Abstract: Higher engineering education in the new era undertakes the important task of training engineering talents with knowledge updating ability, position adaptation ability and career expansion ability. It is the top priority to construct a characteristic talent training system based on multi- dimensional training quality evaluation. This paper sorts out the relevant progress of engineering talent training at home and abroad, analyzes the evaluation elements of talent training quality, designs the evaluation index system of talent training quality combining quantitative evaluation and qualitative evaluation, and establishes the continuous improvement mechanism. On the basis of the evaluation and improvement, the automation major constructs a course system with electric power characteristic, which focuses on students' ability training and meets the engineering education certification standards. Meanwhile, the theory and practice curriculum are improved and the mapping relationship between curriculum and the students' ability training is clarified, thus achieving the teaching layout to cultivate the ability of 'solving complex engineering problems'. Taking the automation major in North China Electric Power University as an example, this paper introduces the practical results of the reform, hoping to provide reference for the training of engineering talent with industry characteristics.