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Industrial Engineering

nj Joe Student POE/Period 7 10/06/15 Tappan Zee High School

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Table of Contents 1. Abstract of Report — Field Report……………………………………………………….3,4 2. College courses required……………………………………………………………………5 3. Summary of report…………………………………………………………………………..6 4. Citations………………………………………………………………………………………7

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Abstract of Report — Field Report

Description of the field:

Industrial engineers devise methods to optimize industrial processes and systems, and thus maximize profits by eliminating waste. For example, an industrial engineer might have to make the most efficient automobile manufacturing factory by running a variety of different models to optimize the use of workers, machines, and energy. In other words, as described by the United States Department of Labor, “Industrial engineers find ways to eliminate wastefulness in production processes.”

Areas of Specialization:

There are a variety of specializations of Industrial Engineering that deal with the streamlining of diverse systems; a skill that is at the core of industrial engineering practices. These include:

Financial Engineering, which deals with the development of mathematical tools and algorithms to optimize financial systems and trading. Financial engineers take market data and use it to create the best market performance for a given portfolio. This is the most heavily math-based of the industrial engineering specializations.

Health Systems Engineering deals with making the most efficient healthcare system by developing various medical products that streamline health care and making the most efficient hospitals through data analysis. This speciality is closely related to biomedical engineering.

Manufacturing covers many different industrial engineering specialities, including motor vehicle parts manufacturing, aerospace product and parts manufacturing, and machinery manufacturing. They all essentially are connected to streamlining the manufacturing process, including human factors, machine factors, and energy factors, to make the most profitable manufacturing system. In many ways, it can be seen as the “purest” form of Industrial Engineering.

Engineering Management is a specialization of Industrial Engineering which also overlaps into other engineering fields. It involves the management of complex systems, generally developed by industrial engineers. Engineering Management is technological problem solving and the administrative necessity of dealing with human factors.

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Job Outlook (projected job growth):

The field of industrial engineering is expected to grow 5% from 2012 to 2022, according to the US Department of Labor. This is slower than average, though it is important to note that the data provided is somewhat outdated, given that it is from 2012. Forbes cites job growth for industrial engineering from 2010 to 2014 at 10%, double that of the US Department of Labor, though it only gives growth over a period of four years.

Where this type of engineer might work:

Industrial engineers work both in office environments and in the location they are trying to improve/make more efficient. For example, an industrial engineer might be located in a factory or manufacturing plant one day, looking for ways to make processes more efficient, and in an office the next day, writing up a report or running simulations to create optimized system.

Expected salary ranges:

As of 2012, the median salary was $78,860 per year, or $37.92 per hour, according to the US Department of Labor. This means that 50% of industrial engineers make above this amount, while 50% make less than this amount, in the United States.

Duties and responsibilities of this type of engineer:

The responsibilities of industrial engineers are large and varied depending on the area of specialization they choose. Generally, their responsibilities include designing complex industrial systems to create the most efficient and cost effective process possible. This includes consideration of human factors, machine factors, energy factors, time factors, management factors, and many others. For example, for an industrial engineer specializing in manufacturing, his/her responsibilities might include performing mathematical calculations with given data to establish production systems, staff requirements, and standards. His/her responsibilities could also include, designing the “layout of equipment, materials, and workspace to illustrate maximum efficiency, using drafting tools and computer.”

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College Courses Required Sourced from Lehigh University Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering

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Summary of the Report

Industrial engineering is an extremely varied, and vast field. I am most drawn to the specialization in financial engineering because I find economics interesting, especially the micro-transactions that govern the economy today. Furthermore, I feel that I would enjoy the mathematics involved in creating algorithms using statistical analyses of massive swaths of market data. I am less drawn towards the manufacturing side of industrial engineering because I feel that in many ways it is more managerial than engineering-based, though a large portion of it is based in the engineering of systems. Given the relatively slow growth of industrial engineering, I feel that it will not disappear, but soon be absorbed into other fields, such as computer science, as processes are increasingly automated. However, this also provides areas for future development of the field, despite its supposedly slow growth. I would be interested in pursuing industrial engineering in the future, and all of the complex and interesting problems that the field tries to solve, making the world a better, more efficient place.

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Citations

"Health Systems." University of Wisconsin-Madison. College of Engineering at University of Wisconsin Madison, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.

"Industrial Engineer Job Description - Part 1." Industrial Engineer Job Description, Duties and Jobs. CareerPlanner, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.

"Industrial Engineering & Management Sciences, McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University." Financial Engineering. McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.

"Industrial Engineering." U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.

"Undergraduate Catalogs." Emphasis Areas and Specializations in Industrial Engineering. Purdue University, n.d. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.

Wright, Joshua. "The Most In-Demand (And Aging) Engineering Jobs." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 12 Sept. 2014. Web. 12 Oct. 2015.