Week 2

Industrial Engineering (IE) history (both in the world and in Turkey) and IE applications in service and production systems, are lectured with various pre-selected visual materials. Differences between “systems approach” and “ analytical approach” are discussed. An article on Russell Ackoff, one of the “founding fathers” of Operations Research (OR), written by a senior faculty member, is distributed to students during class and they are asked to read. Then “Human Focus in OR” is discussed based on the article. Finally generic definition of the word “problem” is discussed and importance of defining a problem is mentioned.

Term-project topic is announced as “Home Digital Gadget Storage”, which will be done in groups of 4-6 students, followed by a presentation about “how to make a business plan”.

Assignment 2 (10/100 points): As a basic engineering and “problem” example “spaghetti bridge” project is assigned. A strength contest will be conducted in class after 2 weeks. The manual about the rules of constructing the bridge is supplied to students electronically.