<p>Have a friend who was talking to me about it and it seems really interesting. He basically told me it involves "solving" mathematical systems developed after real world situations. Does that sound right or was I misunderstanding him? What else can you all add about the field?</p>
<p>thats operations research, a branch of industrial engineering</p>
<p>my interpretation is that in the real job applications it's not so much solving mathematical systems, as it is streamlining operations and making everything run more smoothly for the business.</p>
<p>Industrial Engineering is also known as Operations management, Production Engineering, Manufacturing Engineering or Manufacturing Systems Engineering.</p>
<p>Here's what you need to deal with:
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_engineering#Areas_of_expertise%5B/url%5D">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_engineering#Areas_of_expertise</a></p>