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About
Industrial Engineering
Industrial
engineering is a branch of engineering that concerns the
development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated
systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy,
material and process. Industrial engineering draws upon the principles
and methods of engineering analysis and synthesis, as well as mathematical, physical and social sciences together
with the principles and methods of engineering analysis and design
to specify, predict and evaluate the results to be obtained from such
systems. In lean manufacturing
systems, Industrial engineers work to
eliminate wastes of time, money, materials, energy, and other resources.
Industrial
engineering is also known as operations management,
systems engineering,
production engineering, manufacturing engineering or manufacturing
systems engineering; a distinction that seems to depend on the
viewpoint or motives of the user. Recruiters or educational
establishments use the names to differentiate themselves from others.
In healthcare, industrial engineers are more commonly known as
management engineers, engineering management,
or even health systems engineers.
Where as most
engineering disciplines apply skills to very specific areas, industrial
engineering is applied in virtually every industry. Examples of where
industrial engineering might be used include shortening lines (or queues) at a theme park, streamlining an
operating room, distributing products worldwide (also referred to as Supply Chain Management),
and manufacturing cheaper and more reliable automobiles. Industrial
engineers typically use computer simulation,
especially discrete event simulation,
for system analysis and evaluation.
The name "industrial
engineer" can be misleading. While the term originally applied to
manufacturing, it has grown to encompass services and other industries
as well. Similar fields include Operations Research, Management Science, Financial Engineering,
Supply Chain, Manufacturing Engineering,
Engineering Management,
Systems Engineering, Ergonomics, Process Engineering, Value Engineering and Quality Engineering.
There are a number of
things industrial engineers do in their work to make processes more
efficient, to make products more manufacturable and consistent in their
quality, and to increase productivity.
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