The Perspective of an Industrial Engineer

Practicing Engineer:  Mrs. Anne Deisinger.

College Of Education: University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Main Task: Project Management

Reasons for choosing Industrial Engineering:

·       1. Wanted a broader environment

·       2. Did not like a lot of laboratory work that chemical engineers do

·       3. Was much interested in business as much as was in Engineering

       Dr. Ann Herrmann chose industrial engineering because of the large scope, dynamism and flexibility industrial engineering has to offer. She wasn’t interested in the large volumes of work chemical engineers and mechanical engineers do which are predictable and constant. She also liked business as a profession. Doing industrial engineering offered her the choice to combine engineering and business.

Daily duties:

·       1. Project management- overseeing different projects given by the mechanical department

·       2. Safety management

·       3. Lab renovation

Length of service with MSOE:

            5 years

Career Path:

            Application engineer – Application manager (10 years) – Project management (5 years) – Marketing – Project management

            She started working as an application engineer at the Square D Company which supply automation products. She was then promoted to the position of the Application manager at the company later on. She stayed with Square D Company for a period of 10 years. She left the Square D Company for Rockwell Automation Company. She worked as a project manager in the Rockwell Automation company for a period of five years. She then went on to work in the field of marketing and later moved back to project management where she currently is with MSOE.

            Her career movements highlights the broadness of the industrial engineering field and the dynamism that goes with it.  

Personality strengths:

·       1. Communication

·       2. Leadership

·       3. Teamwork

         She highlighted communication skills as a very important factor in becoming a successful industrial engineer. Industrial engineers are like the bridge to branches of engineering in the sense that they connect the other branches of engineering. Communication is key in doing this.

She also highlighted Leadership as another important factor in becoming a successful industrial engineer. Most industrial engineers often find themselves in managerial positions so an industrial engineer must be able to lead. Teamwork was one of her very strong personalities as she loved to work as a team with people which is a regular activity for industrial engineers.

Method of choosing company:

·       1. Those that attended career fairs

·       2. Location of the company

·       3. Reputation of the company

·       4. Flexibility

·       5.Personal needs

She mentioned the above methods as a way she used to choose various companies that she worked for.  Just like MSOE, the University of Wisconsin, Madison also held career fairs in which she attended. This served as a way of choosing her companies. Another way she chose companies to work for was considering their locations. She said this was a great factor as she was looking for something close to her residence. She also said that the reputation of some of the companies also caught her eye. She wanted to work for companies with notable reputation and this was a factor in choosing her companies.

Finally, she considered herself in the sense that she thought of what was best for her in terms of her personal needs. One of these needs was flexibility which was one of the major factors in her choice of company. She looked at the company’s relationship with flexibility and that helped her choose her company.

Recommendations for career related activities:

·       1. Internships

·       2. Shadowing people- in the sense that you try to do their jobs by filling in for them sometimes even if   you’re not getting paid.

She highlighted internships as an activity that helped her greatly in her course as an industrial engineer. Internships is a great way of acquiring more knowledge and skills in your field of work and also adds to your experience. This is important as experience is a great teacher as the saying goes “experience is the best teacher.” It gives you the understanding of work environments and formality apart from knowledge related to your course work.

She mentioned shadowing people. This helps to add to your understanding of the work environments, coursework and formality.

Recommendations for extra-curricular activities:

·       1. Student organizations

·       2. Attending conferences

Industrial engineering requires a lot of communication skills. She recommended joining student organizations as this would help build communication skills and team work. She also recommended attending conferences related to industrial engineering. This is important because successful industrial engineers come to talk about their careers and how they made it. This would help to define your career path.

Most helpful course-work in this career:

·       1. Ergonomics

·       2. Quality courses

·       3. Project management

·       4. Safety courses

·       5. Manufacturing processes

She highlighted project management as one of the most important courses she had taken in the past. It has helped her for the most part of her career since she spent most her career in project management. She also highlighted the quality courses in the industrial engineering department as very important since an industrial engineer is looking for quality and efficiency. She also said that Ergonomics and Manufacturing processes has helped her a lot in the sense that it has given her a lot of options in terms of diversity.

Human Factors

One area that Industrial Engineers commonly go into is Human Factors. Human Factors is the interaction between the human working and the different elements within the system that they are working in. People working in Human Factors want to mold the product or system to the worker that is going to be using it rather than forcing the worker to use something that is not figured for them. Human Factors takes into account what the user is fully capable of doing and what he/she cannot do so that when he/she is working in that system or using a certain product, they suit them as best they can.

Lean Manufacturing

One type of method that Industrial Engineers use in their day to day job is something called Lean Manufacturing.  Lean Manufacturing is a process that involves the reduction of waste within that process to cut costs. Because Lean centers around waste and trying to avoid it, there are certain things when producing a product that should be taken into account.
   
       1. Overproduction - Producing for products than the company is demanding is one way to boost
           your material usage.
       2. Waiting Time - The time between production steps in the process should be cut down to
           minimize wasted time.
       3. Inventory - Having too much inventory could be harmful to your cost.
       4. Transportation - Make sure the materials in the factory are being moved efficiently.
       5. Over-processing - Too much time spent on a certain product process when the time could be
           spent on other important tasks.
       6. Motion - The worker's motion should be limited when doing repetitive processes.
       7. Defects - Defects cause harm to cost and time if not resolved quickly
       8. Workforce - Workers should be working efficiently to get the most out of them.

These things are the basics of Lean Manufacturing and should be used in a factory process setting.

Duties of an Industrial Engineering

Duties of an Industrial Engineer

Industrial engineers typically do the following:

• Review production schedules, engineering specifications, process flows, and other information to understand methods and activities in manufacturing and services
• Figure out how to manufacture parts or products, or deliver services, with maximum efficiency
• Develop management control systems to make financial planning and cost analysis more efficient
• Enact quality control procedures to resolve production problems or minimize costs
• Work with customers and management to develop standards for design and production
• Design control systems to coordinate activities and production planning to ensure that products meet quality standards
• Confer with clients about product specifications, vendors about purchases, management personnel about manufacturing capabilities, and staff about the status of projects

Industrial engineers apply their skills to many different situations from manufacturing to business administration. For example, they design systems for

• moving heavy parts within manufacturing plants
• getting goods from a company to customers, including finding the most profitable places to locate manufacturing or processing plants
• evaluating how well people do their jobs
• paying workers

                        Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor, Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2014-15 Edition, Industrial Engineers
                                                                           

Fields in Industrial Engineering

Industrial engineering is about choices. Other engineering disciplines apply skills to very specific areas. IE gives practitioners the opportunity to work in a variety of businesses. 

The most distinctive aspect of industrial engineering is the flexibility it offers. Whether it’s shortening a roller coaster line, streamlining an operating room, distributing products worldwide, or manufacturing superior automobiles, these challenges share the common goal of saving company’s money and increasing efficiency.

The various topics concerning industrial engineers include:

·        accounting: the measurement, processing and communication of financial information about economic entities

·        operations research, also known as management science: discipline that deals with the application of advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions

·        operations management: an area of management concerned with overseeing, designing, and controlling the process of production and redesigning business operations in the production of goods or services.

·        project management: is the process and activity of planning, organizing, motivating, and controlling resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals in scientific or daily problems.

·        job design: the specification of contents, methods and relationship of jobs in order to satisfy technological and organizational requirements as well as the social and personal requirements of the job holder.

·        financial engineering: the application of technical methods, especially from mathematical finance and computational finance, in the practice of finance

·        engineering management: a specialized form of management that is concerned with the application of engineering principles to business practice

·        supply chain management: the management of the flow of goods. It includes the movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from point of origin to point of consumption.

·        process engineering: design, operation, control, and optimization of chemical, physical, and biological processes.

·        systems engineering: an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how to design and manage complex engineering systems over their life cycles.

·        ergonomics: the practice of designing products, systems or processes to take proper account of the interaction between them and the people that use them.

·        safety engineering: an engineering discipline which assures that engineered systems provide acceptable levels of safety.

·        cost engineering: practice devoted to the management of project cost, involving such activities as cost- and control- estimating, which is cost control and cost forecasting, investment appraisal, and risk analysis.

·        value engineering: a systematic method to improve the "value" of goods or products and services by using an examination of function.

·        quality engineering: a way of preventing mistakes or defects in manufactured products and avoiding problems when delivering solutions or services to customers.

·        Industrial plant configuration: sizing of necessary infrastructure used in support and maintenance of a given facility.

·        facility management: an interdisciplinary field devoted to the coordination of space, infrastructure, people and organization

·        engineering design process: formulation of a plan to help an engineer build a product with a specified performance goal.

·        logistics: the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of consumption in order to meet some requirements, of customers or corporations.

                                                                                                                                       -Soucre  Wikipedia

What is Industrial Engineering?

Industrial Engineering is a branch of engineering which is used to improve processes and systems to make the work environment better. Industrial Engineers tend to want to reduce cost of production while at the same time, improve the efficiency. Doing this leads to higher quality products and a safer environment for everyone involved.

Industrial Engineers work with all the employees of the company to try and improve the setting for all of those involved.