WHAT is industrial engineering all about? "Machines, materials but also people" says Prof Eddie O'Kelly, head of the department of industrial engineering at UCG. He believes that the public, and secondary school students in particular, "are not as well-informed as they should be" about what industrial engineers do.
"People don't understand what industrial engineering is," says O'Kelly. "It's a pity because companies come in here and find that there's a great conservatism in Ireland. People know about civil engineering and electrical and mechanical - these are pretty well-known - but industrial engineering is not.
"The engineering profession is concerned with the design, construction, operation and management of systems. Industrial engineering deals with a combination of people, machinery and materials."
Industrial engineering is very much concerned with systems that involve people, explains O'Kelly. It has to do with the science of work. "It's really looking at what's known about people - sensory perceptions, psycho motor characteristics - all of which is quite important in the design of equipment and facilities."
The industrial engineer works as a catalyst for change in organisations, so that the human, financial, managerial and technical considerations are integrated into an overall consistent and optimal corporate development plan. As UCG's current prospectus points out, "the industrial engineer is professionally competent to undertake the overall design of the complete system".
Aoife Power, a final-year student on the course, says: "It's a very broad subject. It does leave you with a lot of options". Although she is undecided about what area she is most interested in, some of her classmates have already decided where they are going after graduation. Some are interested in computer development, and software in particular. Others are into logistics within organisations. A few have their sights set on supervising and management departments.
IN COMPARISON with other engineering departments "which deal more with machines, we need to take more account of the workforce," says Power. "I think there's a lot of team-work.
You're kept busy throughout the year. You're often working in a group which makes it a bit more fun."
Mairead Guckian, another fourth-year student, found the scope of the course exciting. "I was interested because it was so broad. I didn't just want to focus on one area".
Project work has given the students a good idea of what industry is like, she says. "Most of us are working in factories in Galway. We're getting a fair idea of what it will be like. It's really good this year. We do a lot of team work.
Guckian was able to choose industrial psychology and advanced industrial engineering design as her two elective specialisations. "The other subjects were more business orientated," she felt. "Psychology just seemed more interesting."
Fiona Watson, who graduated as an industrial engineer from UCG some years ago, is working with the Irish-owned recruitment company, the Marlborough Group. "There is a huge demand for industrial engineers," she says. She was offered a job on the basis that her own training and experience could be adapted to a job recruiting into technological areas. In general, she says, industrial engineers "can easily move into electronic roles, test and repair engineers, supervisory roles."
Students take course and laboratory work in areas such as manufacturing engineering, production technology and systems, operations research, computer science and microprocessor applications, mechanical engineering, electrical/electronic engineering, management accountancy, finance, marketing, economics, entrepreneurship, industrial psychology and human factors engineering.
Prof O'Kelly says that graduates of the UCG degree programme are being taken on by multi-national companies based here such as Intel, IBM, Motorola and Hewlett Packard. "Possibly 75 per cent of our graduates would get work in Ireland. All are concentrated essentially in three areas - a number in Galway, Dublin and Limerick."
He recalls that "in the early days we were very much the preferred supplier of engineering graduates. About one-third of our graduates went to Digital. It has been replaced, other companies have come in its place. But at the time in the early 1970s there were taken by Digital."
The four-year degree course is accredited by the Institute of Engineers in Ireland and also by the Institute of Electrical Engineers, a UK-based body. Therefore those who complete their exams successfully become chartered engineers on graduation, with a professional accreditation, which is vital in an industrial engineer's career. "It's quite necessary for an engineering degree to have this," O'Kelly explains. After three year's work experience, UCG graduates are eligible for this without doing any extra academic exams.
