Industrial & Production Engineer is synonymous with Systems Integrator – in other words, a big-picture thinker. He is an employee who takes what exists today and conceptualizes what should exist in the future. Many people are misled by the term Industrial Engineer. The word ‘Industrial” does not just mean manufacturing. It encompasses a wide span of industries ranging from FMCG, IT & System, Consultancy, Banking & Financial Institution and to Telecom. They are constantly challenged to use both innovation and imagination to find better ways to make the products that we need such mobile phones, cars, planes, food, pharmaceuticals, in fact almost everything we come across needs to be manufactured.
With the era of management growing from Scientific Principles to Strategic Concept, companies adopting philosophies of continuous productivity and quality improvement to survive in the increasingly competitive world market. The need for Industrial Engineers is growing. The major distinction between IP engineering and other branches of engineering is that the IP engineer must consider not only the behavior of materials, machines and the environment as they are governed by physical laws, but also the behavior of people as they interact with materials, machines and the environment in dynamic organizational operations.
Industrial Engineers work in every sector
You will be hearing this quite often. IP engineers are in virtually every industry vertical today. Manufacturing, Technology, hardware, retail, healthcare – you name it and there is a high possibility of industrial engineering jobs. Industrial and Production engineering-related work can be found in every company. Industrial and Production engineering-related work can be found in every company.
Combine technical skills with business acumen
MIT offers management subjects parallel to IP coursework, in areas such as Engineering Economics, Essentials of Management, Supply Chain Management and Analytics. In sixth semester there is even an option to take up Business Management as minor specialization. By taking these classes, you get a good grasp of the business side of a company too. Sure, you can take these with any other major, but IP and business complement each other perfectly. This also makes an industrial engineering degree an ideal starting point for an MBA specializing in supply chain management, marketing or finance, which complement the technical aspects of IP.
Customize IP Engineering to match your interests
As an IP engineer, you will always have options to explore and work in different job roles. Want to sit at a computer doing deep data analysis? There are industrial engineering jobs in data analysis and business analysis. Want to work on a production floor doing manufacturing work? There are jobs in logistics engineering, manufacturing engineering, production, forecasting, among many others. Want to travel while you work? Consider industrial engineering jobs in consulting and client-facing roles. There are plenty of other options – these are just a few examples.
The Department of Mechanical & Manufacturing Engineering, was established in the year 1960 and has steadily grown from its humble beginnings to a full-fledged composite Department and Centre for Excellence in Academics and Research and today serves as the largest department in the institute in terms of student and faculty strength. The department provides education in different domains of mechanical engineering such as Industrial and Production, Manufacturing, Design and Thermal engineering. The faculty consists of competent teachers who are constantly engaged in undertaking research work of original nature and later publications. Many of the members of the faculty have earned to their credit quite a number of praiseworthy research papers published in the national and international journals of repute.
The department provides ample laboratory facilities and hands-on training to the Undergraduate students in the subjects included in the curriculum and the emerging fields of specialization such as CAD-CAM Lab, Metrology lab, Pneumatics & Hydraulics Lab, Irrigation Lab and Strength of Materials Lab. The department has sprawling workshop situated on a 30000 sq. ft. area comprising of machine shop, foundry, smithy, sheet metal, plumbing, welding, fitting and carpentry.
With competent faculty and alumnus such as Sandeep Sinha, Managing Director at Cummins India Ltd (Batch of 1996, IP Engineering), Thomas Cherukara, CEO at MGF Group, 1998-2011 (Batch of 1984, Mechanical Engineering) it is one of the most influential departments.
By only my 2nd Year, I had presented a Paper at the International Conference for Research in Mechanical Engineering Sciences (RiMES) 2017, worked on the Business Plan Presentation for the Formula Manipal Team participating in Formula Bharat and Formula Student Germany Competitions, and presented a Start-Up Idea to the Innovation Centre and the MAHE Business Incubator and I have barely scratched the surface! It’s true what they say, Engineers make things; But Industrial Engineers make things better!
