The IEQMS model for augmenting quality in engineering institutions - an interpretive structural modelling approach

High-quality engineering education is becoming increasingly important in India and worldwide due to globalisation and the universal demand for technical personnel of quality. Deterioration of quality in engineering education calls for revitalising the existing system of engineering educational institutions (EEIs) by the adoption of a structured integrated quality management model. Stakeholders' or customers' satisfaction is directly proportional to quality. Stakeholders aspire very much to employability and hence feel that engineering education should be rendered in terms of quality and the ability to produce a greater number of employable students of good quality who are compatible with organisations worldwide. In this paper, important critical success factors (CSFs) are identified through extant literature reviews, and the opinions of experts from academia and industry are sought to construct a new model, the - Integrated Educational Quality Management System (IEQMS). IEQMS is a comprehensive model, a bundle of global management practices such as ISO 9001:2008 Quality Management System, ISO 14001:2004 Environmental Management System, Occupational Health and Safety Management System (OHSAS 18001:2007), Six-Sigma (DMAIC methodology), knowledge management, lean thinking, and Total Quality Management. The authors attempted to explain IEQMS through the interpretive structural modelling (ISM) methodology, which will be very helpful in developing mutual relationships among the 10 successful critical factors which have been identified from the above quality concepts. The objective of this article is to evaluate the importance of CSFs in the successful implementation of the IEQMS model in EEIs through the ISM approach. The proposed IEQMS model may be the fittest to measure quality performance and could highly leverage quality when implemented in educational institutions in India and globally, especially in engineering education.