What is Industrial Engineering?
Industrial engineering involves the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations. Industrial engineers, drawing from their knowledge and skills from a variety of disciplines work to improve the way people interact with technologies and systems. Their goal is to improve quality and productivity – the ability to do more with less. The unique skills and knowledge of an industrial engineer are highly valued by many industries and allows them to work in a variety of industries; healthcare, finance, service industry, manufacturing and more.
At the Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering at University of Toronto, industrial engineering falls into three research areas, Operations Research, Information Engineering and Human Factors.
Operations Research
With a mathematics background, consider exploring the exciting world of applied mathematics called Operations Research (OR), which combines mathematics, statistics, computer science, machine learning, physics, engineering, economics, and social sciences to solve complex real-world problems that are valued by the industry.
OR can be defined as using advanced mathematical and optimization techniques to improve decision making. For example, using statistics, we can determine how much inventory should be carried in a warehouse to minimize expected costs of carrying the stock and of shortages. We use queueing theory to analyse the waiting time of people or jobs waiting for service in banks, emergency rooms and production facilities. We use linear algebra (called linear programming) to determine the optimal product mix to maximize profit subject to capacity constraints on resources, or the optimal allocation of service facilities (like fire stations) to minimize the expected service time.
| Some key areas of methodologies used in OR include: | Some application areas of OR include: |
| • Graph theory • Combinatorics • Linear algebra • Machine learning • Probability and statistics |
• Health care • Financial engineering • Government/Public services • Manufacturing • Service industry • Supply chain management • Humanitarian logistics • Transportation and more |
Research in OR can be either theoretical or applied – you can choose research that suits your interest.
View our current graduate student profiles and connect with them if you have questions: Student Profiles
Explore faculty in area of Operations Research: https://www.mie.utoronto.ca/mie/faculty/research/18
Human Factors
Human factors involves improving productivity and efficiency by studying and enhancing the actual physical work environment. The study of human physiology, particularly the nervous system, leads to fascinating discoveries concerning reaction to stimuli, sensory perception, human performance at operator tasks, and people’s ability to process information. These principles are applied to the design of human-machine systems, with particular attention to problems of information display, control layout, compensatory controls systems, and the design of work environments. People’s behaviour in work organisations is examined from the point of view of individual and social psychology. These studies lead to important conclusions concerning managerial and leadership styles, organisational goals and incentives, employee relations, and the implementation of planned change.
For example, a mechanical engineer may design a new car, and a human factors engineer would be responsible for the design of the interior: control layout, seating, vision, reachability, usability in unusual circumstances, etc. A nuclear engineer will design a nuclear generator, and a human factors engineer will design the control system displays to minimize the probability of human error.
How does Psychology fit with Human Factors?
A psychology or science background would fit well for investigating psychological processes, such as perception, memory, reasoning, and motor response, as they affect interactions among humans and other elements of a system. Areas of study include mental workload, decision-making, skilled performance, human reliability, work stress and training as these relate to human-system and Human-Computer Interaction design.
Some application areas of Human Factors include:
- Automated Systems
- Healthcare
- Transportation
- Manufacturing & Process Control
- Power Industry
- Cyber Security
- Transportation and more
View our current graduate student profiles and connect with them if you have questions: Student Profiles
Explore faculty in area of Human Factors Research: https://www.mie.utoronto.ca/mie/faculty/research/16
Information Engineering
Information Engineering is the engineering of information, knowledge, and decision support processes, and the systems with which they are delivered. Generally, the goal of IE is to support the achievement of organizational objectives through the efficient and flexible operation of business processes. Information engineers form a bridge between the technical side (software engineers, data modelers) and the business side (business analysts, process planners, managers) and create the necessary methodologies and tools to ensure organizational success. They primarily focus on the strategic role of information systems and determine their use in reaching business goals. Information Engineers not only think about how to build information systems, but also why.
There is current and future demand for professionals that combine expertise in process design and management, business analysis, project management, systems integration, and a fusion of industry knowledge and information technology skills.
Information engineering provides exciting and diverse career opportunities that encompass the development and evolution of information systems. Our graduates address the following challenging issues:
- how to provide doctors and nurses with timely access to electronic patient data wherever is needed
- how to design information systems that run the business of online stores such as music download sites and bookstores
- how to reduce large volumes of data into information that is useful to the decision-making processes of government officials
- how to take advantage of information technology to plan, coordinate and support disaster recovery and relief efforts
| Some Areas of studies within Information Engineering: | Some application areas of Information Engineering include: |
|
|
View our current graduate student profiles and connect with them if you have questions: Student Profiles
Explore faculty in area of Information Engineering Research: https://www.mie.utoronto.ca/mie/faculty/research/17
