Industrial and systems engineering focuses on optimizing complex systems, processes, and organizations to enhance efficiency and quality while reducing waste, costs, and resources. It is a multidisciplinary field, drawing from math, engineering, and business management principles to improve the systems that sustain the functionality of our everyday lives.
Who are industrial engineers?
While other types of engineers design things, industrial engineers design the systems that enable those things to work effectively. They design, install, improve, and control large, complex systems that include the integration of people, materials, machines, and facilities with wide-ranging applications including:
- manufacturing
- healthcare
- service
- transportation
- energy
- finance
Is Industrial Engineering for you?
Industrial engineers are problem solvers who use their expertise to solve large, difficult, multi-faceted, often multi-disciplinary problems in challenging environments. See below for some examples of what it takes to be a modern industrial engineer.
Leadership
Do you have an inquiring mind, always thinking about how things can be improved? We’re looking for leaders with strong ethics and integrity as they seek to advance the systems that govern our every day lives.
Self-Starter
Are you strongly motivated and show initiative in your daily life? If you’re an independent thinker with a proactive work ethic that seeks to set in motion new ideas, this is the place for you.
Problem-Solving Aptitude
Do you enjoy taking things apart to understand how they work? Industrial engineers are constantly “tinkering”, exploring both physical and conceptual systems to understand their properties and resolve the issues that prevent them from reaching their full potential.
Creativity
Do you think outside the box? Before they can start improving things, engineers need to be visionaries that can imagine a better future for the individuals, systems, and organizations they’re working with.
Communications Skills
Do you excel in persuasive communication? Industrial engineers are most successful when they can form connections with their communities, employing strong rhetoric skills to convey the importance of their line of work to the world around them.
Career Outlook
Industrial engineers are in high demand in manufacturing, healthcare, energy, finance, entertainment and a host of other sectors. Interested in getting a better look at your future? Check out the stats below.
- Starting Median Salary: $80,500*
- Mid-career Median Salary: $133,400**
- Number of Jobs: 336,600 and rising***
*These figures include the median salary of engineers with 0-5 years of experience. The data comes from payscale.com, August 2024.
**These figures include the median salary of engineers with 10+ years of experience. The data comes from payscale.com, August 2024.
***These figures come from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, October 2024.