Bilkent University

The Department of Industrial Engineering offers B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Industrial Engineering.

Industrial Engineering (IE) is the scientific discipline that is concerned with how best to organize people, information, money, and materials to produce and distribute services and products efficiently. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skills in the mathematical, physical, and social sciences together with the principles and methods of engineering analysis and design to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems.

The mission of the Industrial Engineering Program is to foster a world-class academic environment for industrial engineering research and education in collaboration with industry. The department is committed to graduate competent industrial engineers equipped with the proficiency to adapt to technological and societal changes, and who are poised to excel in the field. The educational objectives are: 1. Graduates will be competent in modeling, optimization, and computing with systems thinking skills to make decisions under uncertainty and in risk-bearing environments. 2. Graduates will participate actively, as individuals and as team members, in the analysis, design, implementation, and improvement of systems in manufacturing and service sectors. 3. Graduates will contribute to addressing societal challenges in emerging contextual domains with conflicting objectives. 4. Graduates will engage in life-long learning by attending professional events and advanced degree programs.

The Industrial Engineering program is accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, http://www.abet.org.

A necessary condition for the realization of this goal is to provide a solid preparation in foundations through courses in mathematics, computers, and basic sciences. The undergraduate IE curriculum is well supplemented in such foundational courses. To this is added a solid preparation in fundamentals of engineering through various specialized courses. Through the course work, the student acquires the necessary skills in modeling and analysis of engineering systems and learns to develop insightful approaches to problem solving. With a number of technical elective courses, students build up additional strength in engineering. To provide the student with a broad intellectual spectrum, electives in economics, social sciences and arts are offered. Additional courses in communication, history, and professional ethics help develop self-confidence, articulation skills, and professional attitude in business and social environments. A special research course at the senior level allows higher achieving students to participate in a research project under the guidance of a faculty member. Design experience is incorporated in the courses as the student progresses through the program. A sequence of two course capstone in system design in the fourth year gives the student the experience of how to integrate and use in creative ways the various modeling skills and analysis techniques he/she has acquired in designing real world manufacturing or service systems. This course sequence addresses real world problems supplied each year to the department by various companies in Turkey. These problems are studied and solved by students under the guidance of company officials and faculty members from the department. This hands-on experience gives students the unique opportunity to work on challenging problems and produce solutions of good quality within an imposed deadline.