Contents



Preface

I have been a practicing industrial engineer (IE) for almost forty years. Before that, I had worked in a variety of jobs in manufacturing. My subsequent emerging understanding of IE gave context, meaning, and direction to that which I observed. Operations planning, safety, quality, production control, inventory management, operations research, facility planning, and human factors are traditional IE subdisciplines. From their initial focus in manufacturing, industrial engineering principles, tools, and techniques have spread across a spectrum of application areas. Industrial engineers now work in all areas and all levels of diverse organizations.

This edited book comes at an opportune time. It incorporates new knowledge and expertise in a rapidly changing engineering discipline that is a vital force in a wide range of manufacturing, service, educational, and government organizations. The best practices of 21st century industrial engineering include such concepts as lean systems, sustainability, systems thinking, data analytics, and additive manufacturing, as well as utilization of advanced computer software. These have further expanded industrial engineering's breadth. Each chapter in this book

> **Dr. Gary P. Moynihan** The University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL, USA

reflects important aspects of these advances.
