How’s your guys summer internship search going?

Edit: at 8am this morning I got an interview!!!

Happy to be hopefully joining the ranks. As an already unsupported (in terms of engineering) 4year manufacturing supervisor who rose his way up from entry level operator - I am excited to take all I learn and be actually able to apply it to my company

Well, maybe not the methods itself, but it seems like there are plenty of shady consultants and new hires without IE degrees that are just slinging Japanese words and colorful charts around with no measurable results or actionable plans.

Was just reading an article about Amazon delivery drivers. They are asked to turn off their cars at delivery stops (presumably) to reduce gas cost. This results in people experiencing fairly bad heat stress in some regions.

I have worked in optimization and industrial engineering for a decade and change now. This is a common thing in my experience, creating a KPI that looks good on paper and not understanding the unintended consequences

And since we operate at a distance we can abstract the human at the receiving end of our KPIs.

Here's the thing though, you are responsible for the morality of those KPIs. No distance removes that responsibility. And if your optimization results in human suffering, you own that.

I am tired of seeing this stuff. It is immoral to do this. And frankly, it's lazy. There are ways to optimize systems that still ensure human decency, it's just harder. Don't be lazy.

Are those thats bullshit or am i been scammed? On my social media is circulating this.

Of course I know him, he’s me

I’m graduating with an Industrial Engineering degree next year and trying to figure out which roles (like Operations Analyst, CI Engineer, Supply Chain Analyst, Process Improvement engineer, Production Planner, Manufacturing Engineer, Industrial Engineer, Quality Engineer, Project Engineer, Lean Six Sigma engineer etc.) offer the best long-term growth, pay, working conditions and lead to leadership positions faster in the industry.

I’m asking now so I can start building the right skills and experience before I graduate. Would really appreciate any insights from people already working in the field!

I bring this post to our brilliant feed because a lesser passionate IE classmate of mine recently told me that he wishes he could've chosen Aerospace or Electrical for the sole purpose of being "respected" by the students in those departments. If I hadn't changed from ECE to IE a couple years back, I'd never find myself at the companies I've had the privilege of interning at, and I attribute that solely to my passion for the IE skill set and purpose.

I have never seen a working professional talk down on IEs because they have the wherewithal to understand the value and necessity of IEs within systems (especially manufacturing). The day that I base my professional vocation on the respect of a bunch of sniffling academic dorks is the day that I am deemed a vegetable!

At the end of the day, WE are only in it for the money and being an engineer will always be deemed highly respectable by the masses. Anyways, I hope all of you are doing well academically and professionally. Cheers everyone.

I'm 17 and I just want to make a good career choice, I've investigated a lot of data but there's just nothing like someones personal experience especially when it comes to career desicions, so for anyone who is already working in the field, how is it to actually be an industrial engineer? Do any of you regret your career path? And if you could've done anything diferent what would that be?

I’m an IE student and I think the degree is starting to make me weird.

At volleyball practice last week I caught myself thinking about the warmup like a layout problem. People cutting across each other, half the team waiting on one ball cart, everyone pretending we weren’t just standing around for no reason.

Then I did the same thing in a coffee line on campus and realized I was probably beyond saving.

For people already working in IE / ops / manufacturing / logistics: what was the first normal everyday process you couldn’t stop mentally redesigning?

Also, how do you get from “this is obviously inefficient” to actually suggesting a fix without sounding like the annoying guy who just learned what a bottleneck is?

Let me say right off the top that I see value in lean/six sigma certs. Absolutely. My problem with them isn't the value proposition to non practitioners.

My problem is that they undermine the true value of an IE degree. Pretty much everything you learn in these programs is taught in a good IE program, and these short path programz lacks the additional academic thoroughness and context of the full academic route.

Yet when you are in the job market or in industry these certifications are often viewed at the same level as the academic route. If this was treated like an FE/PE license is treated for other engineering disciplined then I wouldn't mind, as it would be seen as additive proof of your skills. Yet these programs are offered without the expectations of the academic background.

For a Chem E this would be the equivalent of majoring in IE and spending 1k and 6 weeks on a Chem E BlackBelt and going on to design reactors.

No business would accept this for other fields, yet it is routinely accepted in IE as our field is less understandable to non-practitioners, so the more subtle value proposition of understanding the math behind a Linear Program or all of the logic behind a Schewart Control Chart isn't understood, and the superficial training provided on these subjects in these alternative programs is seen as sufficient.

I dont believe that everyone involved in a production facility needs to understand the math behind MRP optimization. Which is where i see the value in the programs because it gives a very basic frame of reference that others may need to communicate with the actual experts. But the "black belt" does NOT convey expertise. The academics do.

I work in quality and see this regularly. Having to explain basic concepts like the difference between standard error and standard error of the mean to black belts is extraordinarily frustrating, because the title they bought with minimal effort gives them false confidence they don't deserve. And I deal with this constantly.

The worst part is that so much of the industry has bought in as well. They often believe in that false expertise just as much as the practitioner.

Again I dont want to completely malign these programs. I have worked with many black belts that recognize that their background has enabled them to more quickly work with actual experts. And they are an absolute pleasure to work with because their training has made that communication so much easier. But for every one of them there are 10 who think they are gods gift to statistics and optimization etc.

/rant

Current industrial engineering student, and I just feel lost right now about to go into another semester. Looking for some advice. To be honest, I picked industrial engineering because it’s one of the easier engineering majors(sorry), and I had relatives that are also IE’s. I knew the coursework would be easier than other majors, and I wanted to enjoy college more than be stuck doing school work. I kind of feel like I’m selling myself short. I’m really good at physics and aced every subject that other majors like mechanicals would take. We all know how IE gets a bad rep, and I almost feel like I could be doing something like electrical that’s harder. In high school, I saw myself like designing stuff or being an aerospace major working on a rocket creating new stuff. I kind of envisioned solving hard problems and being one of those engineers that you see on the pictures of engineering major recruitment handouts or something. I know that’s not how most aerospace and other engineering majors actually are but you get the point. When I think of IE I just think of being stuck in a factory or trying to save money for a company I don’t care about. I just want to make sure I enjoy my career and field of work. I know IE is versatile for a lot of different things, so current IE’s what do you do day to day? What line of work are you in? If you have job hopped and tried multiple things what did you find you out enjoy? Do wish you majored in something else? Idk sorry about the rant it came off as kind of blunt I just don’t want to be 15 years from now and just wish I had done mechanical. I do think I could enjoy project management.