The Industrial Engineering Department at Abdullah Gül University (AGU) organized the fourth edition of their "Capstone Fair and Contest" this year. The Department's senior students competed against each other with their projects, undertaken with the companies, ASELSAN, Dönsa Tekstil, Gümüşsuyu Halı, and HES Kablo.
During the Fall and Spring semesters of the 2020-21 academic year, the students prepared projects on an industrial engineering problem with the aim of increasing efficiency, economizing costs, and boosting the competitive power of leading companies in their respective areas, ASELSAN, Dönsa Tekstil, Gümüşsuyu Halı and HES Kablo, under the academic supervision of Prof. İbrahim Akgün and Dr. Selçuk Gören.
With their projects, the students collected data from companies and analyzed them, created mathematical models, artificial intelligence algorithms, and decision support systems ba
This year, the fair was held online on Zoom due to the Covid-19 pandemic, and 5 projects competed. Academics from various universities, students, and managers and engineers of 17 companies from different sectors joined the online fair.
The contest was organized for the external evaluation of the student projects by the academia and industry. Accordingly, the jury was composed of Prof. Emel Kızılkaya Aydoğan from Erciyes University, Assoc. Prof. Özgür Demirtaş from Kayseri University, Dr. Oğuzhan Arık from Nuh Naci Yazgan University, Vice General Manager Funda Kızıklı from Akprofil, Director of Operations and Plant Manager Ercan Bezan from Stryker, and Vice General Manager Oktay Karaca from BRN Yatak.
The winner of the contest was the project "Enerji ve Fiber Optik Kablo Üretimlerinde Hurda Analizi ve Optimizasyonu" (Scrap Analysis and Optimization in Energy and Fiber Optic Cable Productions). Students Ahmet Yavuz, İhsan Kilci, Mehmet Akcan, and Mehmet Eren Nalici carried out the project for HES Kablo, and Battal Tokat and Osman Demirtaş acted as company supervisors for the project.
The second place was awarded to the project “Halı Endüstrisi İçin Simülasyon, Veri Madenciliği ve Matematiksel Modelleme ile RFID Uygulama Analizi ve Depo Süreçleri Optimizasyonu” (Simulation, Data Mining, and RFID Application Analysis and Storage Process Optimization with Mathematical Modeling for the Carpet Industry), which was prepared by students İzzet Özcan, Omar Samak, and Veli Can Demir and supervised by Ferhat Demirci at Gümüşsuyu Halı. Lastly, the project “Yetkinlik ve Takım Dinamiği Odaklı Bir Proje Takımı Oluşturma Modeli” (A Competency and Team Dynamics ba
At the end of the contest, sponsored by Erciyes Anadolu Holding, the students who ranked at the top three received monetary awards.
Industrial Engineering Chair Prof. İbrahim Akgün spoke at the online fair and said since its establishment, in parallel with AGU's vision, their department has valued university-industry cooperation, opportunities for students to apply the knowledge they acquire, so to speak "to get their hands dirty," and to that end designed various mechanisms, one of which is the capstone projects.
Prof. Akgün stressed the important role played by capstone projects in students' education. He said doing graduation projects is a process that demands from students to use all academic and social skills they acquire during their education and despite the fact that the pandemic has made everything more difficult, all students finalized their projects successfully.
In addition to the capstone, Prof. Akgün added, some courses are taught entirely in factories and companies, and real-life projects are prioritized in courses. Underlining that practice-oriented education gained students academic and social skills, Akgün thanked company managers and engineers, faculty members, and students for their contributions.
