Careers in Industrial & Production Engineering

Industrial/Production engineering deals with the study to develop, improve, implement and evaluate the integrated systems of people, knowledge, money, information, equipment, energy, material and as a whole the industrial process. Industrial Engineering can also be termed as Production Engineering, Operations management, Manufacturing Engineering or Manufacturing Systems Engineering depending on the viewpoint or motives of the user.

Industrial engineers’ work includes planning, measuring and controlling all activities within the organization, besides designing the production process for a product. An industrial engineer is responsible for the overall industrial production and management.

Eligibility

The basic eligibility criteria is 10+2 (with Physics, Chemistry and Maths). There are many BE/BTech program in Industrial engineering of four years duration. The selection is generally made on the basis of entrance tests (e.g. IITJEE, AIEEE, BITSAT etc.) conducted at both national and state level.  

The Institution of Engineers (India) also offers AMIE course which is equivalent to BE/BTech offered by other institutes/universities.

Career Prospects

Industrial and production engineers have job opportunities in manufacturing companies. They can work in hospitals, banks, finance, agriculture, wholesale and retail trade, public utilities, transportation, construction and government.

Industrial Engineers can also work as manufacturing engineers, plant engineers, quality engineers, process engineers and industrial managers in different industries, management and service sector in the middle management cadre. Most of the opportunities are in the private sector.

The Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) holds Engineering Services Examinations every year to appoint engineers in its various Central services. There are large numbers of openings waiting for industrial engineering graduates in the Railways, Armed Forces and in other Government departments as well as in most PSUs.

Institutes/Universities

BE/BTech course in Industrial Engineering is offered by almost all engineering colleges/technological universities including the IITs and NITs. Most of the state universities and private Btech colleges offer civil engineering branch.