Despite how simple industrial engineering sounds, it is considered an essential major. Industrial engineers work to improve businesses, thus they should be employed by every firm. Any process may be improved through industrial engineering. Using the lean concept, human factors, optimization, and statistical control, any industry's products may be improved in terms of production, safety, and quality. Industrial engineers bring a great deal of value to the businesses for which they work. The goal of an industrial engineer is to optimize the operation between people, machines and their environment to eventually reduce cost, eliminate waste, and minimize defects. Unlike any other engineering discipline that focuses on creating new products or services, industrial engineering focuses on the cost. There are three main focus areas of industrial engineering on reducing cost. The first is human factors, and the primary attention is on ergonomics. It tries to find the optimal design for a product and service that is being used. The second area studied is process and layout design, it involves analyzing the steps necessary to perform a given work assignment with the least amount of people and the highest quality. Operations research is the third area, this involves researching various factors such as time, distance, and gas to arrive at the optimal solution. They do this by face-to-face meetings with executives, extensive stays on manufacturing floors, and review of historical production data.
Industrial engineering is proven a promising field since it has a job growth of 10% which is higher than average. In addition, you get the chance to learn a variety of things due to its flexibility. It applies science, mathematics, and engineering principles to complex integration and operations. IEs can work in manufacturing, technology, hardware, retail, and healthcare. If you can think of a business, a quality IE is working in it. Industrial engineers help to make the company’s total operation process more efficacious. Its job is to focus on improving the system that is made of people, knowledge, equipment, energy, material and process. Since an industry is defined as any business, trade, manufacture, or calling of employers and includes any calling, service, employment, handicraft, then industrial engineering is beneficial in a lot of workplaces. Spend enough time in the workforce, and you will see that every company has an industrial engineer. And the ones that don't miss opportunities to operate more efficiently, saving themselves time and money. Industrial engineers develop and implement systems that are complex and massive. Due to the complexity of these systems, they need to have a broad, systems-oriented perspective and knowledge in various engineering disciplines. Industrial engineers are skilled at using various statistical and communication techniques to improve the efficiency of their work. They also use computer simulations to improve their processes. Industrial engineers are responsible for identifying waste and improving the processes and systems of a company. Their main goal is to reduce waste and make the organization more productive.
As any other engineering major, industrial engineering deals with problem solving and this may improve your problem-solving skills. Industrial engineers are the ones who decide where to put machinery in a manufacturing plant, where to put fire stations in a major city, and where to establish a new factory based on operational and economic factors. Aside from that, they figure out the best routes for emergency workers to take through cities in order to save travel time. Identification, analysis, design, assessment of alternatives, and implementation are all phases in the problem-solving process that Industrial Engineering approaches may help with. The majority of IE approaches in use, however, focus on the analysis phase. Continuously scanning processes for possible efficiency gains, anticipating issues, or, in the event of a badly structured business, sorting out the most urgent problems or those to be handled with the least effort is one of the most important responsibilities of Industrial Engineers. For screening potential issue areas, a large number of checklists, questionnaires, audit processes, and recommendations are used. In the third edition of the ILO publication Introduction to work study, a specific questionnaire on work organization and workplace layout was included (ILO, 1979). For many industries and activities such as product creation, production, and sales, specific methods have been developed.
In conclusion, industrial engineering will be needed for its problem solving skill, analytical thinking and innovation, critical thinking, leadership skill, technology use, and flexibility. These skills are critical for industry 4.0. It can work in diverse fields, from healthcare, to automation, and even with added courses you can be a data analyst. Most companies hire an industrial engineer as a consultant or a manager, for it’s problem solving skills. They’re needed for the optimization of a company's production and benefits. The field is dynamic, there is always something new to learn. There are no limits on your ideas, creative thinking is encouraged for an industrial engineer. Since it’s a wide study, you can choose to specialize on the technical or the management side. Both sides are useful for different reasons. The technical part focuses more on technology, manufacturing and materials. While management deals with the system, evaluating changes, communication and people. Both also have similarities that are required for the upcoming era.
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