Industrial Engineering, synonymous with Manufacturing Engineering and Systems Engineering, is an engineering degree broadly defined as a field involved in the design, development, use, improvement, and retirement of products, processes, and systems. In short, engineering is the field of problem solving. Industrial Engineering is one of the most popular engineering fields offering a broad body of knowledge with flexibility in career choices and higher than average pay.
History
Industrial Engineering derives from Mechanical Engineering. In fact, the Industrial Revolution and Henry Ford’s moving assembly line helped bring Industrial Engineering into fruition. The Industrial Engineering degree was first offered by the Pennsylvania State University in 1909 when their mechanical engineering program grew too large to manage. Penn State split mechanical engineering into two fields by removing the manufacturing and process design aspect out of mechanical engineering. Penn State wasn’t the only school having difficulties with designing an all encompassing curriculum for mechanical engineering. Hundreds of schools have adopted Industrial Engineering and minimized their mechanical engineering curriculum to more manageable levels.
Now 112 years later, it is one of the most popular and broadest engineering fields available to study. As a Penn State grad myself, I earned my degree in Industrial Engineering after learning about its history and the fact that Penn State had the 4th best Industrial Engineering program at the time. I was always interested in manufacturing, new product development, robotics, automated equipment, ergonomics, and process design. In many ways, Industrial Engineering can be viewed as the 4th oldest engineering field. The first engineering fields were known as Military Engineering and Civil Engineering. One for the military and one for the people. When you think about it, military engineering was very much a melting pot of today’s engineering fields. It included knowledge areas in mechanical, structural, nuclear, biological, and chemical engineering. By the time Thomas Edison invented the light bulb in 1879, civil and mechanical engineering were well known. Edison was the spark that jump started the field of electrical engineering with the first electrical engineering degrees offered in 1891 with a graduating class of only 2 people. Finally, Industrial Engineering came in 1909 as a result from Mechanical Engineering growing too large in the Industrial Revolution.
Coursework and Tracks
Being that Industrial Engineering (IE) and Mechanical Engineering (ME) heavily overlap, I took the same courses my mechanical engineering classmates took in freshman and sophomore year with some overlapping coursework in my junior year as well. The level of math and science courses are largely the same. Depending on the school, IE’s may also need to take Thermodynamics, strength of materials, mechanics, and dynamics courses. I had to take these courses from a shortlist of mandatory electives. IE’s start to branch out from ME’s during their Junior year with the introduction of manufacturing processes, lean manufacturing, process improvement, human factors and ergonomics, engineering economics, problem solving leadership, system design, design for manufacturing and assembly, facility layout and planning, CAD and CAM simulations, operations research, manufacturing systems, logistics, and more. Meanwhile, ME’s focus more on fluid dynamics, machine design, vibration analysis, and more advanced levels of physics.
As with most universities, you can select a track for your degree based on the electives you take. In my case, I completed two tracks: Manufacturing Systems and Engineering Services. Manufacturing Systems involves everything needed to know to work in manufacturing while engineering services focuses more on design and consulting. Other tracks offered include Healthcare, IT, and Operations Research. Operations Research may be expected since it related to logistics, layouts, critical path’s, inventory, and other knowledge needed to run operations, but healthcare and IT is a surprise for most. On the Healthcare side, IE’s work to reduce wait times and improve processes. Hospitals, health insurance companies, and other healthcare related businesses use IE’s to improve healthcare. On the IT side, Industrial Engineers work in data mining and analysis using tools like Microsoft Access and SQL. There is a whole college degree on Information Systems which is all about data mining, but IE covers it in one core class and several electives if that is the track you want to go towards.
Potential Job Titles in the Field of Industrial Engineering
IE jobs come in many flavors. The job titles below can also be held by other engineering fields, but they are most commonly held by Industrial and Mechanical Engineers. I decided to put this in a list format because there are way too many potential jobs to talk about. This long list includes some of the most common IE jobs. The full list is probably 20 times larger.
- Industrial Engineer
- Manufacturing Engineer
- Mechanical Engineer
- Process Engineer
- Process Improvement Engineer
- Continuous Improvement (CI) Engineer
- Systems Engineer
- Operational Excellence Engineer or Change Agent
- Enterprise Excellence Engineer or Change Agent
- Reliability Engineer
- Maintenance Engineer
- Value Added Value Engineering (VAVE) Engineer
- Design for Manufacturing & Assembly (DFMA) Engineer
- Fabrication Engineer
- Tool & Die Engineer
- Job Shop Engineer
- Production Supervisor
- Production Manager
- Project Engineer
- Project Manager
- Program Manager
- NPD Program Manager
- Business Unit Manager
- Factory Manager
- Plant Manager
- Operations Manager
- Supply Chain Manager
- Engineering Manager
- Manufacturing Engineering Manager
- New Product Implementation Engineer
- Product Development Engineer
- Design Engineer
- New Product Development (NPD) Engineer
- New Product Development (NPD) Manager
- Operations Research Analyst
- Operations Research Engineer
- Operations Research Manager
- Research and Development Manager
- Test Engineer
- Quality Engineer
- Supplier Quality Engineer
- Quality Manager
- Healthcare Engineer
- Healthcare Specialist
- Business Improvement Specialist
- Director of Engineering or similar.
- President or CEO
As an IE, my first two job offers out of college were for Civil Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. This is not uncommon. Many of my engineering classmates ended up in different engineering fields. Some of my mechanical engineering classmates ended up working as software engineers. Some of my industrial engineering classmates ended up working as aerospace engineers with SpaceX or biomedical engineers with pharmaceutical companies. With my current employer, my IE co-workers are working as material planners, supply chain managers, engineering managers, manufacturing engineers, plant manager, and director of operations. It feels like my employer is run by Industrial Engineers. (Oddly enough most of them from Penn State). Just remember that you are not stuck with your degree. You can easily branch out into other engineering fields with little on-the-job training.
Salary Potential
If you graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Engineering, you can expect a starting salary between $58,000 and 65,000 per year. The area of work (Manufacturing, IT, Consulting, Healthcare, Supply Chain/Logistics) and where you live can significantly change your salary expectations. If you stick to your job and do well, you can expect an annual increase of 2-4%. If you want to stay with your employer, earning a masters degree or earning professional certifications won’t help your salary. Certifications and a higher degree will help increase your salary significantly if you move around every 5 years. In my case, earning my Six Sigma Black Belt, Project Management Certificate, and Masters degree in Systems Engineering (a more holistic version of Industrial Engineering) earned me a 26% increase in salary when I graduated and moved to a new company.
Why 5 years? If you change jobs every 1-4 years, no one will want to hire you or invest their time in training you because they feel that you will likely move on. If you have a history of staying at a company for 5 years or more, your chances of getting hired are much greater. No one wants to hire a short term employee for a long term position. In your 30’s, you should aim for a minimum of $80,000. If your current job is not offering that, find a new job. In your 40’s, aim to reach a salary of $100,000+. Again this depends on the area. In a state like Tennessee, a $50,000 salary is equivalent to a $90,000 in California because of the differences in cost of living. If you live in CA or New York City or Toronto Canada or the suburbs of Washington D.C., your salary goals should be much higher.
You can also gain higher pay if you stick to an industry. For example, Automotive or Pharmaceutical. If you can become a subject matter expert in a certain industry and experience working at many companies within that Industry, you are seen as a very valuable resource. The downside is that it is hard to settle down or switch industries. You may need to move around from state to state to get your subject matter expert experience. After working in an industry for so many years, it may be hard to switch to something like the semi-conductor industry or the oil and gas industry. If you follow this guide by going for a higher degree, switching jobs every 5 years or so, and sticking to an industry, you can expect to earn $130,000-$150,000 by retirement. If you go for a global leadership job above the local management level such as director, vice president, or CEO, you can expect to earn over $200,000 per year. When you reach your mid-50’s, consider staying with your employer through retirement if things are going well and the benefits are good for retirement. It will be harder to find a job and move around when you are older.
As for benefits, you can expect 3 weeks of annual vacation time + 5 days sick time starting out. Your vacation time typically increases to 4 weeks after 10 years with one company before increasing again at 20 years and 30 years. You can also expect eye, dental, life, AD&D, and health insurance along with a good 401k match and other benefits. Pensions are rare these days, but a possibility.
Conclusion
The field of engineering is very broad with lots of opportunities. Industrial Engineering is a great choice, but so is every other engineering degree. You are never stuck with your degree and you can always branch out to another field of engineering or outside of engineering completely. You can expect great benefits and comfortable pay throughout your IE career if you choose to go that route. At this time, Georgia Tech is rated #1 in Industrial Engineering. Other great Industrial Engineering schools include Virginia Tech and Penn State University. If you liked this post and want similar posts on other engineering fields, leave a comment and subscribe to my monthly newsletter.
