Introduction to industrial engineering
Industrial and Management Engineering Program
Industrial and management engineering is a broad professional field concerned with the study, analysis, design and management of integrated systems and processes to organize the basic resources in production – people, materials, equipment and information – to achieve specific goals. The increasing complexity of modern industrial and service organizations and their emphasis on quality, increased efficiency and productivity through automation and computerization processes has increased the demand for a new generation of industrial engineering graduates. Although this discipline is a relatively recent development over the past three decades, it has already become one of the largest and fastest growing engineering fields.
The role of the industrial engineer
The most important factor supporting development is the degree to which progress in engineering and technology reaches. Engineers are builders, actors and decision makers. Nowhere is this fact more evident than in industrial engineering. Today’s industrial engineers are the engineers who are able to design, build, supervise, manage and use systems and integrate their functions. The industrial engineer combines the capabilities of the engineer and the manager. He relies on knowledge of mathematics, physical and technical engineering sciences, in addition to management and behavioral sciences in order to play his role in problem-solving, creativity, design, coordination and integration between systems. Hence, the industrial engineer works in all stages of industrial operations, service industries, and government agencies. He designs and coordinates plant design and systems involving humans and machines, raw material handling systems, information systems, computer controlled systems, and inventory systems. In addition, it analyzes costs, economic feasibility, capabilities, human needs, work and labor metrics, and mathematical models of systems. The background, experience and training provide the industrial engineer with extensive knowledge of industrial problems.
Job opportunities for industrial engineers
Industrial engineering programs prepare graduates to work in all stages of industrial engineering and qualify them to perform other administrative and technical tasks that require an engineering and scientific background. By combining the study of fundamentals of science, mathematics, engineering, design, management and quality rules, the program provides a unique background and a sound foundation for lifelong career development in engineering practice, research or management. Recent developments such as the industry’s growing interest in systems design, information systems, and CIS/CIM have all led to an increasing possibility for engineers to enter the field of management. The training program introduces students to quantitative and qualitative interaction and control methods. At the present time, the demand for industrial engineers exceeds the supply, which confirms that job opportunities in this field are expected to increase rapidly in the future. Job opportunities in the field of industrial engineering include a wide range of fields, including basic industries (such as iron and steel, cement, plastics, petrochemical industries), manufacturing industries (such as equipment, cars, household appliances, food and medical industries, and other civil and military industries), technical services and other government fields ( Such as manpower planning, systems design, needs planning…)
The objective of the industrial and management engineering program
The Industrial and Management Engineering Program at the Arab Academy for Science, Technology and Maritime Transport was established in 1994 to prepare graduates to work in many fields. The program prepares them to work in technical and administrative positions that require sound foundations for lifelong professional development in engineering practice, research and management. The program has been carefully designed and updated to comply with the Modern Engineering Standards 2000 endorsed by the Accreditio Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET) on November 1, 1997.
The main objective of the program is to prepare a graduate who:
• To have the ability to design, develop, implement and improve integrated systems that include people, materials, information, machines and energy.
• Understands the engineering relations between the administrative tasks of planning, organizing, leading and controlling and the human aspect in production, research and service organizations.
• Understands and is able to deal with the integration of management systems in a series of technological environments. The responsibility for achieving this goal rests with the teaching staff, which is composed of engineers with a high degree of competence and experience in managing engineering and technological activities.
curriculum
The curriculum provides a great deal of flexibility in choosing courses, and it also provides the necessary engineering and scientific background through a sequence of courses in mathematics, physics, chemistry, computer and engineering sciences. These courses are accompanied by industrial engineering courses that cover the areas of manufacturing engineering, facility design, engineering statistics, engineering cost analysis, operations and production management, operations research, operations control, measurement and work design, human factor engineering, computer use, information technology, systems analysis and design, and total quality management.