Enhancing student's hands-on learning experience through final year project in industry: Implementations and challenges

Abstract

Universities aspire to deliver graduates who can function well in the industry. However, universities are still receiving comments from the industry that the graduates are not competent to do hands-on work. Lack of hands-on experience as a result of focusing too much in formal education could have contributed to this scenario. Final year project if carefully structured can be used as a tool to overcome this issue. This work describes the effort made to enhance final year students' hands-on learning experience through final year project in industry. Two different projects have been conducted in a beverage can manufacturing company. Both projects have similar intentions which are to improve the productivity level and to minimize material wastes. Duration of one year has been spent in constructing and implementing suitable approach to achieve the project objectives. The final year project conducted has not only contributed to a significant cost savings to the company, but also has added such a valuable learning experience for the students. The final year project has successfully provided them a substantial amount of hands-on experience that complements the textbook knowledge they learned in class. The challenges faced in the implementation of final year project in industry are also discussed in this work. © 2009 IEEE.