A Practical-Education Trial Combining Quality Control Techniques and Examination Questions for a Small and Medium Enterprise Management Consultant

Abstract

The purpose of this research is to develop an educational method to enable students in higher education to acquire practical problem-solving skills. In an attempt to do so, "Concept development theory", which is offered as a compulsory subject of the course, has been designed and its effectiveness is being discussed in this report. First, students learn seven quality control (QC) tools and new seven tools for QC mainly used in the manufacturing industry for the application to actual social or enterprise issues. Subsequently, the students are tasked to work on the past business cases described in the national examination of the qualification for a small and medium enterprise (SME) management consultant. The cases are prepared by the Japanese government to assess the consulting capability of the applicants for the qualification and are assumed as quasi-real business situations, which they would face in the real world. The students read these cases and answer questions that are prepared especially for this class. With these case studies, they are expected to find and resolve issues, which leads to their practical skill acquisition. Although this approach is still in its infancy, the reaction of students has been very positive and is being presented as a case study.