BEng in Industrial Engineering

The Department of Industrial Engineering is renowned for its steadfast output of dynamic, creative, forward-thinking, and innovative industrial engineers who are actively sought-after by local and international companies in industries ranging from manufacturing and consulting to retail, logistics, and information technology. Our department is situated in a dedicated five-level, newly refurbished state-of-the-art building and boasts award-winning academic staff spanning a diverse scope of research fields such as data science, operations management, manufacturing, engineering management, and operations research.

What does industrial engineering entail?

BEng in Industrial Engineering is a discipline of engineering dealing with the optimization of complex processes or systems. It is concerned with the development, improvement, implementation, and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy, materials, analysis, and synthesis, as well as the mathematical, physical, and social sciences together with the principles and methods of engineering design to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems or processes.

Its underlying concepts overlap considerably with certain business-oriented disciplines such as operations management and financial management, but the engineering side tends to emphasize extensive mathematical proficiency and usage of quantitative methods.

What are common practical examples of tasks performed by industrial engineers?

• Reconfigure airport check-in services to shorten queues and improve passenger satisfaction.

• Streamline an operating room so that it is safer, faster, and easier to use.

• Analyse retail customer order history to predict future behaviour and develop targeted marketing strategies.

• Investigate how mineral-rich countries can leverage their mineral endowments optimally for sustainable development.

• Routing and scheduling decisions for fleets of delivery vehicles.

• Employee duty roster or timetabling decisions for the manufacturing and health sectors.

• Manufacture customised products like a maxillofacial implant that is surgically inserted into patients who have lost significant portions of their facial bone structure due to disease.

• Shelf-space allocation and inventory decisions for retailers.

• Crop irrigation and agricultural pest control.

• Facility location decisions for effective supply chain logistics

The main branches of Industrial Engineering are manufacturing technology and operational systems design. It involves facts that are important in modern industrial and service environments such as quality assurance, robotics, engineering economics, operations research, industrial economics and information technology.

In the first year, all engineering students follow the same courses to acquire suitable mathematical and scientific skills. From the second year onward, the pure mathematical content starts to make way for engineering course modules where mathematics is applied to engineering problems and also sometimes developed further, as required. Thus, in the second year, the different engineering degree courses start to diverge.

In the first two years of study, the student takes modules mainly in engineering mathematics, applied mathematics, chemistry, electro-techniques, and engineering drawings.

Specialised industrial engineering fields include modules from production management, quality assurance and management, operations research, information systems, data science, engineering economy and manufacturing. Students also follow modules in complementary fields like project management, philosophy and ethics and environmental engineering.

All students follow a common first-year programme and it is possible to change the main study programme if specified conditions are met.

Year 1

First Semester

• Applied Mathematics B
• Engineering Chemistry
• Engineering Mathematics
• Engineering Physics
• Intercultural Communication (Eng)
• Probability Theory and Statistics
• Engineering Drawings

Optional supplementary modules:

• Engineering Chemistry
• Engineering Drawings

Second Semester

• Applied Mathematics B
• Computer Programming
• Data Science
• Electrotechnique
• Engineering Mathematics
• Strength of Materials

Engineering:

• Chemistry C
• Electronic Engineering
• Engineering Physics
• Industrial Engineering
• Mechanical Engineering
• Mechatronic Engineering

Year 2

First Semester:

• Applied Mathematics B

• Electrotechnique

• Engineering Economics

• Engineering Mathematics

• Practical Workshop Training

• Production Management

• Thermofluid Dynamics

Second Semester:

• Industrial Programming

• Introductory Machine Design

• Engineering Mathematics

• Manufacturing Processes

• Material Science A

• Numerical Methods

Year 3

Both Semesters:

• Internship (Eng)*

• Internship (Eng) 393*

First Semester:

• Complementary Studies (Eng)

• Control Systems

• Engineering Statistics

• Manufacturing Systems

• Philosophy and Ethics*

• Production Management

• Technical Communication

Second Semester:

• Data Analytics (Eng)

• Engineering Economics

• Industrial Management

• Operations Research (Eng)

• Quality Assurance

• Vacation Training

Year 4

Both Semesters:

• Industrial Project

First Semester:

• Industrial Ergonomics

• Information Systems

• Operations Research (Eng)

• Project Management

Second Semester:

• Enterprise Design

• Environmental Engineering*

• Industrial Practice

• Quality Management

• Simulation

• Vacation Training

*Note: Optional modules that allow selected students to interrupt their credit-bearing studies for one year.

The industrial engineering programme is an interdisciplinary programme in which training in several applied sciences, for instance mechanical, mechatronic, electrical, and electronic engineering, together with economic management, natural sciences, information technology and operational research, are combined as a unit for the design and operation of various operational systems. This programme also particularly trains you to use computers in decision-making for enterprise management.