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2009 Inteational Conference on Engineering Education (CEED 2009, December 7-8, 2009, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Enhancing Sudent's Hands-On Leaing ExperienceThrough Final Year Project in Industry:

Implementations and Challenges

Zaimah HasanMechaical Engineering Department,

Universiti Tenaga Nasional,Kajag, Selagor

zaimah@uniten edu my

Abstract-Univeiie pie o delive gdue who n

funion well in he induy. Howeve, univeiie e illeeiving ommen fom he induy h he gdue e noompeen o do hndon wok. Lk of hndon expeiene

eul of fouing oo muh in foml eduion ould hveoniued o hi enio. Finl ye poje if efullyuued n e ued ool o oveome hi iue. Thi wok deie he eo mde o enhne nl ye uden'hndon lening expeiene hough nl ye poje ininduy. Two dieen poje hve een ondued in evege n mnufuing ompny. Boh poje hveimil inenion whih e o impove he poduiviy level ndo minimize meil we. Duion of one ye h een penin onuing nd implemening uile ppoh o hievehe poje ojeive. The nl ye poje ondued h noonly oniued o ignin o ving o he ompny, ulo h dded uh vlule lening expeiene fo heuden. The nl ye poje h uefully povided hem

unil moun of hndon expeiene h omplemen heexook knowledge hey lened in l. The hllenge fed inhe implemenion of nl ye poje in induy e lodiued in hi wok.

Kord o lerg eece, fl yer proet, proect t, leeto, cllege

I. NTRODUCTION

Cooperation between universities ad industrial rms iscrucial to ensure that universities develop ad deliver aappropriate curriculum for training students in state-of-the-at techniques [-3]. Universities ca use this opportunity to prepae the students with necessay skills in paticuladelivering hands-on tasks. This approach according to Deutch[4] could realize the aim of universities to supply industrywith graduates that meet industrys immediate and long-term needs.

A nal ye project is oen regaded as the crops thatcould be hvested at the end of undergraduate yeas. It isindeed a strong mechanism that ca be used to measure theoverall comprehension gained throughout their four or ve

yeas as undergraduates. Final yea students in UniversitiTenaga Nasional ae eligible to register for the subject Final

978--2-8-9/9/$25. ©29 29

Yea Project once they have completed a predetermined credit hour. There e four types of nal yea project categoriesavailable within the following chaacteristics

A project in the form of a study or resech whichfocuses on the behaviour, phenomena orchacteristics of events, processes, designs ordevelopments. The end product will be in the form ofdata, observations and interpretations, which ca upgrade the student's knowledge with regads to thesubject of reseach being studied.

A design or development project which focuses on the design or development of a product, which llsspecications, standads or technical needs. The end product is a design or product.

A project in the form of sowae development whichfocuses on producing computer sowae according to

xed specications. The end product is computersowae. A case study/topical project which involves reseach

on a certain case or topic. This reseach encompassesall aspects or facts that inuence the topic or case.The end product is in the form of aspectinterpretations or importt facts that form the caseor topic.

The two al year projects were conducted in the beverage can maufacturing company. Both projects dwell ondoing a study on achieving greater productivity d minimummaterial wastes. Both ae done simultaeously albeit withdierent approaches. As a general guideline, one project will

concentrate on implementing autonomous maintenance and the other will focus on proposing a specic material savingmethod as a mea to attain the objectives of the work.

This paper describes how al yea project, conducted inindustries ca be used as a tool to enhace their hads-onleing experience. The aim is to develop a structuredmethodological work with close relationship with the industryd to extend the scope of work so that a larger portion of e project is spent on doing hands-on work.



2009 Inteational Conference on Engineering Education (ICEED 2009, December 7-8, 2009, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

II. MLEMENTATIONS

The implementation process involves three major stages(Fig. . The al yea project started o informally in the

term break prior to commencement of semester. The nal yea project supervisor will identi suitable compaies that areinterested to te students to work with them. The supervisorwill then approach the compaies that have indicated their

interest in accepting the students. During the term brea too,few visits to the compaies is araged in order to gather moreinformation about the nal yea project to be conducted in thecoming semester. The nal yea project supervisor togetherwith the students and the company representative will thendevelop the scope of the project ad prepae a proposal to be presented to the company. Once the proposal has been agreed, the al year project will begin.

During the intermediate implementation stage, studentswill spend the semester working together with the companies to car out the work. A minimum requirement of at least aday per week is to be spent in the companies to work on the project. This work includes establishing work procedures,

executing the proposed project scope d gathering relevantdata.

At the end of the semester, a formal report will be produced to document all the work that has been conducted.This formal report consists of the project methodology, workcaied out, data aalyses, discussions and conclusions.Suggestions ad recommendations by the students to thecompany conceing the project are also included in the report.

Upon completion of the nal year project, the nal yea project supervisor will carry out some observation on the workaccomplished. The supervisor will also obtain feedback om

the companies, related to the students, the work ad the

implementation of nal year project in industries as a whole.Oral presentation is carried out to conclude theimplementation process at the end of the nal semester.

ii Identify utabe

companyItemed d Appoach te

company and sk • tab wok Prc oalo nteet n

C pd epoaccptng th Exct pojct Obtan eedbac ostudents copane

Arrang vists por to Gate reevant Peent te nacomencin o in poct data

otptt copany

Dvop pojctscope

Figure Implementation process of nal year project in industry

III. PROJECT EFINITION D OBJECTIVES

Each project is given a number of scopes to be covered.The objectives set are to be delivered as their deliverables andin the results. Both of which are attainable and measurable.

3

A. Project Number 1: Design and Implementation ofAutonomous Maintenance in a Beverage CanManufacturing Company

This project revolves ound conducting and implementing the autonomous maintenace activities. There e two majorfocuses in this project which are to design d implement theautonomous maintenace and to achieve zero breadown

principle. By designing the soware called Smat Visual BasicApplication (VBA through the applications of MicrosoOce Excel, the autonomous maintenance is easilymonitored. Autonomous maintenace activities which include tightening, cleaning, inspection, lubrication ad oiling emonitored using through this approach. Smat VBA acts as a platform in which supervisors could monitor the maintenanceactivities required for each machine in the daily, weekly andmonthly basis. Supervisors will provide guidelines and propersupervision in conducting autonomous activities listed in eSmt VBA. In a way, it provides a opportunity for neweducation ad aining to all of the workers. This newenvironment also encourages for new inputs ad ideas omsupervisors ad workers. Subsequently, autonomous

maintence activity gives advantage to shi the level ofattitude of the worker to appreciate the maintence practice.The second objective is to achieve zero breadown principle. reality, it is impossible to achieve the zer breakdowns.What can be done is minimizing the equency of the bodymer machine breakdowns as much as possible. This has been proven through the body mer eciency data provided in iswork. The production volume ad the spoilage rate were also used as an indicator to suggest that the implementation ofautonomous maintenance has greatly conibuted to animprovement in production d eciency eas. Unplaned breadowns were successlly minimized troughout theimplementation of this work. The benet of this project is

increased of productivity and quality of the production, prot to the compay ad lastly the moral of the worker.

1) Deliverables for Project Number 1: The studentconstrcted a checklist using a sowe using Microso ExcelVisual Basic. This checklist is used on a daily, weekly andmonthly basis by the operators ad engineers who ae responsible towards one or more dedicated machines in thecompany. The checklist in Fig. 2 is a saple of daily checklistconstrcted as a result om discussions with the managers. A pictorial manual as a guide to perform the maintenanceactivity were also developed in the project. Fig. 3 displays thesample of pictorial manual developed in the project.

2) Results for Project Number 1 : Both the checklist and pictorial manual act as a guide in performing the autonomousmaintenace activity in the compay. The student wasassigned to a bodymaker machine ad results were gathered in terms of the bodymaker output (Fig. 4 d eciency (Fig. 5.




Figure 2. Sample checklist for daily autonomous maintennce activity

Figure 3. Sample pictorial manual for the autonomous maintenance activity.

T

6

5 -

c 4

gQ

G f

, 3 1 . 9 "

s." ' . � 4 <n fl m )8 45 9

Figure 4: Total bodymaker output

Bak

r - - - -t-------------�-110l_ H -I H �

60j '� 40�

' "

,

"

�

Figure 5: Bodymaker eciency

a, _271 03& Oe.

3

B. Project Number 2: Aluminum Waste Minimization in aBeverage Can Manufacturing Company

The main objective of this project is to develop countermeasure on can defect ad to implement suitable adjustment onwaste reduction method. Aluminium waste minimizationactivities basically concentrates on the ca defects producedduring the manufacturing process. In this condition, the counter

measure for can defect was successlly developed adimplemented. The bodymaer and necking machine wereidentied as the main conibutor to the problem. By applying the methodolo and remedy proposed in this project,compy could mae substtial reductions in their waste d

therefore disposal costs. Waste prevention om the ca defectswas identied as the highest priority in waste maagement as

this is the only way to stop the growth of the amount of wasted reduce the loss of resorces and raw material. It was noted that the spoilage rate has decreased throughout the work. Thisis coherent with the fact that with a beter adjustment in place,

defects is unlikely to occ

1) Deliverables for Project Number 2: The student

performed a thorough study on the waste minimization effors that has been conducted in the compay. The pros ad cons ofeach effor in Table were celly weighed addowngauging is selected as the best approach.

TABLE!. A C HE WAE IIIZA EH

Waste Minimization ros Cons

EortsDown gauging • High production · High investment

aluminium sheet volum nd cost eective

• Material saving• No impact on

consumer experience• Increased strength due to ge harden ability

• Lighter and longerlasting products

• Reduced maintenancecosts

• Best eortrecommended in allaround Asia beveragecns industr

Redesign of cup • Cost eective • Used once in a time tooling • Applied before • Waste still exist

manufacturing process although reducerun • Slightly increase

• Consistent, fast and production volume

resilient • No process controlchecked needed

• igh investment Control of cn • Substntial cost • No increment of

weight by savings production volumeironing tool • No impact on • Applied during

match consumer experience manufacturing(ightweighting) • Low investment for process run

can llers to move to (Chances of defectlightweight ends occur increase)

• rocess control check • Small amount ofneeded scraps took out for

recycle




Suggestions were made to the compy ad data on the total can output aer downgauging was introduced werecollected. Data on spoilage rate were also collected to justi

the decision on choosing downgauging as the best method

2) Results for Project Number 2: Although down gauging requires high capital in tooling investment, the volume of production could be increased draatically. Thus, by

comparing the volume of production, coil weight and coillength, the result showed that 0.280 mm thickness had the

highest amount of cans produced compaed to using the 0.285mm thicness sheet (Fig. 6. With a decrease in thicness thevolume of production was found to increase. The weight of raw material with simila properties will be dierent fordierent thickness of aluminum sheet. The increased length of

the aluminium sheet was found to have increased the volumeof production. The spoilage rate decreased as a result of theimplementation (Fig. 7. Prot wise, the implementation ofweight reduction along with the remedies proposed hassuccesslly gathered a magin of 424.46 as displayed

in Table 2 This total ount was extremely impressive toencourage the company to adopt the use of aluminum sheetwith 0.280 mm thickness in their production line.

MonthlyVolume of roduction _.'

Figure 6: Monthly volume production aer downgauging was introduced

SPOILAGE 200812009

4.50 +

4 00�350�

300 20

� 200�

� 150SPO LGE

I- - TARE

1.00%o 50S0.001

Sep Oc Nv Dec Jan febMOTH

Figure 7: Spoilage rate aer downgauging was introduced

TABLE II. AL I GAIE WIHI 6 H UCIAE WGUGIG WA IUCE

Mh Prf Prf Prfm (RM) m () Margin (R)

Sept 2008 2249277 22074737 344540Oct 2008 2243783 297900 47883Nov 2008 22602233 2278244 423989Dec 2008 2234380 2838236 29644Jan 2009 23794024 272943 20646Feb 2009 22535037 2204758 520279

Tl Pr

32

IV. OBSERVATIONS D BENEFITS

Below ae observations made by the author on the studentsd the benets obtained om the nal yea project inindustry

Initially both the students faced diculty incommunicating with the operators. This is due to thefact that nealy 80% percent of the operators ae

foreigner. So the laguage barier creates thediculty in conveying the message of their intention.However, the operators gradually grow fond of thework that the students ae doing. The students found that the environment in the compay to be veconducive.

The students found it challenging to work in thecompany's fast pace. They managed to overcome thisd realized that this is the real situation that theywill have to handle once they ae out in the workingworld.

The students highlighted that hands-on leaingexperiences ae much more attractive and engaging th solely concentrating on textbooks. They guredout that hands-on works ae much more meaningld rewading towards their comprehension in doingengineering work.

The students appreciated the oppority as they recognized that what they leat in the class could beimplemented in real life.

The students recommended that every student to have the opportunity to do their nal yea project inindust as this is the closest that they could get in preparing themselves to become engineer inte.

The company indicated their interest to get morestudents to do their nal year project in industries.They recommended hands-on work as a betterleing tool compared to textbooks.

A close relationship between the university and thecompany has been established throughout the entireimplementation process. The company suggested thatmore collaboration should be carried out in order to promote knowledge shaing and at the same time to reduce the gap between academia and the realengineering world.

V. HALLENGES

is ve much favored at such approach to beimplemented as a tool to enhace the students' hads-onleing experience. However, there e few limitations at have been identied in this work.

1) Awareness: The level of awareness instilled within thestudents and the universitiy on the imporace of hads-onskills in the pursuit to be a competent engineer is still low.This has always been a conce with other implementationsattempts for example in the work done by few resechers [5].

2) Acceptance: There e limited number of companies that e willing to accept undergraduates students to work with



2009 Inteational Conference on Engineering Education (CEED 2009, December 7-8, 2009, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

them. The common reason given has always been that thecompanies is on tight schedule thus they could notaccommodate the students. Depending on the nature of nal

yea project the students intend to do, the issue lies in whether the company could spae their resources on the student forexample time and guidace.

3 Amount: Number of students who ae interested to tally

with the number of places oered by compaies. There ae two possibilities that could occur within this limitations. Either there ae too may students who would like to tae up theopportunity ad there ae only a very small number ofcompanies that ae willing to paicipate, or vice versa.

4) Aeement: Another challenge is for the university tovalidate if the nature of projects oered by the company aresuitable to be tailored to the Final Yea Project's objectives.There is a potential dager that lies in the project scopeespecially when there is a conict of interest between thecompany itself d the university.

5) Accountab: Sending students to compaies could

mea that there exist a issue on accountability for examplesafety, condentiality ad indeity. The challenge is paiculaly prominent if the nature of the nal yea project requires the student to hadle chemical wastes, hazadousmaterials, radiations ad handle high rise buildings underconstructions. All potential injuries, illnesses ad losses to both paies shall be claied ad accountability be resolved before the students could commence their work in thecompany.

VI. ONCLUSIONS

The al yea project conducted in the industry wasfound to be enriching towads the students hands-on leing

33

experience. It enforces the students to d suitable eors andadjustment in order to achieve their goals. They had theopporunity to materialize their ideas into implementations and

practical use through hads-on work. The experience gainedwas very valuable as they conducted the work with minimumsupervision om their al yea project supervisor. The nal

year project has provided them with a preface on the real

working life they will be in aer they graduated. A close relationship between the university and the industestablished throughout the implementation could reduce thegap between academia and the real engineering eld. The linkdeveloped between the university ad industry could be usedas a platform to provide hds-on leing experience for thestudents. The challenges in implementing al yea projects inindust have been identied in this work. The benets of theimplementation have clealy outweighed the limitations. Acarelly structured al yea project with a little suppor om

the industry could contribute towads enhcing the students' hds-on leing experience.

EFERENCES

[1] C.A. Rodriguez, J. Ciur, d A. Elias, "Industry d universitycooperation to enhce mufacturing education, Joual of ManufacturingSystems,Volume 24,Issue 3, pp. 277 - 287,2006.[2] D.E. G. Dutta d G. Tryggvason, "Introducing hdson experiences indesign d mucturing educion, Inteional Joual of Engineering Educion V20 5), pp. 754-763,2004.[3] F. Maoli, "Industryuniversity cooperat ion in the training of engineers,

Europe Joual of Engineering Education, Volue 10,Issue 2, pp. 143147,1985.[4] J. Deutch, "Getting universityindustry relations right, Technology

Review, MayJune, 65, 1991.[5] L. E. Carlson and 1. F. Sulliv,"Handson engineering: leing by doingin the integrated teaching d leing program, Inteional Joual of Engineering Education, Vol. 15, pp. 203,1999.