A SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE TO THE INDUSTRIAL

ENGINEERING PROFESSION IN TURKE

Abdellah EL KHOBZI 195109012@ogrenci.yalova.edu.tr
Yalova University * Graduate School * Industrial Engineering MA with Thesis
Central Campus, Çinarcik Road 77200 Yalova, Turkey
Scientific Research Techniques and Publication Ethics - Poster execice
(abdomba@gmail.com)

ABSTRACT SURVEY AND GRAPHIC ANALYSIS

The distribution of the universities from which the industrial
Industrial engineering profession is one of the most popular
engineers participated in the survey graduated is given in Figure 1.
professions in the world and in Turkey.
Accordingly, universities in many provinces of Turkey and even
This study aims to reveal the current situation of industrial engineers
working in Turkey and to reflect their thoughts on the future of this Northern Cyprus. It has been determined that graduates from the
profession.
Turkish Republic also responded to the survey. The distribution of the
For this purpose, a questionnaire was prepared and applied online to
sectors in which the Industrial Engineers responding to the survey
6645 industrial engineers registered in TMMOB Chamber of
Mechanical Engineers (Turkish Engineers and Architects Union) in work is shown in Figure2.
June and July 2013.
The sizes of the companies where the graduates work are given in
437 fully answered questionnaires were evaluated. Figure 3. Accordingly, it is seen that 67% of industrial engineers work in
Thanks to this survey, a large number of people were reached from Figure 3. Representation of the Total Number of Employees large-scale enterprises. In order to show the positions reached by the
the surveys conducted in the field of the industrial engineering Figure 6. Representation of Graduate Areas in the Institution
profession in Turkey. Therefore, the results are likely to reflect reality. employees according to their graduation years, “What is your position at
of Graduates Attending Graduate Programs
Obtained results are presented with graphics and interpretation. the workplace?” and “Your year of graduation from the undergraduate

These results are guiding for both academic department managers,
industrial engineers, managers working in the field of production and
service, and engineer candidates who make a career choice.
It is also in a position to shed light on the past years of the industrial
engineering profession in Turkey.
KEYWORDS
Industrial engineering, industrial engineering profession, industrial
engineering profession in Turkey, survey study.
INTRODUCTION
Industrial engineers have been working on the design, operation
and development of integrated systems consisting of human, machine
and money since the beginning of the 20th century. The job of
industrial engineers is described as “identifies, defines and evaluates
the results to be obtained from the system designed by using the
methods and principles of engineering analysis, together with their
knowledge and skills in physics, mathematics and social sciences”.
Since industrial engineers are generally interested in planning and
systems, they are expected to have knowledge on many subjects in
their field of work. Although this effect can be seen when industrial
engineering undergraduate programs are examined, especially in
recent years, undergraduate programs allow students to focus on the
subjects they are interested in with a large number of elective
vocational courses. In addition, with the development of information
technologies, employers expect industrial engineers to have
knowledge about computer programming and integrated systems.
This development in information technology also enabled
organizations to use operations research models, giving industrial
engineers the opportunity to work on this topic.
In this study, the changing working environment conditions, industrial
engineering programs at universities, the need for foreign language
and information technology knowledge were asked to the graduates
and the results were evaluated.
The studies in the literature related to the industrial engineering
profession are summarized below.
It determined the demands of industrial engineers with the help of a
survey and prioritized the technical requirements to meet these
demands by using the Quality House.
Mummolo stated in his article( in 2007) that the Industrial Engineering
profession education of the European Union tends to be consolidated
with some courses in the Electronics and Mechanical Engineering
curriculum.
In addition, industrial engineers' innovative industrial sectors - nano-
bio technology, new materials, digital factories, energy and
environment, security, health; drew attention to the importance of
gaining the ability to respond to their needs.
In Erden's study (2008), the physical product design course in the
curriculum of the industrial engineering department and taught to first-
year students was evaluated.
It has been reported that this course contributes to students' skills
such as creativity, use of systematic methods, teamwork and
communication.
Domingo et al. (2013) emphasized that currently the number of
courses is not enough to meet the qualifications determined by ABET,
but the contribution of graduation theses is important.
They also drew attention to the importance of postgraduate
education.
As a result of the survey conducted with 48 industrial engineering
program students in Turkey, it was determined that the students were
in human resources, logistics management, production planning,
ergonomics and process design, statistics, management and
organization, computer programming, simulation, facility planning,
project management, work study and stated that they want to work in
the fields of operations research.
PURPOSE and METHOD
In this study, a questionnaire consisting of twenty-two questions was
prepared in order to analyze the current and future status of the industrial
engineering profession, which deals with the design, operation and
improvement of integrated systems consisting of people, information, materials
and machines. and financial resources.
With the support of TMMOB Chamber of Mechanical Engineers Eskişehir
Branch, a questionnaire was sent to 6645 industrial engineers registered in the
Chamber, and these individuals were informed via e-mail to answer the
questionnaire.
The questionnaire was answered online and a total of 437 questionnaire
results were evaluated. The participation rate in the survey was 6.6%.
The 12 questions in the questionnaire are about the demographic
characteristics of the people.
With the help of these questions, information about the past and present
professional status of industrial engineers was obtained.
Other questions were prepared in order to question the information they need
in the business environment and their thoughts on the profession.
The results were analyzed and interpreted with the help of graphs and
statistical tests.
REFERENCES
Nihal ERGİNEL, Merve TEKÇE, Gamze KÜÇÜK, Aybüke ALPER
2014 “ TÜRKİYE’DE ENDÜSTRİ MÜHENDİSLİĞİ MESLEĞİNE BİLİMSEL AÇIDAN
BİR BAKIŞ” Endüstri Mühendisliği Dergisi Cilt: 27 Sayı: 1 Sayfa: (25-38)
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
I would like to thank TMMOB Chamber of Mechanical Engineers, Eskişehir
Branch for sending the questionnaire to the industrial engineers registered
with them and forwarding the answers to me.
The results of this study were held in the IX. It was presented at the
Industrial-Management Engineering Congress.
Figure 1. Distribution of Universities from
which Industrial Engineers Responded to the
Survey
Figure 7. Distribution of Income Levels
of Graduate Industrial Engineers
Figure 2. Distribution of the Sectors in
which Industrial Engineers Work
Figure 8. Contribution of Industrial
Engineering Education to Today's
Success
Figure 11. Distribution of Computer
Programs Considered Need-to-Know
Figure 10. Representation of the Fields of
Graduate Engineers
Figures 4. and 5. Distribution of Positions of Graduates between 1985-1995
and between 2006-2012
Figure 13. Demonstrating the Areas that
Graduates Need to Improve
Table 1. ANOVA Table Showing Whether There Is a Difference Between Universities in the Contribution of
Industrial Engineering Education to Success
Figure 9. Representation of the Areas Where
Graduate Engineers Work
Figure 12. Representation of the Need to Use
the Courses in the Requirements in Business
Life
Figure 14. Representation of the Industrial
Engineering Department in the Favorite
Professions Group in Ten Years
program?” questions were put into the questionnaire and the results
obtained are shown in Figure 4 and Figure 5.
The results of the "Field" question asked to examine the fields of
postgraduate education are shown in Figure 6. When the current
income status of graduated industrial engineers is examined, it is seen
that 22% of them earn 5000 TL or more, 58% earn between 2000-5000
TL and 18% earn between 1000-2000 TL.
These results are in line with the results of Kaya (2013) in his column,
and it can be concluded that the income distribution is good according
to Turkish standards. The results are shown in Figure 7.
It can be said that industrial engineering education in Turkey is
expressed as "good and effective" by graduates. The results are shown
in Figure 8. It is stated that the education given at universities in Turkey
is not perceived differently by graduates. The result of the analysis is
presented in Table 1.
The distribution of the areas where graduate engineers work within the
company is given in Figure 9. In line with the answers obtained from
the question "How many foreign languages do you know? (except
Turkish)", which was asked to determine the foreign language
knowledge of graduate industrial engineers, it was concluded that 80%
of the graduates knew one foreign language. The results are shown in
Figure 10.
In addition, as a result of the study conducted to determine the
computer programs that industrial engineers are expected to know, it
was seen that they were expected to use MS Office tools with 20%,
Enterprise Resource Planning with 15% and Database programs with
13%. Percentage distributions are shown in Figure 11.
“Which course(s) in the curriculum of industrial engineering departments
did you need to use in practice?” . The results of the question analysis
are given in Figure 12.
According to the answers obtained from the question asked to
determine in which field the graduates need to improve themselves, it
was determined that 36% of the graduates needed to develop
themselves in foreign language, 26% in computer use, and 19% in
human relations. The results are given in Figure 13.The results of the
research conducted to analyze whether the industrial engineering
department will be among the most popular professions in the next 10
years are given in Figure 14.
CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
It conducts surveys for graduates of universities on the industrial
engineering profession. However, this study is a study that is
conducted in Turkey regardless of university level and has a high
participation rate.In this sense, it can be said that it contains correct
results. The following conclusions were obtained as a result of this
study:
-Industrial engineers mostly work in the fields of production
planning, quality control and consultancy, metalworking, education,
construction, public and automotive sectors, and it is thought that they
will mainly work in these fields in the next 10 years in line with the
answers given to the survey. Courses covering total quality
management, production planning and control, financial issues, supply
chain management, operations research and advanced computer
programming are mostly used in professional life.
-The areas where industrial engineers need to improve themselves
after graduation are foreign languages (German, Russian and
Chinese), computer use (MS Office, enterprise resource planning and
database) and human relations.-Industrial engineers think that the
education they receive contributes a lot to their professional life.
-Also, according to the results in Table 1, they think that the
education received does not differ between universities.-However,
industrial engineers who continue their doctorate program mostly work
at higher levels. Employees industrial engineers, is satisfied with their
profession, future generations tend to suggest this profession. The
higher rate of recent graduates suggesting the profession shows that
the industrial engineering profession is still popular.
Finally, the following issues came to the fore in the answers given to
the open-ended question in the survey:
Industrial engineers should have the authority to sign on issues
related to their fields -feasibility reports, strategic planning, process
analysis, project management.
Industrial engineers should have their own room.
TMMOB should determine a base salary scale for all engineers.
In addition, the curricula should be differentiated from the business
department and the courses given should be focused on engineering.
Looking at the year 2014, there are a total of 76 industrial engineering
programs in Turkey. 36 of them are in state universities and 40 of
them are in foundation/private universities. In addition, distance
education in industrial engineering is offered at three universities.
*N.B: See article for more details