After Karl Marx released "The Communist Manifesto" in 1850, contemporary intellectuals had prophesied revolution of the proletariat in the industrialised nations of the west.  Today, we know that this revolution never came about in these nations.  Peter Drucker has opined that this revolution never occurred in the west because it was obviated by another revolution - The Revolution in Productivity unleashed by F.W. Taylor and other pioneers of Industrial Engineering.  With the introduction of mass production system by Henery Ford in the first decade of this century, the role of industrial engineering in the manufacturing concern became prominent.  The successor of the mass production system in the form of Just-In-Time philosophy and the lean production which revolutionised Operations Management around the world was developed painstakingly over decades with Industrial Engineering genius and efforts of men like Taiichi Ohno and Shiego Shingo in Japan.  These developments and many others including those in Systems Engineering, Project Management, Quality Management, Re-engineering, Logistics, Supply Chain Management were milestones in the progress of the industrial engineering.

In a vision statement adopted in 1989, the Institute of Industrial Engineers defined Industrial Engineering as:

"The leading profession whose practitioners Plan, Design, Implement and Manage integrated production and service delivery systems that assure performance, reliability, maintainability, schedule adherence and cost control.  These systems may be socio-technical in nature and will integrate people, information, material, equipment, process and energy throughout the life cycle of the product, service or project."
 

Industrial Engineering: An Evolving Profession

Industrial engineering has evolved over the last century as a broad profession concerned with designing effective systems and developing robust processes with the purpose of integrating people, machine and material resources for improved overall effectiveness of the organisation.

Due to the increasing complexity of operations and the need for customer responsiveness, there is a greater need for teamwork between several different functions such as marketing, product design, procurement, process design, manufacturing, logistics and distribution.  Moreover, with the increasing competition, there is a greater need to ensure the optimal utilisation of all assets such as people, material, equipment and time, in the business system.  Both these challenges unfold the role played by IE in today's organisations.  This role could be as focussed as developing a work method on the shop floor or as broad as developing a manufacturing  and distribution system for the entire company.

Because of its involvement as an integrator of several functions, the IE is called upon by the management to coordinate, integrate  and implement strategic corporate and manufacturing plans.
 

Industrial Engineering as Change Agents:

Today's organisations work in a constantly changing environment must be able to effectively accommodate new products, volume swings, improved technology and changes in management philosophy and continually improve all work processes to meet the demands of changed environment.  Here, industrial engineers play a pioneering role as change agents in the organisation.