Industrial Engineering

Introduction to Industrial Engineering

            Are you a senior High School student trying to pick a course that is both very interesting and fun yet gives you higher opportunity to land a relevant job? Are you stuck with your own thoughts and would like to ask the opinion of your family, friends and authority around you on what course to choose? Well lucky you! This article is just about to introduce one of the most fun, challenging, interesting and one of the most respectable courses known in the world, Industrial Engineering!

Industrial engineering is one of the most underrated engineering course since it has no board exams yet, but before anyone could judge this course, it is one of the most broad and powerful field of engineering and it has now a certification exam. Industrial Engineering is a branch of engineering that specializes on betterment of the processes and systems within a manufacturing company. It also deals with production processes, systems engineering, logistics and management. Now that we have tackled what are the coverage of Industrial Engineering, let me sell to you what it feels like to be in an industrial engineering department and why is it so fun and interesting!

              Industrial engineering has a wide scope of knowledge and it starts from material selection to the processes up to management. In material selection we study the mechanical properties of metals, which were one of the main materials used in construction and many other products. We always have a thinking of selecting and producing the highest quality of material and product while minimizing the costs.

            The fun thing starts here in industrial processes and let us also includes one of the fortes of Industrial Engineers, the time and motion study. Let us begin with industrial processes. It is important for these materials to meet their standards for specific use. Here we would study the different processes metals were subjected to in order to attain its desired mechanical component, it includes processes like quenching, rolling, forging and many others. Included also in the industrial processes are actual applications of different type of welding in use of wood lathe!

Have you imagined how your shoes, clothes and accessories are produced and how long it takes to be finished? From the clothes you wear, to the food you eat and even the furniture around you, these all undergo step by step procedures and in time and motion study we conduct a thorough study on every step of the process and make a betterment of it! Be it manually made or automated, from the moment the worker moved his hand away from the starting position, until the material is picked up, and assembled or used, every part of it would go through heavy scrutiny in order to eliminate unnecessary hand motion or process performed. These unnecessary motions are waste of time and time plays a significant role in production. The faster a product is produced, the higher the production rate is, and the higher the production rate is the higher the probability that they could satisfy their demand and maximizes their profit.

Lastly for the management, it covers more topics than you would have expected. This is more tedious yet still very interesting. One of the most fascinating subjects here is the ergonomics which is also one of the fortes on industrial engineers. Here we would design the workplace for it to become more comfortable to the workers. Illumination, sound intensity, temperature and workspaces are the factors that are needed to be considered for the physical ergonomics. While ergonomics is designed for the comfort and increased productivity of workers, Facilities planning is concerned with the design of rooms needed to be beside together. It also includes the material handling equipments and the positioning of machines in the workplace. Human resource management is also part of the curriculum in industrial engineering.

        Three of the most tedious and significant subjects of industrial engineering are the Systems engineering, Production Systems and Operations research. Systems engineering shows the entities which could be a human, place, the attributes which describes the entities and the relationship between entities and processes. Production Systems tackles about the costs that might incur in the totality of processes and warehousing and principles about production. Operations Research is a subject that could be used in higher position wherein this would help the company in maximizing the profit and minimizing the costs.

At last! Were done with the discussion of the subjects, now let me close the deal for you. Industrial Engineering has a wide scope of possible job opportunities, mind you not just any jobs, these jobs were very relevant and has good salary and future. Here you would learn lots of things enjoy the process of learning and become a better leader. Engineering might be quite hard but take my advice and chose Industrial Engineering, as Brian Tracy said “Move out of your comfort zone. You can only grow if you are willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable when you try something new.” and as an Industrial Engineer, there is no perfect system but we could always create a better way!