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What is Industrial and Operations Engineering? Watch our video to find out how you could use a degree in IOE.

Video transcript

[Albert Berahas, Professor] In my opinion industrial engineers are a very diverse group of people because of their backgrounds, because of their expertise, because of their domain knowledge, but they do have some commonalities.
[Seth Guikema, Professor] So one thing about an industrial engineer is that we will constantly be looking for efficiencies.
[Amy Cohn, Professor] Most industrial engineers have really strong ideas about how you do things.
[Guikema] For example when I go to the airport and I see the TSA security lines it almost always bugs me because it could be done, so much more efficiently.
[Berahas] Almost every action that I take I’m trying to optimize it.
[Mohammad Zhalechian, Ph.D. student] It is a person who is a problem solver.
[Cohn] You think that you can make every coffee shop on the planet better.
[Berahas] When I’m tying my shoelaces in the morning, when I’m trying to figure out what time is the best time for me to leave my apartment for the elevator.
[Cohn] There’s a way that you grocery shop.
[Zhalechian] If they go to a restaurant they want to always combine the best possible food that gives you the lowest price and the best taste.
[Guikema] We can tackle some really hard societal problems. In my own research we look at community resilience, equity in communities, power outage forecasting.
[Lauren Czerniak, Ph.D. student] And so there’s definitely lots of opportunities to make real-world impact with this field.
[Guikema] Industrial engineers are changing the world, we are making the world better. By tackling these big problems, and really digging in and understanding that system as an integrated whole.
[Zhalechian] This is fulfilling for me because you actually make some impact and the interesting thing is that you can see the immediate effect of it.
[Berahas] We’re solving real-world problems that will promote some of the things that make the world a better place.
[Music]
[Music outro] thank you

We believe in being a solution

Since its inception in 1956, the University of Michigan Industrial and Operations Engineering (U-M IOE) Department has advanced scientific and mathematical methods to help solve local and global challenges, expanding its research and teaching focus from the manufacturing industry into all sectors of the economy.

North campus tour

The Dude, part of the ENIAC, a giant solvable Rubik’s cube and a piece of the moon—these are just a few stops along this college tour of north campus, which is home to Michigan Engineering.

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The University of Michigan campus tour

Whether you’re new to the University or looking for a nostalgic trip down memory lane, a campus tour is the perfect way to check out some classic U-M locations and see what’s new. Join us, as we take an official tour on this episode of Summer At Michigan.

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