A Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering Powers All Industries
Did you know that the LEGO factory in Billund, Denmark manufactures about 20 billion LEGO parts or bricks every year? This is equivalent to almost 2 million parts an hour or 35,000 per minute.
At least 1000 workers doing 450 steps produce 60,000 handy Swiss Army knives daily. How do they do it? What makes mega factories work?
These two production lines are just few of the large production and manufacturing companies around the world. The economical use of time, resources, manpower and energy in an industrial workplace is the work of industrial engineers.
In 2012, Forbes Magazine rated Industrial Engineering as top 10 among the most in-demand jobs in United States. Forbes cited that since 2010, about 12,269 jobs were added on the list of the labor department with a 6 percent growth in 2012.
Industries thrive anywhere around the world, either small-scale or large-scale – each country has a share of industrial activity that generates millions of jobs and billions of dollars in profit each year.
This is why a lot of people are interested in Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering programs. This degree prepares a student to understand the relationship and interaction of all resources during the production process. It is a branch of Engineering that is focused with the maximization or rather simplification of systems and processes in industries.
Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering also covers the study of integrated systems that manages well industrial information, equipment, technology, personnel, financial resources, as well as the methods and designs intended to facilitate and enhance production with the use of minimum amount of resources. Efficiency, precision, ingenuity and imagination, these are the core characteristics needed in this profession.
Endless Opportunities
Industrial engineers receive around US$76,100 per year while others can get salaries as high as US$112,830. In US, the largest numbers of industrial engineers can be found in companies manufacturing semiconductor and other electronic component; navigational, measuring, electrical, and control
instruments; or in architectural, engineering, and related services, aerospace product and parts manufacturing, and motor vehicle parts manufacturing. The best schools and universities offering Bachelor of Science in Industrial Engineering are Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in United States, University of Michigan Ann Arbor, Pennsylvania State University, Stanford University (United States), University of Cambridge in United Kingdom, Imperial College London, University of California, Berkeley (UCB) in US, Harvard University (US), National University of Singapore (NUS), University of Tokyo (Japan), and Georgia Institute of Technology (US), among others.
To date, there are about 210,000 jobs for industrial engineers in US. But a lot of industrial companies are looking for engineers who can minimize the processes and systems in productions, thus they are looking for the ones brilliant enough to devise ways how to efficient work on their machines, equipment and other resources including manpower.
What do they typically do?
Industrial engineers are expected to understand manufacturing and service methods through the proper review of process flows, specifications on production including schedules. They also develop and manage control systems in order to come up with reasonable and optimized costing. Industrial engineers also conceptualize and oversee quality control procedures that yield maximum results for production. They also coordinate with management, clients and personnel regarding the efficiency of quality control systems, as well as the end-products from manufacturing. They think of ways how to make work easier and faster such as ways how to move heavy parts or equipment, how to double the performance of machines and how to maximize use of technology.
