Industrial engineers design efficient, productive systems in a wide range of business, industrial, and governmental settings. The industrial engineering curriculum emphasizes engineering design, simulation, hands-on laboratories, computer skills, and written and oral communication. Industrial engineering students can expect these elements to be woven throughout their major course work, beginning with the introductory freshman course and concluding with the senior design course. The technical aspects of an industrial engineering student's education are complemented by the humanities and social sciences courses and by material on leadership, ethics, and team building that are distributed throughout the curriculum. As a discipline, industrial engineering reflects the global, systems-oriented way we look at the world today.
Industrial engineers tend to focus on systems and how their components fit together.
As we have come to better understand our world and its finite resources, industrial engineers often are the people who show us how to use those resources to our maximum advantage. To solve such problems, industrial engineers must understand people as well as technology. Consequently industrial engineering draws upon a variety of different disciplines, from mathematics to psychology, from communications to computer science, from production management to process control. IEs are in great demand by a variety of employers because they are viewed as people who can contribute greatly to productivity and a competitive position in the world marketplace. Such organizations look to IEs to design systems that work, are efficient, and are productive.