Industrial engineering

Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering which deals with the optimization of complex processes or systems. Industrial engineers work to eliminate waste of time, money, materials, man-hours, machine time, energy and other resources that do not generate value. According to the Institute of Industrial Engineers, they figure out how to do things better. They engineer processes and systems that improve quality and productivity.

Industrial engineers are the only engineering professionals trained specifically to be productivity and quality improvement specialists. As they work to improve processes on a technical point of view, but also to optimise the efficiency and profitability of businesses, many practitioners say that an industrial engineering education offers the best of both worlds: an education in both engineering and business.

Industrial engineering is concerned with the development, improvement, and implementation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy, materials, analysis and synthesis, as well as the mathematical, physical and social sciences together with the principles and methods of engineering design to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems or processes. While industrial engineering is a traditional and longstanding engineering discipline subject to (and eligible for) professional engineering licensure in most jurisdictions, its underlying concepts overlap considerably with certain business-oriented disciplines such as operations management.