Questionable Path - Industrial & Production Engineering at MIT Manipal

Ayush Sisodia | Guest Blogger

“Engineers make things. Industrial Engineers make things better.”

‘Industrial & Production Engineer’ is synonymous with Systems Integrator – in other words, a big-picture thinker. He is an employee who takes what exists today and conceptualizes what should exist in the future. Many people are misled by the term Industrial Engineer. The word ‘Industrial” does not just mean manufacturing. It encompasses a wide span of industries ranging from FMCG, IT & System, Consultancy, Banking & Financial Institution and to Telecom.

With the era of management growing from Scientific Principles to Strategic Concept, companies adopting philosophies of continuous productivity and quality improvement to survive in the increasingly competitive world market. The need for Industrial Engineers is growing….

What is Industrial and Production Engineering?

Industrial and Production engineering is about the combined art and science of designing, developing and managing the manufacture of quality products. The IP Engineering team is responsible for both manufacturing technology and management. They are constantly challenged to use both innovation and imagination to find better ways to make the products that we need such mobile phones, cars, planes, food, pharmaceuticals, in fact almost everything we come across needs to be manufactured.

The major distinction between IP engineering and other branches of engineering is that the IP engineer must consider not only the behavior of materials, machines and the environment as they are governed by physical laws, but also the behavior of people as they interact with materials, machines and the environment in dynamic organizational operations.

Why Industrial and Production Engineering?

Industrial Engineers work in every sector

You will be hearing this quite often. IP engineers are in virtually every industry vertical today. Manufacturing,Ttechnology, hardware, retail, healthcare – you name it and there is a high possibility of industrial engineering jobs. Industrial and Production engineering-related work can be found in every company.

Combine technical skills with business acumen

MIT offers management subjects parallel to IP coursework, in areas such as Engineering Economics, Essentials of Management, Supply Chain Management and Analytics. In sixth semester there is even an option to take up Business Management as minor specialization. By taking these classes, you get a good grasp of the business side of a company too. Sure, you can take these with any other major, but IP and business complement each other perfectly. This also makes an industrial engineering degree an ideal starting point for an MBA specializing in supply chain management, marketing or finance, which complement the technical aspects of IP.

Customize IP Engineering to match your interests

As an IP engineer, you will always have options to explore and work in different job roles. Want to sit at a computer doing deep data analysis? There are industrial engineering jobs in data analysis and business analysis. Want to work on a production floor doing manufacturing work? There are jobs in logistics engineering, manufacturing engineering, production, forecasting, among many others. Want to travel while you work? Consider industrial engineering jobs in consulting and client-facing roles. There are plenty of other options – these are just a few examples.

Industrial and Production at Manipal

The Department of Mechanical Engineering, MIT was established in the year 1960 and has steadily grown from its humble beginning to a full-fledged composite Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering. Since its inception, it has grown by leaps and bounds and today serves as the largest department in the institute in terms of student and faculty strength. The department provides education in different domains of mechanical engineering such as Industrial and Production, Manufacturing, Design and thermal engineering. The departmental faculty consists of learned teachers who are constantly engaged in undertaking research work of original nature and later publications. Many of the members of the faculty have earned to their credit quite a number of praiseworthy research papers published in the national and international journals of repute.

The department provides ample laboratory facilities and hands-on training to the Undergraduate students in the subjects included in the curriculum and the emerging fields of specialization such as CAD-CAM Lab, Metrology lab, Pneumatics & Hydraulics Lab, Irrigation Lab and Strength of Material Lab. The department has sprawling workshop situated on a 30000 sq. ft. area comprising of machine shop, foundry, smithy, sheet metal, plumbing, welding, fitting and carpentry.

With competent faculty and alumnus such as Sandeep Sinha, Managing Director at Cummins India Ltd (Batch of 1996, IP Engineering), Thomas Cherukara, CEO at MGF Group, 1998-2011 (Batch of 1984, Mechanical Engineering) it is one of the most influential department.

IP Engineering students have been integral members of student projects such as Formula Manipal, Team Manipal Racing, SolarMobil and RoboManipal.

Related Subjects in First Year:

Basic Mechanical Engineering – Deals with the very basics of Manufacturing Operations.
Mechanics of Solids – Concepts taught in this subject will lay the foundation for subjects such as Strength of Materials & Design of Machine Elements.
Engineering Graphics – Graphical method to communicate all needed information from the engineer who designed a part to the workers who will make it. It would be required to completely understand subject such as Theory of Machines and also in CAD LAB.
Basic Workshop Practice – Deals with learning to do most of the workshop operations like Drilling, Filing, Lathe operations, Assemble-Disassemble, Sheet metal work, Automobile gear box and engine working.