Industrial Engineering Submission

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Student’s Names
Tutor’s Names
Industrial Engineering
Submission Date
Report on Industrial Engineering
INTRODUCTION
Industrial engineering is a broad profession that has its focus on the optimization of
complex systems or processes through the reduction of waste in production (Shtub and Cohen
10). The engineering field looks at the money, systems of people, information, knowledge,
materials, energy and information, addressing their issues through applying social science,
physical and mathematical skills. Industrial engineering brings to light the techniques and
principles in engineering designs on the different life facets and looks to predict, specify and
evaluate derived results from such processes and systems. It is one old engineering branch taught
in various schools of engineering (Davim 20). Generally, industrial engineering demands that the
practitioner holds a professional license before beginning practice.
HISTORY
Tracing industrial engineering goes back to the 19th century where the industrial
revolution began (Abdollah 237). Along the way, several practitioners pioneered respective
industrial inventions. For example, Samuel Colt pioneered the development of the assembly line
while Harrington Emerson produced a description of methods of process improvements, the

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“Twelve Principles of Efficiency.” Also, Fredrick Taylor came to introduce scientific
management as well as the time-and-motion study (Reis, Pinelas and Melão 33).
It was in these early days that industrial engineering began finding the drive to profitable
and efficient manufacturing operations (Huang, Chien and Dou 141). Henceforth, the continuous
developments and information about better power sources and machinery continued to unveil
new challenges. These challenges were to be tackled by industrial engineers, looking for ways to
optimize the technologies and add to the productivity (Huang, Chien and Dou 93).
Reaching 1940, the Total Quality Management (TQM) concept grew into a crucial part
within the industrial engineering field (Mula 62). The concept emphasized improving and
ensuring the process and product quality for every industrial operational phase. These acts have
been supplemented with six sigma as well as other International Organization for
Standardization.
Additionally, the seventies produced the development of the Kanban and the Kaizen
Japanese theories of management which enabled the Japanese to attain high levels of
productivity and quality (Mula 63). These two theories and many others led to flexibility,
delivery time and quality improvements thereby making the companies in west adopt them.
Moreover, the countries in the west came up with the continuous improvement program that
functioned to improve the industrial environment similarly.
EDUCATION
Looking into the education involved in industrial engineering, it is noted that a typical
undergraduate degree in the field required on to hold a Bachelor of Science and Engineering or
the Bachelor of Science in Industrial engineering (Dole 4). The industrial engineering field, like

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all other engineering fields, has its curriculum built on a broad science and math foundation
courses. Some of the courses undertaken include physics, chemistry, material science,
mechanics, engineering design, circuits/electronics and computer science. Additionally, there are
various mathematics courses taken such as differential equations, calculus and statistics (Dole
53).
Branching from the foundational courses, students are entitled to take industrial
engineering-specific courses. Such special courses focus on areas which include analysis or
design, systems theory, optimization, stochastics, safety/ergonomics, modelling or computation,
engineering economics and advanced mathematics. Other subjects that industrial engineering
students take are; strategy, finance, management as well as other business-oriented courses.
Students also take social science courses that include public policy and psychology. The
bachelor’s degree program consists of laboratory and classroom experiences (Dole 40).
Reaching the postgraduate level, students take Masters in which the common masters are
the Master of Science and Engineering or the Master of Science in industrial engineering (Dole
64). This level has its course work focusing on the optimization and research techniques, supply
chain management and logistics, engineering economics workspace and facility design,
reliability engineering, quality engineering, robotics, operations management and computer-
aided manufacturing (Dole 47).
DESCRIPTION OF TYPICAL JOB DUTIES
Depending on the particular task at hand, the industrial engineer will be working both in
the industrial setting they wish to improve and in the offices (Mula 112). If the engineer is
observing a problem, for example, they can supervise workers assembling factory parts, or staff

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undertaking their duties in hospitals. If the tasked with solving problems, industrial engineers
may use computers in their offices which are handy in examining data gathered personally or by
others (Huang, Chien and Dou 101).
Sometimes, industrial engineers are required to travel for work based in different
locations to be able to make observations and make assessments in these settings. Lately, the
industries that are employing the number of industrial engineers include; machinery
manufacturing, aerospace parts and products manufacturing together with architectural
companies (Shtub and Cohen 16). In these vast engineering fields, industrial engineers have to
possess good interpersonal skills enabling them to team with other professionals, serving as a
bridge between the business and the technical sides in organizations.
CUTTING EDGE ACTIVITIES
Industrial engineers are should be able to incorporate a broad knowledge range for the
determination of best utilization method of resources without negatively influencing the products
created or services delivered. Lately, the field requires industrial engineers to indulge in cutting
edge activities that include reduction of energy consumption, minimization of impacts to the
environment and additional focus on automation ideas (Huang, Chien and Dou).
 Reduction of energy consumption
All types of businesses treasure the levels of energy consumed with an additional focus to
every staff member since there is a continuous rise in energy cost. Therefore, industrial
engineers are deemed to develop techniques of allowing systems lower the levels of
energy wastes such as opting to operate at certain times of the day or setting up smarter
building structures to work in (Huang, Chien and Dou 317).

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 Environmental impact minimization
While energy reduction is one of the solutions to minimizing environmental impact, this
trend is now deserving attention from facilities and industries inclining them to
incorporate ideas such as natural ventilation and designing outdoors to be more
encouraging to cyclers who reduce pollution (Huang, Chien and Dou 317).
 Automation
Finally, improving technology brings about automation into every industrial project in
one way or the other since automation reduces costs without decreasing quality (Huang,
Chien and Dou 317).
These cutting edge activities lean towards a greener living. On the other hand, one certain
outcome is that the future will continue bringing in new challenges and the industrial engineers
will have to develop better adaptations (Huang, Chien and Dou). This prompts the article to go
and look for first-hand information on the conductance of the current industrial engineer.
INTERVIEW WITH AN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER PROFESSIONAL
This section outlines how an interview with an industrial engineer went down. The
interview aimed to look for first-hand information on the skills required in a current industrial
engineer.
Question 1: Being an industrial engineer, the job entails streamlining processes within the
company when making processes more efficient. How do you make a process efficient?
Reply: As an industrial engineer, I should have the capability of analyzing my company’s
processes, its staff members and how the operations are conducted. Once I assess a situation, I
usually identify gaps to be closed for increased efficiency. For example, I have excellent

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organizational skills hereby I once restructured the company's protocols for better time
management and resource efficiency.
Question 2: What experiences do you have when working with teams?
Reply: I’ve partnered with different professionals in both small and large teams. A first
skill that an industrial engineer should possess is a good communication ability followed by
team-leading ability and lastly the will to learn. Learning from others helps in viewing job-
related tasks in different perspectives.
Question 3: How do you solve problems in your profession?
Reply: I usually look at the problem at hand and see if there is a possibility of working
backwards to determine its source. My previous job helped me learn to identify root cause
analysis using tools such as the 5W + 1H.
Question 4: Please tell me more about problem analysis.
Reply: Problem analysis involves understanding the problem at hand as progressive
phases. Problem analysis enables one to break down problems into occurrence steps allowing
manageability and solving.
POSSIBILITY OF THE PROFESSION BEING APPEALING
Briefly, industrial engineers think, persuade and organize, this interests me. Being able to
think shows one’s skill to research, investigate and increase on understanding while persuading
ability shows one’s skill to influence, motivate and sell ideas to people (Mula 3). Lastly, the
organization shows one's skill in working with processes and information while maintaining a

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particular orderly arrangement (Abdollah 216). These three industrial engineering sectors are
appealing and make me inclined to pursue the profession.
WOULD I DO THIS JOB?
Industrial engineers are finding ways to eradicate production process wastefulness. They
are devising efficient ways of using machines, workers, information, energy and materials when
making products or providing services. This is one way of protecting the workforce and the
environment. I like protecting what's good and I would like to join the industrial engineers in
protecting the workforce and the environment. Moreover, the pay is a motivating factor (Davim
72).
CONCLUSION
Industrial engineers work in a broad range of industries. They can work in manufacturing
and processing industries, consultancies or hospitals (Abdollah 124). Therefore, they are not
specialized. On the other hand, industrial engineers are involved in thinking, persuading and
organizing ways of protecting the workforce and the environment, making them valuable bridges
between the managerial and technical fields (Mula 31). I would not mind becoming an industrial
engineer in the future.

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Works Cited
Abdollah, Mohd, F. Proceedings of Mechanical Engineering Research Day 2019. New York
City: Centre for Advanced Research on Energy, 2019. Print.
Davim, J., Paulo. Manufacturing Engineering Education. Elsevier Science, 2018. Print.
Dole, Manoj. Industrial Engineering: Diploma & Engineering MCQ. Chicago: Manoj Dole,
2019. Print.
Huang, George, Q., Chen-Fu. Chien and Runliang. Dou. Proceeding of the 24th International
Conference on Industrial Engineering and Engineering Management 2018. New York
City: Springer, 2019. Print.
Mula, Josefa. New Global Perspectives on Industrial Engineering and Management. Wisconsin:
Springer, 2019. Print.
Reis, João., Sandra. Pinelas and Nuno. Melão. Industrial Engineering and Operations
Management I: XXIV IJCIEOM, Lisbon, Portugal, July 18–20. Atlanta: Springer, 2019.
Print.
Shtub, Avraham. and Yuval. Cohen. Introduction to Industrial Engineering. Texas: Taylor &
Francis Group, 2017. Print.