Ever increasing international and domestic competition has sparked renewed interest in quality improvement of products and services. This, in conjunction with the greater complexity of modern production and service systems, has created a demand for engineers who can master the technical and managerial tools and concepts needed for the economic implementation of quality systems. To meet this demand, the industrial engineering department developed a new graduate program specialization in quality engineering in September 1991. Today it has more than 25 graduate students involved in classes and research leading to MSIE and PhD degrees in industrial engineering