Study of Critical Success Factors in Engineering Education Curriculum Development Using Six-Sigma Methodology

Highly skilful and competent human capital especially engineers are critically needed to accelerate and contribute efficiently towards the development of technology in view of spearheading much of Malaysia’s transformation agendas. Hence, Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL) are required to play a pivotal role to produce graduates, who are equipped with sound engineering based knowledge, technical competencies along with related desired attributes to support the nation’s transformation roadmap. As employability of graduates forms as one of the important Key Result Areas (KRA) of all IHL, interesting active learners teaching methodologies such as Outcome Based Education (OBE), Problem Based Learning (PBL), Project Base Learning, Case Based Learning (CBL) and TRIZ has been infused in the curriculum to ensure that connectivity prevails between classroom instructions and the curriculum contents besides producing industry ready graduates. However, rapid technological development at work front has created an impact towards employment of graduates, which calls for an immediate redefining of current technical attributes to cultivate elements of creativity or “out of box” thinking approach to spark ideas of highly innovative that are of commercial value to generate revenue for the sustainability of businesses. Hence, this study is to determine the critical success factors required in engineering education curriculum to produce engineering graduates of global minded workforce where adaptability to new conditions and creativity for innovations are much sought after by industries. (Abstract by authors