ABSTRACT
The culmination of chemical engineering curriculum at the Department of
Chemical and Process Engineering (JKKP), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia is
the final year design project. The design project course is conducted over a period of two semesters where the students are required to work in group and to apply all their acquired knowledge in chemical engineering principle. JKKP with the cooperation of Petronas has attempted various effort to ensure that the projects are as realistic as possible and to emulate the actual industrial requirements. This paper describes the involvement of the industrial sector specifically Petronas in the final year design project and how it has impacted the students positively. Petronas initial involvement in the final year design project was as a sponsor of the design project award and involvement of their engineer(s) as panel judges in the final presentation. Over the years the department and the students have benefited from a greater level of participation by Petronas engineers. Petronas has allowed JKKP to use their process simulation software, iCON®, develop by their engineer and has been giving introductory courses and training of iCON® to the students. This software is used in simulating the process plant in their final year design project which help in the mass and heat balances task. Petronas’s engineers allocate time for consultation with students and review their design work. Currently Petronas’ engineers involvement is as early as when the problem statement is being developed and assisted the department by making visit to relevant Petronas’ plants as initial exposure to the students. It is followed by two review sessions in each semester in addition to the consultation sessions. Involvement of Petronas’s engineers in the final year design project has help to make it as close to the actual practice as possible and has benefited the students greatly.

INTRODUCTION
The department of Chemical and Process Engineering, UKM started in the early
1980s as a small unit to cater for chemical engineering discipline. It was first
established as a unit called Chemical Technology Unit under the Science Faculty
and later in 1984 it was upgraded to a department under the name Jabatan
Kejuruteraan Kimia dan Proses.
In its early years of operation the number of student intake was very humble.
The maximum number of intakes was less than 20 students. Over the years the
number of student intake grew impressively and in the 2006 the student intake
peaked to about 60 students. Table 1 shows the number of students taking the
final year design project from 2003 to 2009. Later as the university achieved the
status of a research university, the student intake criteria became more stringent
and only those students with over 3.7 pointers were accepted into the department.
This obviously had some effect on the total number of student intake when it
began to drop below the peak of 60 students. Table 2 shows the average CGPA
point intake for students accepted into the department since 2004.