335 9 th Research/Expert Conference with International Participations ”QUALITY 2015“, Neum, B&H, June 10 – 13, 2015 STANDARDIZATION IN ENGINEERING CURRICULUM Samir Lemeš University of Zenica Zenica Bosnia and Herzegovina ABSTRACT The role of standards in a global market in XXI century is unquestionable. However, the standardization is rarely seen as a separate topic in engineering academic programs at all higher education levels (undergraduate, graduate, postgraduate). Although international organizations for standardization, such as ISO or IEEE strive to introduce this topic in education worldwide, it is not common to see subjects called "Standardization", "Standards", "Technical regulations", etc. in a curriculum. This paper gives critical review about standardization-related courses at universities, and proposes the curriculum for a study course "Standardization". It also presents the results of a survey performed at three technical faculties in order to estimate the need for such a course. Keywords: Standardization, Engineering Education, Quality Infrastructure 1. INTRODUCTION Standards are technical specifications defining requirements for products, production processes, services or test-methods. These specifications are voluntary. They are developed by industry and market actors following some basic principles such as consensus, openness, transparency and non-discrimination. Standards ensure interoperability and safety, reduce costs and facilitate companies' integration in the value chain and trade [1]. Although typical everyday conversation is full of mentioning standards, quality, certification, accreditation, it is not common to see all of these topics in a curricula. Quality management already found its way into engineering study programs, but one part of quality infrastructure – standardization, still needs to be recognized as an important topic for modern engineers. The similar situation is with other topics, such as accounting, legal issues, and other themes which are non-typical for engineers. However, in a business practice, engineers are often required to have significant knowledge about many non-engineering problems. One of the topics which is not strictly related to typical engineering courses such as mechanics, mathematics, computer science, materials science, and which is considered to be a part of engineering set of skills is standardization. Most engineering students have never encountered an industrial standard within their academic courses. University of Zenica used to have course "Standardization" at the postgraduate level, but after Bologna reforms, this course was discontinued. During a process of innovating curricula at the University of Zenica, we performed a short analysis in order to check whether it is justifiable to introduce a new course. We analysed the similar academic programs at the other universities, and we tested students to check whether they already have necessary skills and knowledge about standardization. Finally, we prepared a syllabus for the new course.