Activities of Industrial Engineers
Industrial engineers design integrated systems combining people,
machines, and material resources for greater overall effectiveness. In
these integrated systems, the person involved can be a machine operator,
hospital administrator, production scheduler, dentist, banker, transit
operator, or construction foreman. The machine resource can be a
hospital, steel rolling mill, commercial loan department, subway
transportation fleet, or road paving machine. The material resource can
be the physical substances being processed or the persons using the system,
such as metal for machining, patients, steel slab, teeth, money and mortgages,
passengers, or concrete.
Career Opportunities
Industrial engineering is a dynamic, rapidly-developing,
profession that provides a wide range of career opportunities. Although
industrial engineering principles of practice have been developed largely
over the past three decades, it is already the nation's second largest
engineering profession with an estimated 200,000 practitioners out of
the total of 1.1 million engineers in the United States.
Increasing complexity and scarcity of resources in industry,
service organizations, and government have led to ever broadening employment
opportunities for industrial engineers. The U.S. Department of Labor
has forecasted approximately 12,000 openings per year for industrial
engineers in the next decade, which is more than three times the number
currently being graduated. At Purdue University, industrial engineering
students receive a unique background that combines science, mathematics,
engineering fundamentals and design, and management principles to provide
a sound basis for life-long career development in professional practice,
research, and management.
Career Flexibility for Graduates
Industrial engineering provides graduates with broad career
flexibility and opportunities in such areas as engineering, management, research,
and consulting. Approximately 70 percent of the industrial engineering
graduates at Purdue are employed at graduation in industry or government
as industrial engineers, systems analysts, production engineers,
management consultants, operations analysts, and similar positions. The
remaining 30 percent continue their education in industrial engineering,
management, business, law, and medicine. Many of these students accept
full-time employment as industrial engineers while completing their
graduate studies.
Industrial Engineering at Purdue
Purdue is recognized as a national leader in industrial
engineering education and research. Rankings of professional programs in the
United States continue to list Purdue as one of the leading programs in
industrial engineering education and research. Purdue has one of the largest
undergraduate and graduate industrial engineering programs in the country
with approximately 500 undergraduates (sophomores through seniors) and
100 graduate students pursuing study. Because of its size and influence,
Purdue is able to provide unique opportunities for developing a broad,
fundamental background in industrial engineering while providing
specialization in areas such as human factors, operations research,
manufacturing engineering, production management, and systems
engineering. Graduates of the Purdue School of Industrial Engineering are
highly regarded and sought after by prospective employers in all areas of
professional practice and research.
Faculty members in the School of Industrial Engineering are
internationally recognized as experts in all aspects of industrial
engineering. They are active in pioneering the development of industrial
engineering and have authored many of the textbooks and research papers
in use throughout the nation. Because of the faculty's active participation
in professional research and practice, students are assured of an
outstanding professional educational experience that is practical, modern,
and forward-looking.
Outstanding laboratories are available for student use in
instruction, design projects, and research. These laboratories provide unique
experimental facilities and capabilities necessary to translate classroom
instruction into practical technical knowledge. Specialized laboratories
are available to complement instructional activities in computer systems,
automation, manufacturing systems, human factors, work systems design,
facilities design, software systems, optimization, self-paced instruction,
and individualized projects.
Features of the laboratories include numerous computational
resources, work stations, automated equipment, including provision for real-time
data acquisition;and the most extensive manufacturing systems laboratory
of its kind in the country. The Computer Integrated Manufacturing
laboratory houses an automated manufacturing cell, a material handling
cell, and a robotic assembly and inspection cell. The computer graphics
equipment is linked to the Computer Aided Design (CAD) and the Robotics
laboratories in the A.A. Potter Engineering Center as part of the Schools
of Engineering Computer Integrated Design, Manufacturing and Automation Center
(CIDMAC).
A Note to Prospective Industrial Engineering Students
Purdue University and industrial engineering are an unbeatable
combination. If you want to be an engineer and are interested in national
productivity, production of goods and services, health care delivery,
physical distribution of goods, efficiency in government, environmental
protection, natural resources management, or human resources
management, then you should consider industrial engineering.
Industrial engineering is an exciting profession which is
expanding rapidly to provide unusual employment opportunities and the ability
to pioneer new developments. Many of the principal, limiting problems facing
mankind today concern effective integration of people, machine, and
systems and are industrial engineering problems. Education as an
industrial engineer provides a strong background for rapid professional
advancement in engineering and management or for additional graduate
study.
Alumni's Section