Industrial Engineering - A New Curriculum Proposed

Yeterday I came across the paper "Return to work: Toward post industrial engineering" by Diane Bailey and Stephen Barley of Center for Work, Technology and Organization, Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University, IIE Trasactions (2005) 37, 737-752. In this paper, authors argued for return of the IE discipline to its study of work focus.

I also made a similar argument and proposed a modification to the definition of IE.

“Industrial Engineering is Human Effort Engineering. It is an engineering discipline that deals with the design of human effort in all occupations: agricultural, manufacturing and service. The objectives of Industrial Engineering are optimization of productivity of work-systems and occupational comfort, health, safety and income of persons involved.” (Narayana Rao, Definition of Industrial Engineering: Suggested Modification, Udyog Pragati, Oct-Dec 2006, pp. 1-4.)

I got excited after reading the Bailey-Barley's paper and sat down and prepared an initial framework of the curriculum to implement the suggestion made by me and Bailey & Barley. I circulated the curriculum to some of my colleagues. If any of the readers would like to have a copy, please send a mail to me. I shall be very happy to mail the proposed curriculum. I proposed that focus of the curriculum has to be 25% on human factors, 50% on design of work systems and 25% on business system and business management.

Narayana Rao