Redesigning Industrial Engineering Education: A Strategic Plan for Modernization at UFRGS

Engineering education is currently navigating a rapidly evolving landscape, with the growing complexity of the job market demanding new knowledge and skills from graduates. This dynamic environment emphasizes educational institutions' need for continuous modernization to ensure their academic programs align with contemporary industry requirements. In this sense, developing a strategic plan and a control system based on performance indicators are fundamental for defining the program's objectives and monitoring their achievement. This study aims to formulate a Strategic Plan (SP) for modernizing the Industrial Engineering undergraduate program at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul. The goal is to provide a structured framework to guide the necessary actions for modernization, making the program more attractive to current and prospective students, improving the quality of the training of graduates, and providing an environment of innovation in teaching, research, and extension. Using qualitative research design, benchmarking was carried out concerning undergraduate programs and focus groups for the joint development of the SP and, subsequently, of the indicators in order to engage representatives of the most diverse stakeholder groups (students, professors, graduates, among others) in the discussion. The study resulted in a strategic plan structured in four strategic pillars, which contemplated the main fronts of modernization of the program, which resulted in 21 strategic objectives and, from them, 35 indicators for management and control of the progress of these objectives.