Students at the Indian Institute of Management Calcutta will be made quality-conscious, which will help them gain an edge over others in the manufacturing sector.

“The thrust of manufacturing excellence is on quality,” said Bodhibroto Nag, the coordinator of the postgraduate programme.

As part of the initiative, the institute conducted a five-day training camp for the students in ISO Lead Auditorship Practices from October 13.

The training was organised under a postgraduate course called Visionary Leadership Management Programme, which the Joka institute had launched along with IIM Lucknow and the Indian institutes of technology in Kanpur and Madras.

For the course, the institute has also partnered with Bureau Veritas, a France-based multinational organisation involved in diverse activities, including classification of ships, inspection of aircraft and industrial equipment, and price verification and quality control of commodities.

The course was based on the ISO 9000 framework and aimed at giving the students a basic idea of what quality is all about.

The training session — the first phase of the programme — was inaugurated by Richard Kaszuba, the chief executive officer of Bureau Veritas. The second and third phases will be rolled out in January and June next year.

“From the next phase, the training will be focused on specialised areas like automobiles and occupational health and safety systems,” said Nag.

For the second phase, which will comprise training in automobiles, the students will be taken to Chennai.