Abstract:

The specialized literature demonstrates the fact that quality management is applied at the organizational level in more and more institutions and companies around the world. In the context of sustainable development, quality management is an essential field in all universities. For the general public, the most visible results of an effectively applied quality management in educational units are those measured at the level of a school or university, or even those measured at the level of the educational system. Moreover, behind these results, we can find the efforts to promote quality in education by every student, teacher, school leader and actor involved in the educational act (parent, employer, etc.). In this context, the current paper focuses on the importance of applying quality management methods in class teaching, on groups of students, or, as the case may be, on each individual student. The methodology used was that of case studies applied in the teaching of several subjects in the economic field at different specializations of an engineering faculty. The adaptation of the way of working in the classroom with the different groups of students was carried out in cooperation with them, using various management techniques and their combinations, depending on the problem addressed, the preferences of the students and especially their weaknesses and strengths. Although methods and techniques such as problem ranking, cause-effect diagram, 5S, DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Verify), might seem difficult to apply with groups of students who have not completed the discipline of quality management/engineering, the engineering students proved their ability to learn and apply them in a very short time. The basic condition was their application in solving concrete problems in the discipline taught. Extremely useful was the permission granted to the students to combine these quality management methods and techniques with each other, but also with those of creativity management: brainstorming, the Six Thinking Hats, etc. The selected case studies focused in particular on increasing the organizational skills and creativity of students, by reducing work time, by judiciously dividing tasks within teams and by more efficiently organizing their physical and virtual workspace.

Keywords:

Quality, techniques, problem, creativity.