Quality improvement in engineering education through benchmarking

Today, quality initiatives in engineering education is not a matter of prerogative, it is mandatory. Global competition and rapidly developing technologies that are stimulating changes in redefining education. Even if the engineering college is affiliated to a renowned university, it has to obtain ISO 9001 certification and national accreditation, etc, in order to give quality assurance to its external customers (ie scholars and their parents). The concept of Total Quality, Management (TQM) has also started entering into the engineering education field from industry. In this paper, the authors attempt to identify the methodology to apply one of the TQM tools, in this case benchmarking, in engineering education in order to improve the quality of service of engineering education being rendered to society. The seven-step procedure for effective implementation of benchmarking is discussed briefly in this context. A few explicits are given for internal benchmarking. Furthermore, the scope of benchmarking at the competitive and world class levels are also discussed.