IAB - the “Next Great Idea”discussiontopic

from Steve Snelling – Boeing rep. to the IAB

Previously our IAB group (working offline and with some input on our monthly call-ins) did a good job discussing and developing a nice PowerPoint presentation about the IE Profession (“IE Roles in Industry”). This presentation was targeted to new IEs, and their managers, as well as high school students considering studying Industrial Engineering.

At the Jan. IAB call-in we discussed taking on another discussion topic & deliverable this year.

A regular theme that regularly comes up in our call-in discussions and maybe sometimes at our parent companies is the following:

“What are some of the benefits and value associated with having Industrial Engineers in an organization?”

This might vary from Industry to Industry, or at least based on the types of IE work being performed.

It might even have a link to our other IAB prepared presentation (“IE Roles in Industry”) - that showed the main types of work that IEs are associated with, and that also had a list of industries and techniques (on the last 2 slides).

One idea is to take the main headings for the IE focus areas from our previous IAB presentation (slides 3-13), and develop potential areas of benefits for each focus area.

For example – for the focus area of “Project Management” some benefits attributable to having IEs involved would be some of the following (later we could revise it to not start every bullet with “IEs would …”):

Project Management

  • IEs would use good project management techniques to bring complex projects to a timely and successful conclusion.
  • IEs would identify opportunities for analysis projects to identify root causes for chronic problems like rework and work performed out of position and then develop strategies for eliminating them.
  • IEs would perform risk analysis and perform mitigation actions to minimize the risks.
  • IEs would use project management on facility planning projects – both for buildings, departments, and large equipment relocation activities.
  • IEs would use Six Sigma project approaches and mini-Kaizens Teams to develop creative team-driven solutions to a variety of problems and conditions.

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IAB – Next Great Idea topic from Steve Snelling.doc