Welcome to Industrial Engineering study program

Dear student,

Please take a few minutes and think about the essential questions that are going to help you to choose the right major for you at IUS. Here you can get familiar with the following essential questions about Industrial Engineering (IE) program:

  1. Is Industrial Engineering right for me?
  2. What is Industrial Engineering?
  3. What do Industrial Engineers do?
  4. Where do Industrial Engineers work?

1- Is Industrial Engineering Right For Me?

To check whether Industrial Engineering is right major for you, just try to provide answers on the questions such as:

  • Do you like to study combination of business, human science and technical subjects?
  • Do you like working with computers?
  • Do you like solving practical problems?
  • Do you like to learn how things work?
  • Do you want to help people to improve their lives?
  • Are you a team player?
  • Do you like working at the same time with people, machines, materials by utilizing minimum amount of resources such as energy / money and producing optimum output?

If your answer is YES to more than half of these questions, than Industrial Engineering might be the good choice for you, because industrial engineers use computers and mathematical skills to improve business and the lives of people by solving their problems. Thus, I recommend you further reading.

2- What Is Industrial Engineering?

Engineering disciplines such as Mechanical, Electrical or Civil Engineering are concerned to very specific areas. For example, Mechanical Engineering is concerned to engineer mechanical systems / devices; Electrical Engineering is concerned to engineer electrical systems or designing circuits, Civil Engineering is concerned with building structures.

Than what is Industrial Engineering? Is it concerned to engineer an industry? Of course not. Industrial Engineering is an engineering discipline dedicated to design, build, analyze and manage complex systems or processes with the aim of improving the quality of the output. The system represents an integrated system of that produce. An important characteristic of industrial engineering is its system approach to integrate the basic resources of production and service systems, such as people, materials, machines, information, money and energy, in such a way as to create an innovative and efficient organization.

Figure 1: Industrial Engineering as Integrated system

The focus is on the way how products are made and how services are performed by using knowledge and skills of managements, business, engineering, human science and mathematics.

Figure 2: Aspects of Industrial Engineering

Therefore, Industrial engineering is so broad that it can take any form. E.g. you can choose options if you want to learn the business side or if you want to learn more technical or human aspects IE has classes. Also, if you want to get well paid job, IE has so many jobs that are competitive with the other engineering disciplines.

3- What Do Industrial Engineers Do?

Thus, it is a field of study intended for individuals who are interested in analyzing and formulating abstract models of complex systems with the intention of improving system performance. As an industrial engineer, you may work on projects to eliminate waste of time, money, materials, energy, and other assets.

Industrial engineers usually do the following: resource planning, scheduling and forecasting, Supply Chain Management, simulation modeling, Health Systems design, Military Systems design, Quality engineering, Equipment or systems reliability studies, Ergonomics / Human Factors.

4- Where Do Industrial Engineers Work?

Industrial Engineering offers broad career opportunities over the globe to work and consult in a wide range of organizations that produce goods or services.  As an Industrial Engineer, you will have the opportunity to work in lots of different types of businesses including manufacturing, hospitals, military, retail chains, hotel chains, government, communications, banking, e-commerce, education etc.

For instance,  In the Military, Industrial engineers manage quality-control programs asses reliability of equipment, optimize usage of its people and equipment. In Manufacturing Industrial engineers design modernize and optimize a factory or system, establish total quality management (TQM) or launch integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. Government Industrial engineers design and optimize business processes in public sector. In Marketing and Business, Industrial engineers forecast sales quantity, pricing, and costing, and Launch a new product or a service. In health and tourism, Industrial engineers may design, organize and optimize resources and processes.

Some common jobs that Industrial Engineers fill are Management Engineer, Quality Engineer, Director of Planning, Manufacturing Engineer, Product Engineer, Reliability Engineer, Ergonomist, Director of Engineering, etc.


Benjamin Durakovic

IE Program Coordinator                                         Sarajevo: May 26, 2017