Do you like knowing how things work? Do you enjoy the rewarding feeling of success? If so, industrial engineering is for you. Industrial engineering is one of the most diverse careers in the engineering field. As an industrial engineer you can work as a human factors engineer in an amusement park, as a lean coordinator for a manufacturing plant, as a plant manager, a consultant for an engineering firm or even start your own firm. These are just a few of the possible careers choices an industrial engineer has. The opportunities are endless. Industrial engineering happens everywhere from the manufacturing floors to service industries like health care. The fact that you can earn a degree in industrial engineering and work in a manufacturing setting or service industries is just awesome. Industrial engineering offers a lot of variety and career opportunities, which is one of the reasons I chose this career.
What does an Industrial engineer do? Industrial engineers, also known as IE’s, look for ways to make products/services faster, cheaper, and easier by improving processes and quality. A process is how something is done. Improving processes does not specifically mean improving how consumer parts or services are being made, although 90% of it is.
Improving a process can also involve improving where and how we work. Sometimes workstations are designed without the consideration of the people who are required to use them. This is a classic example. One of the things an IE looks for when attempting to improve a process is the work environment itself. A lot of the time it involves making a process more ergonomic. Ergonomics is based on making work requirements more comfortable and efficient for the user. By having more ergonomic processes it is possible to decrease costs and increase capacity because it makes the work much easier to perform. Ergonomics may not sound like much, but ergonomics are everywhere. For more information on ergonomics refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergonomics.
Improving processes are a big key to industrial engineering. How does an IE know a process needs to be changed? A big step in industrial engineering is understanding the process itself. By understanding a process an IE can identify areas of improvement. For example, I worked as an industrial engineering intern for Daktronics where one of our products was consistently being built upside down. It occurred maybe 30% of the time when we built that particular product. When we examined the product we noticed there were no indicators for what side was up or down and either way it looked the same. This was a good indicator as to why our products were being built wrong. Not only did we change the process of the assembly, we also changed the design by adding slots that would only allow the assembly to be assembled one way which prevented it from being built upside down. It also saved Daktronics money by eliminating rework. Sometimes changing a process is just common sense. Other times a reoccurring problem may force the change.
Improving a process can also involve improving where and how we work. Sometimes workstations are designed without the consideration of the people who are required to use them. This is a classic example. One of the things an IE looks for when attempting to improve a process is the work environment itself. A lot of the time it involves making a process more ergonomic. Ergonomics is based on making work requirements more comfortable and efficient for the user. By having more ergonomic processes it is possible to decrease costs and increase capacity because it makes the work much easier to perform. Ergonomics may not sound like much, but ergonomics are everywhere. For more information on ergonomics refer to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ergonomics.
As I mentioned, an IE’s main focus is on improving processes, which may happen through ergonomics, but more commonly they improve the process of how products are made. Why would anyone care if we improved processes? Well for starters the computer you’re reading this on wouldn’t have been affordable because the processes used to make it would have been very expensive and outdated. Improving processes are important to businesses and consumers. From a business stand point, IE’s can reduce the cost of operations by improving the processes, thus reducing cost and leading to higher profit margins. If cost to businesses are reduced then the costs to consumers will also be reduced. It's a win win situation. IE’s benefit both the business world and consumers who buy their products.
In conclusion, IE's improve processes which reduces costs and increases profit margin. Industrial engineering is a great career opportunity because it is a very diverse field and offers many different opportunities. Because it is so diverse I have mainly talked about improving processes in a manufacturing setting but there are many other applications of industrial engineering. If you would like more information on industrial engineering visit the professional organization of industrial engineering at http://www.iienet2.org/Default.aspx.
I learned things about industrial engineering that I did not previously know before, but it was a bit hard to read due to the small font size and the use of a serif font. Also the sentence reading "Ever hear of the cliché “Work smarter, not harder”, my dad tells me this to this day." is a bit hard to follow.
ReplyDeleteI liked how you started out with why you chose the field and how having industrial engineering degree allows to explore different job opportunities. I also liked the example that you used because it involved you directly. One thing for sure that you need to look into is the layout of your blog because at least on my computer in order to read it I had to scroll left and right. I am not sure if it something with my computer or not, but I have not experienced this problem on other blogs.
ReplyDeleteI like this post because I feel that Industrial Engineers often times, from what I've seen, are criticized for what it is they exactly do. You give great examples about developing ergonomic workstations but what i especially like is the process development. The simple fact is you can't make products without processes. IE's develop the processes needed to make products. Great work!
ReplyDelete