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
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.
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.
Interested in an in-person visit? Prospective undergraduate students can use this link to sign-up for a U-M tour!