Abstract
By increasing the retention of engineering students at training institutions in South Africa it may be possible to
increase the number of engineers in the country. Because of the international demand for engineers, emphasis
is placed on engineering in the "list of occupations in high demand" in the Government Gazette in Nov 2014.
South African Universities are constrained in terms of funds, infrastructure and teaching staff. The university's
resources such as fees are optimised when more students are retained in a course. Many factors affect retention
and there are many industrial engineering techniques that could be applied. One of the industrial engineering
techniques that has been applied to retention is six sigma. The use of six sigma in academia and the challenges
encountered have been documented. Challenges identified in a case study were the definition of the product
and customer, measuring performance as well as addressing factors that cannot be controlled. This study used
six sigma to improve retention of first year students. Retention was improved and the cost benefit calculated.
The purpose of this paper is to look at industrial engineering techniques such as systems engineering, operations
research, 20 keys to workplace improvement and value engineering to name a few, and how these techniques
could theoretically be applied to improve engineering student retention.