<p>I've also seen it referred to as Business Process Re-Engineering. Is anyone familiar with this? I really don't see any graduate degrees or certificates out there.</p>
<p>You might also look for ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). There may not be many majors, but there should be lots of certificate programs out there.</p>
<p>This is basically what IE’s do.
Here is a job ad for a Business Process Engineer: [Business</a> Process Engineer - ReachLocal - Plano TX](<a href=“Internal Error”>http://www.pcrecruiter.net/pcrbin/reg5.exe?i1=WEBGUEST&i2=110336460864574&i3=DETAIL&i4=110336460864574&i5=&i6=&i7=&i8=12%2F3%2F2011%206:30:24%20AM&hash=1681080427&i10=0&pcr-id=P3wL4ux403mOPE9QIEGTXJaALYDNq5wqM42iWwAeUDIoC7bvli4OQgYkTwJMPhneam3iNAQKE1Dx
VaOnkJUKZIRisyBJ9Q%3D%3D)</p>
<p>By looking at the requirements you can see that they utilize a lot of the Lean and Six Sigma tool sets that IE’s (& OR’s) are learning and using in the workforce today. </p>
<p>Hope that helps.</p>
<p>Yeah, you beat me to it. Sounds like industrial engineering / systems engineering / etc. You know, engineering economics, ergonomics, operations research, process, etc.</p>
<p>The ad that Chucktown links is for an internet marketing company. Where’s the “industrial” part of that?? I didn’t notice references to anything in that ad that refers to anything logistical or manufacturing or ergonomics.<br>
BPR is focused on optimizing Business Processes. While there is overlap (between IE and OR for example), I don’t think that ad makes a case that IE ~ BPR. BPR has more to do with CS/MIS/IT or similar acronyms. Sometimes BPR is employed to redesign the business processes such as how supplies are ordered or vendors evaluated or how orders are filled, but from a computer systems perspective, not usually about rearranging a plant layout, etc.</p>
<p>Yes IE’s can work at an internet marketing company…I just think you have too narrow of a view of what industrial engineers actually do. They work everywhere, not just manufacturing…For example, Duke University hospital hires them as management engineers, and I don’t think Duke Hospital has too many assembly lines mixed between operating rooms… Also, most (good) IE programs are OR heavy for instance UC Berkeley, you might want to take a look.</p>
<p>A hospital would have issues for example with bed utilization or Operating Room scheduling optimization. Those are typical OR problems perhaps involving queuing theory, etc. So call it “engineering” if you want. (The term “IE” is often substituted for OR these days. I’m well aware of what OR is and that UCB has such a program. I’m sure IE includes lots of OR as it should… but OR is also included in other good business and IT programs as well… IE doesn’t have a monopoly on OR or management science.) </p>
<p>Prescription order entry or workflow systems for example involve business processes. Making these more efficient and more highly integrated and less error prone is more in the realm of IT and wouldn’t involve Operations Research or IE. The business processes are ‘engineered’ (designed) by IT professionals, not Industrial Engineers.
An IE could of course be hired by a hospital (perhaps to redesign the layout of the hospital for better efficiency), but to achieve better information handling a better choice would be someone with a business and IT background.</p>
<p>Wow. I didn’t know there were so many replies.</p>
<p>I have a general understanding of the difference between IE and OR. OR establishes the theory in formulating the best mathematical techniques and approaches to optimization, decision-making, queuing, etc. Among other things, IE uses OR for more practical purposes, so it is appropriately titled engineering. You could probably call it applied OR. I now see how BRP comes into play. </p>
<p>My issue is that, while I find these topics generally interesting such as making things more efficient from an economic standpoint, I’m not interested in doing the actual work. It seems to be very tedious which is putting me off. I’ve recently come to that conclusion. I don’t have any programming skills, and I don’t care to acquire any. Yes, I know that puts me at a great disadvantage. OR and IE involve programming and computational work.</p>
<p>Is there a way to research careers based on the mathematics I find more interesting. I’ll look up the ERP programs.</p>
<p>What mathematics do you find more interesting? If you throw out the math in IE, OR and CS, that basically leaves Analysis. Wow, that’s fun.</p>
<p>Well, actually, I was going to say I kind of like analysis. I liked Vector Analysis and the Intermediate Analysis class I just took this past semester. Understanding the concepts is the most important part of the class and then relating them to prove things. Of course, it can get hard pretty quickly, but I guess I enjoy that style of work. I didn’t particularly enjoy the intensive computational problems in the Classical Mechanics class I took. I’m also considering careers outside of math, too. I’m not restricting myself to purely technical jobs.</p>