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Industrial Engineering

What does an Industrial Engineer do?

Industrial engineers provide technical support to managers to make resources productive. They are concerned with quality and safety in all areas of industrial, service, and government activity. This means that the industrial engineer must be broadly educated and must be flexible enough to work well in a variety of situations. In fact, modern industrial engineers work in hospitals, transportation and communication companies, research laboratories, banks, and education agencies, as well as in all types of manufacturing industries. Putting solutions to work in real-life situations requires, above all, an understanding of how people and technology work together; how to manage operation; how to respond to new ideas; and what it takes to implement changes.

Industrial Engineering is unique among engineering majors in that it is highly analytical, but does not entail extensive background in physical sciences. Instead, it is a broad field that touches upon social sciences, human anatomy, quantitative decision making and computer science.

Curriculum Overview

Industrial engineers provide technical support to managers in making resources productive. This emphasis on productivity, in all areas of industrial and government activity, means that the industrial engineer must be broadly educated and flexible enough to work well in a variety of situations. In fact, modern industrial engineers work in hospitals and medical centers, transportation and communications companies, research labs, banks and educational agencies, as well as in all types of manufacturing industries.

An industrial engineer with the BS degree may design plant facilities, as well as production, inventory and information systems. These tasks include the economic analysis of proposed systems and the measurement of human effort as part of the design of jobs.

Some of the major areas within industrial engineering are:

• Production and operations management
  Design, management and control of systems for production of goods and for provision of services (e.g., in transportation or health)
  Design and improvement of new and existing systems

• Human factors
  Study of human performance and of the appropriate use of people as part of production or service systems (includes measurement of work and design of jobs)

• Economic analysis
  Analysis of the costs, benefits, and risks involved in an existing or proposed system or project
  Identification of the best ways to use limited resources

• Operations research
  Construction and use of mathematical models of processes such as production, transportation or service systems
  Analysis of these models to find effective ways of designing, operating and improving the systems

For More Information

Prospective Undergraduate Students 3182 Mechanical Engineering 1513 University Avenue Madison, WI 53706 Tel: 608/263-4025 Fax: 608/265-9239 E-mail: ie@engr.wisc.edu

Prospective Graduate Students 3182 Mechanical Engineering 1513 University Avenue Madison, WI 53706 Tel: 608/263-4025 Fax: 608/265-9239 E-mail: ie@engr.wisc.edu

www.engr.wisc.edu/ie

Date last modified: 18-Mar-2008.
Date created 24-Jan-2001.
Content by: egradvisor@engr.wisc.edu
Copyright 2006 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
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