A gap study between industry expectations and current competencies of bachelor’s degree graduates in industrial engineering in Thailand 4.0 era: A case study of industrial engineering graduates of Khon Kaen University

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to study the gap between industry expectations and the current competencies of bachelor’s degree industrial engineering graduates in Khon Kaen University in Thailand 4.0 era so that the research results of this study may be used as the guideline for improvement of the existing Bachelor of Engineering Degree program in Industrial Engineering in Khon Kaen University. A literature survey was conducted to determine appropriate indicators for assessing Thailand’s readiness for Industry 4.0. These indicators were further screened by 17 industrial experts using the Delphi method. Twenty-five competency performance indicators were finally adopted and sent in questionnaires to 71 industrial factories and 60 industrial engineering engineers freshly graduated from Khon Kaen University to rate the competency indicators with scores ranging from 1–5. The data were collected and analyzed to determine the gaps between the industry expectations and the current competencies of the graduates. The results of the analysis revealed that the greatest gaps were found, in descending order, delivery management, data usage, and data analytics in the usage phase. These are the areas which must be closely considered when the study program is revised. On the other hand, the smallest gaps were found, in ascending order, for innovation management, cloud usage, ICT add-on functionalities and technology in production, indicating the strength of the industrial engineering degree program of the case study university.