TY - CONF A1 - Branke, Marcus A1 - Stein, Dylana A1 - Rich, Beatrice Monique A1 - Worlitz, Jane A1 - Hettling, Laura A1 - Woll, Ralf T1 - Development of the Interests in Projects Between Regional Companies and Students in Quality Management T2 - Proceedings, 21st QMOD-ICQSS Conference in Cardiff, 2018 N2 - Purpose The aim of the paper is to examine what type of improvement projects the companies in the region favor and how this focus has shifted in recent years. For this purpose, students' semester projects are analyzed in cooperation with the companies in the area of quality management. Derived from the projects and developments in the region will be made predictions to which future improvement projects companies will provide to students. In addition points are to be identified on which the students have to be specially prepared. Methodology Based on these data investigated whether the interest of companies in improvement projects has changed in the last 10 years. For this, the data are processed and grouped to see possible developments. Subsequently, the results will be compared with past and predicted regional development in the federal state of Brandenburg. From this it is estimated which future priorities could arise in the companies and on which situations the students have to be prepared. Findings The analysis shows that the projects are strongly geared on the success factors for companies, which are published in the media. It can be seen that companies want to implement the published success factors in the next 3 to 5 years. The companies are preparing for the future developments as an example increasing digitalization. Therefore, students must be able to respond to the challenges of digitalization strategies in the area of quality management. Research Limitation The results are limited to small and medium-sized enterprises considering the implementation of the improvement projects with the Six Sigma method. The results are specific to the economic context of the region and cannot be transferred globally. Value of paper The study shows that companies' focus on improvement projects has remained nearly the same over the last 10 years. This is justified by the fact that the companies investigated are active in the SME sector and often do not have the capacity for comprehensive quality management. Partly the quality management system is still under construction. The technical expertise still be developed there or a simple method for the SME sector should be created to improve their throughput. KW - Development in quality management KW - Focus of improvement projects in companies KW - Improvement process KW - Regional companies KW - SME KW - Cooperation between companies and students KW - Student training in quality management Y1 - 2019 UR - https://opus4.kobv.de/opus4-UBICO/frontdoor/index/index/docId/23130 UR - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330449845_Development_of_the_interests_in_projects_between_regional_companies_and_students_in_quality_management ER -