What Is the Definition of Industrial Engineering?
Due to the diverse roles industrial engineers play across a wide range of sectors, providing a strict formal definition and clearly delineating the boundaries of the field can be quite challenging. However, the following definition by the U.S.-based Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) is widely accepted:
“Industrial engineering is concerned with the design, improvement, development, integration, implementation, and management of systems that produce products and services by utilizing inputs such as energy, equipment, information, materials, and people. To accomplish this, it integrates specialized knowledge and skills from the mathematical, physical, and social sciences, together with the principles and methods of engineering analysis and design. Through a multidisciplinary approach, it simplifies complex problems and generates cost-effective solutions under the guidance of scientific methods.”