Industrial Engineers
On the Job
Industrial Engineers use engineering to design, develop, test, and evaluate systems for managing entire production processes. They consider things like human factors, quality control, logistics, costs, and other factors that can influence production.
Typical Work Tasks
People who work in this career often:
- Investigate safety of work environment.
- Research human performance or health factors related to engineering or design activities.
- Estimate technical or resource requirements for development or production projects.
- Estimate time requirements for development or production projects.
- Create models of engineering designs or methods.
- Determine operational criteria or specifications.
- Devise research or testing protocols.
- Analyze operational data to evaluate operations, processes or products.
- Determine operational methods.
- Implement design or process improvements.
Typical Working Conditions
- Using e-mail.
- Working with a group or team.
- The freedom to determine tasks, priorities, and goals.
- Freedom to make decisions without supervision.
- Working indoors in environmentally controlled conditions.
- Wearing common protective or safety equipment such as safety shoes, glasses, gloves, hearing protection, hard hats, or life jackets.
- Exposure to sounds or noise levels that are distracting or uncomfortable.
- Responsibility for others' health and safety.
- Meeting strict deadlines.
This page includes information from the O*NET 24.2 Database by the U.S. Department of Labor, Employment and Training Administration (USDOL/ETA). Used under the CC BY 4.0 license. O*NET® is a trademark of USDOL/ETA.
Source: You can learn about our data sources in the About Us section.
