Industrial engineering facilitates communication between managers and engineers and promotes collaboration between technology and management by designing efficient systems. It is an important discipline that maximizes efficiency and drives innovation in various industries through optimization, data mining, ergonomics, and more.
Industrial engineering is where the rubber meets the road
Here, imagine two people. One is a highly specialized engineer who knows everything there is to know about his field, and the other is a management professional with a stellar track record. They need to work together to develop and produce a new product. However, the engineer continues to use the language of engineering to describe his research, while the manager talks about financing and cash flow in his specialized business jargon. The engineer has no business expertise, and the manager is unfamiliar with all the engineering terms the engineer uses. As a result, they don’t really understand each other.
As disciplines develop and become more specialized, it becomes increasingly difficult for non-majors to understand the language of majors. To avoid this situation, it is essential to have an intermediary who can understand both the language of the manager and the language of the engineer in some way. This is where industrial engineering comes into play. Industrial engineers combine an engineering background with a managerial mindset to design systems to create efficient collaboration between technology and management. It is precisely because of this bridge between managers and engineers that industrial engineering is gaining the most attention today.
When we think of “engineering,” we tend to think of it as a discipline that creates products based on mathematical and scientific knowledge. However, unlike other engineering disciplines, industrial engineering does not have a specific technology or industry that it targets. It’s not products that industrial engineers create, manage, and improve, but rather comprehensive systems that encompass technology and management. Industrial engineering plays a role in many different fields, including system design, optimization, ergonomics, production management, quality management, and more.
The beginnings of industrial engineering
The origins of industrial engineering are closely linked to the Industrial Revolution. It wasn’t until the Industrial Revolution introduced mass production that there was a need for industrial engineering as a discipline. In the cottage industry before the Industrial Revolution, there was no concept of efficiently linking production and management. This was because people were self-sufficient and only needed to make a few things for their own families, and even when trade occurred, it was done in small batches by craftsmen. In such small-scale production, hand-to-mouth skills were sufficient.
But with the start of the Industrial Revolution, things changed. Capitalists built massive factories with huge capital, and people flocked to cities to become factory workers. Under a mass production system that combined huge factories and large numbers of workers, factory owners could no longer ignore inefficiencies. With the development of the division of labor, a mistake in any one of the many steps in making a product could result in a defective product. The need for an efficient management system emerged.
Industrial engineering began in the United States when Frederick Taylor advocated for the scientific management of the shop floor, or the “Taylor system,” which he called the “manual labor method. Through his research, Taylor organized the workload of workers and introduced a pay-for-performance system. Today, Taylor is considered the father of industrial engineering. Following Taylor, Frank and Lillian Gilbreath codified scientific management by identifying 18 of the most basic movements required for work: search, select, hold, rest, plan, use, assemble, and disassemble. The name the Gilbreths gave to this set of 18 behaviors was “Therblig,” which is playfully spelled backwards from their last name, Gilbreth. Their research involves, for example, determining which movements a bricklayer should and should not make when laying bricks, where to stack the bricks, and how fast to work to reduce fatigue and make the job more efficient and effective.
In this way, industrial engineering was born out of the idea that it is not enough to produce with technology, but that production systems must also be managed efficiently.
Diversification of industrial engineering
Today, decades later, the role of industrial engineering has changed. The need for industrial engineering as a discipline, and the need for efficient systems, hasn’t been limited to the industrial sector. Of course, the study of industrial engineering as it relates to product production systems is still relevant and ongoing. However, industrial engineering can be applied to any field that requires efficient systems, not just production lines.
For example, industrial engineering has merged with biology and psychology to form the field of ergonomics. Ergonomics is the study of quantifying and qualifying the physical and mental aspects of humans and using that data to design human-centered products and systems. The applications of ergonomics are wide-ranging. For example, from the design of a computer keyboard to the design of an aircraft cockpit, ergonomics focuses on maximizing human efficiency and safety.
On the other hand, the economic analysis that always accompanies engineering projects is also a subfield of industrial engineering. The idea of applying engineering methodologies to financial investments has also led to the development of the field of financial engineering, which focuses on maximizing human efficiency and safety. Financial engineering is the application of mathematical models and algorithms to solve complex financial problems, and it plays an important role in risk management and investment strategy development.
With the development of the information and communication field, how to interpret, process, and manage data has also become a key issue. When industrial engineering meets innovative information theory and data, ‘data mining’ becomes possible. Data mining is the study of finding meaningful relationships, patterns, and rules in a series of seemingly meaningless data. A famous example of the application of data mining techniques is the discovery of a strong correlation between the sales of beer and diapers in the sales data of a large American convenience store. At first glance, beer and diapers don’t seem to be related, but convenience store shoppers often buy them together. Using the results of the analysis, the convenience store put diapers on the shelves next to beer, which led to a significant increase in sales and customer satisfaction.
Another important branch of industrial engineering is optimization and management science. These fields basically study how to find the best possible answer under given constraints, i.e., create a mathematical model of a real-world problem that can be solved using engineering and mathematical techniques, use optimization techniques to find the best possible solution, and then apply the solution to the real world. By problem, we mean a concrete real-world problem, such as determining the route of an airplane, scheduling a KTX train, or transporting a product by truck. Optimization and management science are essential to maximizing the efficiency of a company’s operations, which allows them to utilize resources more effectively and reduce costs.
Conclusion
Despite the many different areas of industrial engineering, the most important core remains the same. Today’s engineers cannot research and produce products in isolation like the craftsmen of old; they must be combined with capital, which is why today’s engineering must be managed. Industrial engineering is the discipline that answers this need. Industrial engineering is the bridge between management and technology, and it plays an important role in maximizing efficiency and driving innovation in various industries. In the future, industrial engineering will become even more important and necessary in the ever-changing industrial landscape.
