opportunities. Action is teams of students, faculty, and partners working both on-campus and on-site, providing plans to implement and evaluate quality improvement opportunities. The PIA cycle was initiated in the Spring of 1993 by three Universities of the Southern University and College Coalition for Engineering Education (SUCCEED) and Milliken and Company as the industrial partner. The PIA cycle is an ongoing research effort. In this paper, we provide a review of the PIA approach to University/Industry Quality Teams and share some of our experiences with this novel approach to education.