Professionals' demands for Production Engineering: Analysing areas of professional practice and transversal competences

The discussion around the relation between universities and enterprises is not new, but never was as urgent as now, considering the global economic crisis. For that, is important to understand what is expected and needed. This study aims to characterize the demand of competences for Production Engineering considering the perspectives of industry, based on the analysis of 1132 job offers of a Portuguese newspaper. The data analysis takes into account the job description and two categories were considered: areas of professional practice (e.g. logistics) and transversal competences (e.g. teamwork). Considering the total job offers it was possible to identify 1658 areas of professional practice and 4341 transversal competences. These and other findings are discussed in the paper considering also the perspectives from professionals which attended a meeting in 2012. The contribution of this study lies on the overview about the professional practice demands for Production Engineering, which should be considered in the curriculum.