Optimizing Industrial Processes: Breakthroughs in AI Training and Quality Control
The Texas A&M Energy Institute’s Distinguished Lecture Series in Energy will feature Dr. Metin Turkay, a Professor and Head of the Department of Industrial Engineering at Koc University, on Wednesday, September 10, 2025, from 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. CDT (UTC -5:00) in the Frederick E. Giesecke Engineering Research Building (GERB) Third Floor Conference Room and through a Zoom Meeting. The topic will be “Optimizing Industrial Processes: Breakthroughs in AI Training and Quality Control.”
Abstract
This seminar delves into two critical areas where advanced computational methods are transforming process industries: enhancing artificial intelligence training efficiency and ensuring stringent quality control in manufacturing.
The first segment addresses the challenges of training artificial neural networks (ANNs) for complex nonlinear systems. While piecewise linear approximations can convexify these problems, they often incur high computational costs. This presentation introduces a novel, tailored branch-and-bound algorithm (SOSX) that efficiently explores the solution space using linear relaxations. This method achieves minimal training error with significantly reduced CPU time, demonstrating polynomial computational growth that ensures scalability for large-scale problems and consistent efficiency across various datasets.
The second part focuses on achieving precise color consistency in colorless glassware production, specifically predicting CIELAB color parameters a* and b*. Current predictive models are limited in this domain. We present a comprehensive four-stage methodology encompassing systematic data preprocessing, multivariate outlier detection, SHAP-based feature importance, and lag feature engineering. A classification model predicts target value quadrants, enhancing regression accuracy. The approach prioritizes models with stable performance as new data is incorporated, laying the groundwork for a soft sensor framework that can prescribe optimal chemical compositions for desired color outcomes.
Biography
Metin Turkay is a Professor and Head of the Department of Industrial Engineering at Koc University, Istanbul, Turkey. He holds a PhD from Carnegie Mellon University (1996) and MS (1991) and BS degrees (1989) from Middle East Technical University. His research focuses on optimizations theory, mixed-integer programming, and development of novel solution algorithms for mixed-integer programming problems and machine learning. He is applying these theoretical developments on energy planning, sustainable energy, sustainable supply chain management and logistics, design of transportation system with special emphasis on sustainable supply chain and logistics and systems biology. Before joining Koc University in 2000 where he set up Systems Lab, he was principal consultant on optimization technologies at Mitsubishi Corporation Mizushima Research Center. His doctoral work and publications on generalized disjunctive programming was recognized with the 1997 Ted Peterson Student Paper Award by Computing and Systems Technology Division of AIChE. He is also the recipient of the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) Career Award (2005), the TÜBİTAK Young Researcher Incentive Award (2006), Turkey’s first IBM Shared University Research Award (2007), the IBM Faculty Award (2009) and the Open Collaborative Research Award by IBM Haifa Research (2012). He set up the Koc-IBM Supply Chain Research Center with funds from the IBM Shared University Research Award. In 2006, he was elected as the Chair of the EURO Working Group on Computational Biology, Bioinformatics and Medicine. Metin Türkay published over 150 papers and is the recipient of 14 international patents.