Benchmarking on Product Development Curricula of Domestic and Foreign Universities

Human resources specialized in product development (PD) being essential in industry to enhance their competitiveness in the market with differentiated products, the PD curricula of domestic universities are in need of restructuring to better provide a comprehensive and diverse spectrum of knowledge as well as practical experiences for PD. We compared the PD curricula of selected domestic and foreign universities and identified advanced features of PD curricula. The major portion of the information used in our benchmarking of the seven, three domestic and four foreign, universities is obtained through their official websites. At domestic universities, the PD curricula comes in different sizes and is administered at the departmental level. On the other hand, each foreign university has her own unique form of PD curricula which is formulated on the firm basis of multidisciplinary collaboration among schools of Engineering, Management, and Arts with diversified program options ranging from giving course credits to offering various certificates and degrees. The industrial sponsorship in the form of financial support and mentorship at foreign universities is much more noticeable than at domestic universities. The survey results of the present study can be effectively utilized to develop an effective PD curriculum.