INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

Industrial engineering is concerned with the design, installation,

improvement, evaluation, and control of socio-technical systems in
virtually all sectors, including manufacturing, distribution, government,
energy, health care, and finance. A distinguishing feature of the industrial
engineering discipline is the integration of humans, machines, materials,
and information to optimize the performance of such systems using
available resources in the most efficient way, but without degrading social
and physical environments. Industrial engineering training should provide
future practitioners with the set of competencies that are required to
create and maintain flexible organizations, which in turn are able to adapt
continuously to the dynamic environment.
Information Engineering option
The industrial engineer strives to make people more efficient and effective
by ensuring that they have easy access to the right information at the
right time. The rapid developments in computer technology have created
a management information explosion. A systems view of an organization
must necessarily address the following issues:
In addressing these issues, a distinction is drawn between computing and
system technologies, which are clearly relevant to every engineer, and the
more specialized industrial engineering topics such as integration
technologies, management of information technologies, and integrated
systems. The latter topics address the unique qualities of integrated
systems within a particular class of organization, such as manufacturing,
business, and health.
Human Factors and Ergonomics option
Industrial engineers also improve productivity and efficiency by studying
and improving the actual physical work environment. Human factors

engineering is the study of people as workers and as managers, both from

the

physiological

and

psychological

points

of

view.

These principles are applied to the design of human-machine systems,

with particular attention to problems of information display, control layout,
compensatory controls systems, and the design of work environments.
These studies lead to important conclusions concerning managerial and
leadership styles, organizational goals and incentives, employee relations,
and the implementation of planned change.
Operational Research and Management Science option
Operational research and management science involve the mathematical
modeling of real systems and processes with a view to being able to
predict and optimally control their performance. For example, statistics
are used to determine how much inventory should be carried in a
warehouse to minimize expected costs of carrying the stock and of
shortages. Queuing theory is used to analyze the waiting time of people or
jobs waiting for service in banks, emergency rooms, and production
facilities. Areas covered by this option include scheduling, reliability,
maintenance, forecasting, queuing, value analysis, and decision-making
under uncertainty. Much of today's industrial engineering activity is the
application of management science in support of decision-making at all
levels of an organization.
Careers in Industrial Engineering
Industrial engineers develop processes and systems that improve quality
and productivity. Industrial engineers make significant contributions to
their employers by saving money while making the workplace better for
other workers. As such, they can find work in any organization that values
these goals.

WELDING TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENT

The New Zealand Welding Centre (NZWC) activities are funded
largely from the welding. consumable levy, industry and government
contributions are prioritised by the Welding Centre . Panel, a body of key
people from welding fabrication workshops, training providers and
inspection

bodies.

Establishing

Higher

Level

Welding

Related

Qualifications and Training. The establishment of suitable training and

qualifications for welding supervisors and welding engineers was a
foundation task for the NZWC in order to fill a wide gap in the skills
landscape of New Zealand metals fabrication industry. By drawing on
experts from industry and using the then New Zealand Institute of Welding
as examination body, the two men NZWC team established courses for
the training of Welding Supervisors, Welding Technologist and Welding
Engineers. Based on a 1990s productivity analyses of welding processes
used by the New Zealand metal fabrication industry, HERA identified a
lack of training in productive welding processes as a key constraint.
Subsequently, HERA developed an integrated system of welding training
modules linking training and certification and making this available to all
welding training providers in New Zealand. Today most New Zealand
welding training is performed using these modules which have a
significant impact on the use of more cost effective welding processes in
New Zealand.Figure 13: Example of welding training modules developed
by the NZWC.
The

NZWC

productivity

research

indicated

that

considerable

productivity gains in competing manual welding processes are possible,

however for optimum process choice, the actual cost of welding needs to
be readily available. Based on the fact that welding fabrication standards
require the accurate documentation of welding procedures, the NZWC
developed a world first, computer based, welding expert system which
automatically

generated

welding

cost

information

from

accurately

documented welding and welding preparation procedures. The expert

system covered procedures to local AS/NZS welding standards and found

wide application in the local industry. Surface Finish of Stainless Steel

Welds An international, HERA led research program demonstrated through
micro

bacteriological testing, that stainless steel joints welded with

specific welding processes and using specific combinations of shielding

gases, produced weld surface finishes which could be put into service in
food processing equipment without the expensive weld grinding and
polishing. Grinding and polishing stainless steel welds is a hugely time
consuming, unpleasant and expensive business. Typical large stainless
steel component prices are made up of 60% labour & 40% material and
an industry source estimates that 15% - 20% in cost saving on food
contact ground & polished components can be made. The findings
presented e.g. at the 1995 IIW Annual Assembly in Stockholm 6 and in
7are currently being implemented in the Australian/New Zealand stainless
steel welding standard AS/NZS 1554.6 and will allow those cost savings to
be realised.

CNC TECHNO
Foam Fabricators

A CNC router allows Foam Fabricators to produce the typical order of 20

sample models in two days compared to the five days needed to cut the
foam pieces by hand. In addition to saving time, the CNC router frees up
engineers who previously had to pitch in and help cut foam pieces when a
large quantity of samples were needed. With the exception of one person
who loads the foam stock and removes finished pieces, the router can run
unattended around the clock if necessary to turn out a large order.
Another benefit of automating the sample production process is that it
enables the company to take on jobs it would have lost in the past. "When
the shape of the customer's part was too complex to cut by hand, we had
to turn away the work," says Nathan Musgrove, an applications engineer
at Foam Fabricators' Jefferson, Georgia regional design and test center.
"That hasn't happened since we installed the CNC machine. It can
accurately

cut

even

the

most

complex

3D

shapes."

Foam Fabricators, headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, is a coast-tocoast network of 14 facilities providing shape molded foam products,
packaging, and components. Its foam products are used in the packaging
of items such as electronics equipment and appliances, but they can also
be found in other applications such as inside bicycle helmets. The
company, which has 250 employees, molds a full range of materials
including expanded polystyrene (EPS), expanded polyethylene (EPE),
expanded polypropylene (EPP), and copolymers such as GECET, ARCEL,
and RMER. These raw materials are injected as beads into molds, then
heated with steam which causes them to expand and solidify into the
finished shape. Foam Fabricators also fabricates flexible materials such as
polyethylenes, polyurethanes, polypropylenes, and EPS, both molded and
extruded.
SPARK

Workers

make

pipe

connection on the drill string

on the Orion Perseus drilling
rig that is currently drilling for
oil and gas in the Eagle Ford Shale, Webb County, Texas.
When Wolfgang Eder and his team started looking around for a site for a
new plant forVoestalpine, the Austrian steelmaker he heads, they had 17
sites in eight countries on their list.
This month, after more than a year of looking, they settled on Texas, after
a boom in the production of natural gas from shale extraction brought gas
prices in the state down to just a quarter of what companies paid in
Europe.
"In the USA, re-industrialization is being promoted very consistently,
ambitiously and with great conviction," Eder told Reuters. "Low energy
prices gave us the finaland not insignificantpush." With cheap shale
gas making the United States a magnet for industrial companies like
Voestalpine, many economists are positing a return to industrialization for
the world's biggest economy after more than a decade of consumption-led
growth.
"America is currently seeing a renaissance of production," said Felix
Schuler, a partner at Boston Consulting Group (BCG) based in Germany,
who specializes in the industrial goods sector. U.S. natural gas prices are
$4 per million British thermal unitshaving touched a decade low of $2
last yearwell below its 10-year average of about $5.70 and prices of

around $14 in Britain and almost $17 in Asia. Voestalpine will use natural
gas at its new plant, its biggest investment to date at 550 million euros
($712 million), to turn iron ore into sponge iron, which will later be used to
make crude steel.
Cheap natural gas not only cuts costs for companies that use it as a raw
material or feedstock for other products such as chemicals, it also means
lower power prices as utilities use more gas to generate electricity.
INDUSTRY OVERVIEW IRON AND STEEL
It is common today to talk about "the iron and steel industry" as if it
were a single entity, but historically they were separate products. The
steel industry is often considered to be an indicator of economic progress,
because of the critical role played by steel in infrastructural and overall
economic development, with the main demand creators being the
automobile, construction, infrastructure and oil & gas Industries. Due to its
increasing global prominence, in 2008, steel started to be traded as a
commodity on the London Metal Exchange.
Modern steels are made with varying combinations of alloy metals to fulfil
many purposes. Carbon steel, composed simply of iron and carbon,
accounts for 90% of steel production whereas other alloys include
elements such as manganese, chromium and nickel. Though not an alloy,
galvanized steel is a commonly used variety of steel which has been hotdipped or electroplated in zinc for protection against rust.
As a result of the growing demand for steel for infrastructural works and
real estate projects in developing countries, the steel industry is becoming
more and more competitive with every passing day. Till the late eighties,
the steel market used to be dominated by OECD (Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development) countries. But with the fast
emergence of developing countries like China, India and South Korea in
this sector, there has been a dramatic shift in market share.

Future Prospects
Candidates interested in this industry can be reassured of strong
demand and lucrative opportunities over the coming years, as local
players expand their operations in both the domestic and foreign markets.
Players such as Jindal Steel and Tata Steel have progressively grown in
size and stature and continue to recruit an increasing number of top
calibre candidates across all areas of their business.