About Industrial Engineering
Industrial Engineering (IE)
..... is one of the most people-oriented and customer-focused engineering disciplines. It is concerned with the analysis, design and optimisation of integrated industrial systems that stress product and process innovation, manufacturing/ operations improvement, and enterprise development.
Industrial systems are composed of manufacturing and service-oriented systems and include a broad scope of industries consistent with an integrated approach of IE.
IE Applications
A consistent theme of IE is to encompass a broad scope and look at systems integration.
This applies to manufacturing and non-manufacturing, public and private organisations in all sectors, including manufacturing firms, processing plants, off-shore operations, as well as banks, insurance companies, hospitals, government departments, amongst others. There are many routes that a graduate from the IE programme can take both academy and industry.
Scope of IE
TECHNOLOGY:
-Information Technology
-Manufacturing & Production Systems
-Service Systems
PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT MANAGEMENT:
-Organization and Work Design
-Human Factors and Ergonomics
MANAGEMENT, PLANNING, DESIGN AND CONTROL:
-Project Management
-Product Planning
-Manpower Resource Planning
-Systems and Facilities Design
-Planning and Control
-Quality
-Supply Chain Management and Logistics
METHODS FOR DECISION MAKING:
-Probablistic Models and Statistics
-Economic Evaluation
-Computer Simulation
-Optimization
METHODS:
-Methods Engineering
-Processing and Operation Planning
-Process Chart Procedures
-Operation Analysis
-Motion Study
-Manufacturing Research
-Value Engineering
WORK MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES:
-Industrial Engineering Tools
EXAMPLES:
· Develop applications of new processing, automation, and control technology;
· Develop performance standards, job evaluation, and salary programmes;
· Improve productivity through application of technology and human factors;
· Design facilities and operation procedures;
· Enhance plant environment and quality of people's working life;
· Develop management systems to aid in financial planning and cost analysis;
· Analyse complex business problems using operations research;
· Conduct plant location surveys, system and organisational effectiveness studies;
· Study potential markets for goods and services, material sources, labour supply, energy resources, financing, and taxes.
Is Industrial Engineering strictly "industrial"?
Industrial Engineering is concerned with processes and systems and Since production systems are found anywhere, the methodologies of Industrial Engineering are applicable. In that sense, the adjective "industrial" should be interpreted as "industrious", referring to the process of being skillful and careful. In many departments, Industrial Engineering is called "Industrial and Systems Engineering" in an attempt to make it clear that the industrial adjective is intended to be generic.
Why is IE Unique among all engineering disciplines?
As companies adopt management philosophies of continuous productivity and quality improvement to survive in the increasingly competitive world market, the need for industrial engineers is growing. Why? Industrial engineers are the only engineering professionals trained as productivity and quality improvement specialists. Focusing on decreasing costs and improving efficiency, specific job descriptions and working areas of industrial engineers may vary considerably, often in fields which are not traditionally considered to be engineering. This reality turns IE unique among all engineering disciplines.
What are Possible Careers?
Our own graduates have had positions such as:
-Operations director for a customs brokerage company (involved in logistics, purchasing, supply chain management etc.
-Supply Chain Analyst
-Accountants
-Cheif Financial Officer (CFO)
-General Manager(GM)/Managing Director (MD)
-Project & Planning Engineer
-Regulatory Compliance Officer
-Quality Control Technician
-Welding Inspector
-Quality Assurance Officer
-Logistics engineer
-Planning engineer
-Industrial Engineer (marketing)
Other Examples:
- As a management engineer in a hospital, you may help doctors and nurses make the best use of their time in treating patients. You may also design procedures for optimum use of medical facilities to help bring the cost of healthcare down.
-As an ergonomist in a television manufacturing plant, you may change the tools workers use to assemble televisions to reduce the risk of repetitive stress injuries.
-As an operations analyst for an airline, you may design a bar coding system for identifying and transporting passengers’ luggage to ensure that it does not get lost.
-As a quality engineer for a public gas and electric company, you may improve customer satisfaction by designing a process to schedule service calls around the availability of the customer
Sample Projects of IEs:
-Discovering a new way to assemble a product that will prevent worker injury
-Designing the admissions procedure at a hospital
-Converting a major production line to JIT and kanban system
-Representing a company in the design and construction of a new manufacturing plant
-Performing motion and time studies
-Developing prototype units for the cellular phone car adapter market
-Simulation modeling
-Developing a hardware protection program for spacecraft
-Developing a supplier quality program
-Implementing lean manufacturing concepts
-Developing and launching a complete material handling system for a new automobile
-Developing the conceptual layout of a dockyard and ship repair maintenance facility
-Working on a design project to make a medical device to treat sleep apnea
-Teaching industrial engineering courses
-Representing manufacturing and purchasing issues on a design tea
