http://www.rit.edu/kgcoe/ise/

Program overview

The industrial and systems engineering faculty, in conjunction with its constituents, has established the following educational objectives for the industrial and systems engineering program:

Systems integrators—Graduates will draw upon broad knowledge to develop integrated systems-based engineering solutions that include the consideration of realistic constraints within contemporary global, societal, and organizational contexts.

Lifelong learners—Graduates will develop engineering solutions using the skills and knowledge acquired through formal education and training, independent inquiry, and professional development.

Graduate education—Graduates will successfully pursue graduate degrees.

Engineering professionals—Graduates will work independently as well as collaboratively with others and demonstrate leadership, accountability, initiative, and ethical and social responsibility.

With rapidly changing work environments, students need a well-rounded education that will allow them to apply engineering principles to new situations.

Industrial engineers design, optimize, and manage the process by which products are made and distributed across the world (i.e., global supply chain), or the way services are delivered in industries such as banking, health care, or entertainment. Industrial engineers ensure that high-quality products and services are delivered in a cost-effective manner.

Industrial engineering is ideal for those who enjoy both technology and working with people. Industrial engineers frequently spend as much time interacting with other engineers and product users as they do at their desks and computers. Typical work involves developing applied models and simulations of processes to evaluate overall system efficiency.

A degree in industrial engineering offers students a significant opportunity for a flexible long-term career. Employers have consistently praised the quality of RIT's industrial engineering graduates, noting that the range of their abilities includes both strong technical knowledge and communication skills. Graduates have used their technical base as a springboard to careers in management, consulting, manufacturing, sales, healthcare, law, and education.

Because of the flexible nature of the program, the industrial engineering student can gain breadth of knowledge in many different areas of industrial engineering, including, but not limited to,  lean , quality, manufacturing, distribution/logistics, ergonomics/human factors, modeling/simulation, and sustainable design and development. Students may choose free and professional electives for this purpose. The industrial and systems engineering faculty is committed to high-quality engineering education as well as the program's educational objectives.

The industrial engineering curriculum covers the principal concepts of engineering economics and project management, facilities planning, human performance, mathematical and simulation modeling, production control, applied statistics and quality, and contemporary production processes that are applied to solve the challenges presented by the global environment and economy of today. The curriculum stresses the application of contemporary tools and techniques in solving engineering problems.

As described by the Institute of Industrial Engineers on the organization's website:

"Industrial engineering is about choices. Other engineering disciplines apply skills to very specific areas. IE gives practitioners the opportunity to work in a variety of businesses.

Many practitioners say that an industrial engineering education offers the best of both worlds: an education in both engineering and business.

The most distinctive aspect of industrial engineering is the flexibility it offers. Whether it's shortening a rollercoaster line, streamlining an operating room, distributing products worldwide, or manufacturing superior automobiles, these challenges share the common goal of saving companies money and increasing efficiencies.

As companies adopt management philosophies of continuous productivity and quality improvement to survive in the increasingly competitive world market, the need for industrial engineers is growing. Why? Industrial engineers are the only engineering professionals trained specifically to be productivity and quality improvement specialists.

Industrial engineers figure out how to do things better. They engineer processes and systems that improve quality and productivity. They work to eliminate waste of time, money, materials, energy and other commodities. This is why many industrial engineers end up being promoted into management positions.

Many people are misled by the term industrial engineer. It's not just about manufacturing. It also encompasses service industries, with many IEs employed in entertainment industries, shipping and logistics businesses, and health care organizations."

Industrial engineers are "big-picture" thinkers, much like systems integrators. IEs spend most of their time out in the work environment, using scientific approaches to solve today's problems while they develop solutions for the future.

Accreditation

Accredited by the Engineering Accreditation Commission of ABET, http://www.abet.org.

Curriculum

Professional electives 

A full listing of professional electives can be found at www.rit.edu/kgcoe/ise. Graduate-level courses, as well as courses from the other engineering disciplines, may be used as professional electives with the permission of the adviser and course instructor. (See the Graduate Bulletin for descriptions.)

Accelerated dual degree options

The department offers accelerated dual degree (BS/MS and BS/ME) options, where select students may complete a BS and an MS or ME in industrial engineering in five years. An arrangement with the E. Philip Saunders College of Business allows for an accelerated BS/MBA option. For more information, contact the department or visit its website.

Additional information

Facilities

The industrial and systems engineering department is located in the James E. Gleason Building and houses several state-of-the-art laboratories, including the Brinkman Machine Tools and Manufacturing Lab, the Metrology and Rapid Prototyping Lab, the Toyota Production Systems Lab, the Human Performance Lab, the Advanced Systems Integration Lab, the Sustainable Engineering Research Group (SERG) Lab, and the Print Research and Image Systems Modeling (PRISM) Lab. Ample computing facilities reside within each of these specialized labs, as well as a dedicated PC computer lab. These labs offer an extensive library of software to support industrial engineering course work, project work, and research, including conventional word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation applications (e.g., Microsoft Office), database management (e.g., Microsoft ACCESS), data acquisition (e.g., Lab View), statistical analysis (e.g., Minitab, SAS), facilities layout (e.g., AutoCad, Factory Flow, Factory Plan, LayoutIQ), manufacturing (e.g., MasterCam Cambridge Engineering Selector Software), optimization (e.g., ILOG OPL-CPLEX, LINDO, KNITRO, AMPL, Gurobi, Mathematica), systems simulation software (e.g., Solver, Arena, Promodel), and lifecycle assessment and costing tools (e.g., SimaPro, CES Eco-Audit).

Careers

In order to optimize processes and systems, industrial engineers apply their knowledge in a wide range of areas, including systems simulation modeling, quality, logistics and supply chain management, ergonomics and human factors, facilities layout, production planning and control, manufacturing, management information systems, and project management. Upon graduation, our students work for a wide array of fields, ranging from manufacturing, to distribution/logistics, to healthcare, energy and other services, and companies, including Boeing, IBM, Toyota, Xerox, Intel, General Electric, Hershey, Walt Disney World, Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, Lockheed Martin, and Wegmans, to name a few.

Balance, as well as specialization, has allowed our graduates to pursue varied paths. Examples of the diversity, along with the roles in which an industrial engineer might function, are reflected in the following list of sample industrial engineering co-op assignments.

In manufacturing industries:

• Perform product life studies
• Lay out and improve work areas
• Design production processes to improve productivity
• Investigate and analyze the cost of purchasing new vs. repairing existing equipment
• Investigate delivery service, including scheduling, route modification, and material handling
• Create computer programs to track pricing policies and truck scheduling
• Perform downtime studies of various operations using time study and work sampling
• Develop and computerize a forecasting model
• Perform ergonomic studies and evaluations of workstations and product designs
• Participate in the design process of products and processes to ensure ease of manufacture, maintenance, and remanufacture or recycling

In service industries:

• Design information systems
• Monitor safety and health programs
• Manage hazardous and toxic materials storage and disposal programs
• Manage a facility's projects to ensure they are completed on time and on budget
• Conduct cost analysis of procedures to support decision making
• Schedule operations and manage information flow
• Design supply-ordering systems
• Improve processes in a hospital
• Evaluate waiting time and space utilization in an amusement park