Institute of Systems and Industrial Engineers - Areas of Expertise

ABOUT IISE

Systems world view. Productivity. Efficiency.                   These are words that describe the distinctive attributes of industrial engineering, and IISE is the world's largest professional society dedicated solely to the support of the industrial and systems engineering profession and individuals involved with improving quality and productivity. Founded in 1948, IISE is an international, nonprofit association that provides leadership for the application, education, training, research, and development of industrial and systems engineering. ISEs figure out a better way to do things and work in a wide array of professional areas, including management, manufacturing, logistics, health systems, retail, service and ergonomics. They influence policy and implementation issues regarding topics such as sustainability, innovation and Six Sigma. And like the profession, ISEs are rooted in the sciences of engineering, the analysis of systems, and the management of people. Join today!   

(http://www.iienet2.org/Default.aspx  Accessed on 30 August 2016)

Systems world view indicates that industrial engineering take care of productivity and efficiency at the system level that is enterprise level.

The basic area of application of industrial engineering is engineering activities in any concern. To improve productivity and efficiency, industrial engineering improve technical processes. They also examine management processes being used in the engineering activities to assess the contribution of management processes to low productivity. If the productivity is low, they need to study the management process to identify better ways to improve productivity.  Industrial engineering was used by organizations in non engineering activities also. Experienced industrial engineers were successful in increasing productivity of non-engineering activities also. But it is essential to stress that primary job of industrial engineers is to improve engineering activities using engineering knowledge and knowledge in mathetatics, statistics, social sciences, engineering economics and human sciences.

Sustainability movement which stress resource efficiency is an area where industrial engineers can contributed once again especially in engineering concerns.

Industrial engineers are innovators as they redesign products and processes. So innovation is a subject of interest for industrial engineers.

Six sigma is a two decade old optimization technique based on statistical data collection and analysis. Industrial engineering discipline recognized the utility of six sigma in improving productivity and made the technique part of IE tool kit.