Summary of
Industry Advisory Board (IAB) Survey 2008
The purpose of this survey is to help focus the IAB group’s interests.
The survey covered three categories:
1. Questions related to Industrial Engineers at your company
2. Questions related to industry and the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE)
3. Questions related to industry and university IE departments
The questionnaire was sent via the IIE_IAB yahoo group link to the 80 people
listed in the member directory. Fifteen of the members answered the survey,
19%, making it statistically deficient but still providing a substantial amount of
information.
Conclusions offer ideas for possible IAB involvement
1. Business areas under-represented in the survey can be added to the IAB
invitation list.
2. The IAB draws from the highest ranking individuals in an organization as well as
across the industries and services including education and consulting.
3. There is also a great deal of difference in percentage of industrial engineers
promoted to senior management. Opportunity to fund or buy research on what
percentage of IEs goes into senior management positions.
4. There is a great deal of difference in the way companies promote industrial
engineering. Compiling the different ways might be a worthwhile exercise for
research mentioned above. Should there be special promotions to help with this?
5. There is an opportunity to change negative perceptions into positive ones.
6. IEs typically stay longer than seven years at a company.
7. Respondents provided a list of ways IIE can help the industry overall that can be
discussed/ranked to determine any opportunities for the IAB members to help
implement.
8. IIE training is used by respondents slightly (53%) higher than not used (47%).
The survey did not ask why nor ask for suggested programs.
9. Most companies pay for IIE dues (67%).
10. Most companies send IEs to the IIE conferences (86%).
11. Most of your companies participate in IIE conference presentations (71%).
12. Your companies support a local IIE chapter slightly more (57%) than not (43%)
with most of you stating people from your company attend local chapter
meetings. Some have no local chapter nearby.
13. The majority of respondents believe that IIE focuses more on academic than on
industry.
14. A high number of respondents (40%) agree that IE is poorly marketed by IIE and
offered some ideas to consider.
Confidential
Page 1
Oct. 2008
15. The IIE publications are considered highly useful by 60% of the respondents with
suggestions for improvement offered by many.
16. Most respondents actively participate in university events (54%) with a little over
one-fifth (21%) actively serving or (14%) partially serving on the university’s
industry advisory board. If not actively involved in a local IE department, many
respondents’ companies offer financial support to IIE events such as a regional
conference and also recruit on local campuses.
17. There is a general positive attitude toward the new IEs entering the workforce.
Confidential
Page 2
Oct. 2008
The following take each question and either plot results for quick assessment
or describe the results.
1. Please select your business and industry area.
Manufacturing, broken out into five areas, comprises the bulk of respondents to the IAB
survey, 42%.
Business & Industry Area
Professional &
Scientific Svcs
incl. Consulting
13%
Public
Administration
7%
Educational
7%
Health Care &
Social Assist.
7%
Information
7%
Manufacturing:
Transportation
Equipment
13%
Manufacturing:
Food /
Beverage
13%
Arts,
Entertainment &
Recreation
7%
Manufacturing:
Electronics
(Computer /
Electrical)
12%
Manufacturing: Manufacturing:
All Other
Appliances /
7%
Components
7%
There was no representation from the following industry areas, either because the representative
did not complete the survey or there is no one representing that area on the IAB.
If the latter is the reason, there is an opportunity to add representation from these areas.
Accommodation and Food Services
Administrative, Support, & Waste Mgmt Svcs.
Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting
Construction
Finance and Insurance
Management of Companies and Enterprises
Manufacturing: Apparel / Textile
Manufacturing: Furniture
Manufacturing: Metal / Plastics / Rubber
Manufacturing: Paper / Wood
Manufacturing: Petroleum / Chemical
Manufacturing: Printing
Military
Real Estate and Rental and Leasing
Retail Trade
Transportation
Utilities
Warehousing
Wholesale Trade
Confidential
Page 3
Oct. 2008
2. What is your primary job function?
The majority of respondents (73%) are at the manager or senior manager level of their
organizations.
Primary Job Function
Consultant
7%
VP / Director
27%
Engineer
13%
Professor /
Assistant
Professor
7%
Confidential
Manager /
Supervisor
46%
Page 4
Oct. 2008
Category
Questions related to Industrial Engineers at your company
3. What primarily do industrial engineers do at your company?
This was an open-ended question with the following responses. There was a little overlap in
answers, but not enough to group them.

Basic IE functions

Commercial Support: Create sourcing solution for new products by Coordinate and
provide financial analysis for various sourcing alternatives; train/coach commercial
leaders on how to create a CI culture

Consult with clients

Consultants

Continuous improvement activities involving both operations and commercial processes

Create lifelong memories

Improve Processes within the Institution

Lean - both manufacturing, transactional across all industries

Make product industrialization from design phase to production phase

Operational improvement

Plant engineering

Plant support - Traditional productivity improvements; lean/six sigma; train/consult plant
management on building a CI culture

Process Improvement projects & direct support to Production (usually production
scheduling & production status information).

Productivity improvement and reporting, lean manufacturing implementation, line
balancing, ergonomic assessments, plant layout, some throughput simulation

Quality and Manufacturing

Research

Supply Chain – Management - Strategy: Create supply chain solutions for business
needs by coordinating and providing key financial analysis of alternatives; CI Business
relationship managers - coaching/training organizational leaders on how to create a CI
culture within business areas

Systems analysis

Teach
Confidential
Page 5
Oct. 2008
4. What percentages of IEs go into senior management positions at your company?
No one actually had the exact answer, but made educated guesses, with the majority (33%)
estimating that less than 10% of industrial engineers at their companies advance into senior
management positions. Next highest (20% of respondents) were 11% to 30% advancing into
senior management positions.
What % IEs go into management?
71%-90%
7%
Do not know
13%
51%-70%
7%
0
13%
Less than 10%
33%
31%-50%
7%
11%-30%
20%
Here are some of the comments in this area:
“My company has 150,000 employees, I'm not sure where I would even find the information
about how many directors, executive directors & vps started as IEs or have IE degrees. I do
know a few of them started as IEs.”
“Only a small percent maybe 5 percent of our IEs go into senior management. But many of
our current senior managers have IE backgrounds somewhere in their career (maybe as
many as 20%).”
“Our CEO is an IE. More than 25%....”
“Relatively high. Most managers either come from technical background (engineering), or
from finance….”
5. How well is industrial engineering understood at your company?
Based on the respondents’ answers, industrial engineering is understood well at their
companies. “Well enough” was at 53% and “excellently” at 20%, with total combination for
those two areas as 73%.
6. How well is IE marketed at your company?
The industrial engineering profession is either marketed well or not at all as an equal number of
respondents (33%) were at both ends of this scale.
Confidential
Page 6
Oct. 2008
7. What are some of the strengths of the IE contributions to your company?
The following are in ranked position with the strength mentioned the most often at the top.
 Productivity/process/quality/performance improvement
 Problem solving skills
 Team thinker/cross functionally oriented
 Cost reduction
 Lean principles and/or tools
 Leadership skills
 Understand operational implications/strategic
Your comments include the following:
“Introducing lean principles and tools such as value stream mapping”
“Leadership skills - we are looked to provide leadership on cross functional initiatives.”
“ Finance/business skills - we are highly valued as neutral business analysts who understand the
operational implications.”
“Good project management skills. Several important IE projects have saved the company a lot of
money (or avoided costly errors). Excellent analysis provided in a variety of areas, often on short
notice. IE partners with everyone to help make a project team cross-functional. Great past
benchmarking studies. Significant role on supplier on-site visits (usually resolving delivery
problems).”
“IE is an integral part of our company. They are sought out in all areas as all engineering
disciplines.”
“Excellent communication skills, problem solving abilities, overall process orientation, leadership”
“Human factors is probably the strongest area”
8: What, if any, are weaknesses or areas for improvement in the way IEs are used at your
company?
Most comments split to the negative side of the equation. Here are the responses.
POSITIVE
“More LOBs could utilize us but we do not have the resources to support everyone.”
“(IEs are) the correlation to information flows, integration, components, architecture, data
design, and cross engineering understanding.”
NEGATIVE
“There is some feeling that IE as a function is not needed, that with a little training anybody in
the line organizations can do what we do (and would do it better).”
“Underleveraged advanced analytical tools such as minitab….”
“IE not visible as a profession.”
“New degreed IEs are often not challenged enough their first 1-2 years. They may be given
too much production control and status activity that keeps them from having time to learn how
to do process improvement projects. Limited marketing of the IE skills (within the company)
outside of the production areas. Most IE managers are not degreed IEs (most are business
majors), not sure how to best utilize the degreed IEs that report to them.”
Confidential
Page 7
Oct. 2008
“Could be used more for Lean”
“Business management still looks at business through a 'financial' lens, not a systems or
time-based lens.”
“Sometimes used to help people get things done because they know how to - but not always
the best use of their time. Not used as much in creative solutions. Often involved in too much
short term versus long term.”
“Viewed as a minimal commodity.”
9. How long do IEs typically stay at your company?
IEs typically stay longer than seven years at the respondents’ companies.
Category
Questions related to industry and the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE)
10. What can IIE do more of to help industry overall?
Here are your comments.

“Create workshop or webcast meeting among industrial leaders and academic world.”

“Insure that the IE profession is promoted to young people to encourage them to major in
industrial engineering. Advertise/Promote the benefits to the government and businesses.
Enlist IE's to solve the nation's healthcare crisis.”

“Continue to improve efforts to market IE to corporate America.”

“Increase visibility and establish relevancy to current vocational specialties (SSBB, Lean,
project management, supply chain mgmt, outsourcing, procurement, etc.).”

“Help focus more on industry issues, particularly at the IIE Conferences, and on many of
the IIE National Committees (most seem run by University Professors). Do more to
Market IEs and IIE (such as during National Engineers Week) and to large corporations.”

“Communicate the value of IEs. Still quite naive in the market”

“Enhance the image of the profession”

“Education in techniques”

“Keep the IE curriculum up to date and strong professors.”

“Promote the industry at universities and trade shows.”

“clarification of the benefits the role provides”

“innovate more in the healthcare industry, and support career paths to senior executive
positions”

“Continue to develop and promote the profession so that people value to skill sets of IE's”

“Market great examples of success.”
Confidential
Page 8
Oct. 2008
11. Does your company utilize the training that IIE provides?
Yes 53%; no 47%
Your comments:
Yes 53%; no 47%

“Not often, though. A few have taken the PE Exam refresher course; there is some
attendance at the annual conference.”

“Honestly, do not find that much value in it for our application’

“Pre- IIE Conference training and special adapted training (developed by IIE, specific for
our company) has been very helpful.”

“On an individual basis, not corporately”

“Intro to Health Care seminar”

“Most work and training is contracted out.”
12. Does your company pay for IIE annual dues?
Yes 67%; no 33%
Your comments:



“In recent years (last 2-3 years). Prior to that No, we paid our own dues.”
“…and SHS dues….”
“I've been doing this since the early to mid 90's.”
13. Does your company send your IEs to the IIE Conferences?
Yes 86%; no 14%
14. If so, do you frequently have presenters or panelists at the IIE Conferences?
Yes 71%; no 29%
Your comments:
 “Simulation Competition.”

“Not frequently enough, we should do more of it. Conference attendance is infrequent anytime the economy is bad, we don't even bother asking for permission to attend.”

“We could have more; but it can be challenging due to legal”

“Not "frequently", although I have recruited two quality-related managers to speak at the
OpEx Conference 2008.”

“We try to get about 8-10 presentations approved from our company (for the Solutions
portion of the Conference). We have a central person (with staff) that coordinates all of
our IIE Conf. presentation submittals (within the company - we have a fairly involved &
time consuming approval process with our Communications & Legal departments).”

“very infrequently”

“Breakthrough Management Group (BMG) does come / attend IIE conferences.”
Confidential
Page 9
Oct. 2008
15. Does your company support a local IIE chapter?
Yes 57%; no 43%
Your comments:
 “Individuals attend or are active in the local chapter, but there is no formal company
support.”
 “Although we could do more
 “Yes, sort of. We have a lot of local IIE Chapter members from our company, but the
company does little to help or promote the local IIE Chapter beyond what individuals do
for the chapter. The local chapter supports the IIE University chapter but our company
has no contact with the local IIE student chapter.”
 “Don't know”
 “we don't have a local chapter”
16. How balanced is IIE regarding industry focus vs. academic focus?
Fairly balanced
between
academic and
industry
33%
Too much
academic
influence
67%
17. Comment on your response to the prior question if you like.

“A lot of IE graduates go to work for financial sector - they lose their link with IIE once
they are in the banking industry.

“As a business leader, I have not interest in all of the research papers presented...maybe
I should, but I'm looking for practical advice”

“Fellow awards continue to be dominated by academia. IISE initiative pro feedback has
been dominated by academia and con feedback by industry.”

“Comment is to say that more pro-active involvement in current "non-manufacturing"
focus of American Business would help IIE regain relevancy.”

“The IIE conferences seem like two separate groups - and the research portion
dominates the solutions portion of the conf. The conference proceedings handout has a
tiny solutions section in the back of the handout. Most national committees seem run by
university professors.”

“it is not well understood in the market outside of manufacturing”

“Too much academic influence on the BOT, need to be more in touch with the
membership, which I expect is largely industry based”

“Many it is that the academic community is more involved.”
Confidential
Page 10
Oct. 2008
18. On a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being poor and 5 being best, how effective is IIE
Headquarters in providing services to your company?
Most respondents (47%) chose the middle ground on this question – neutral with 27% selecting
the highest rating of “satisfactory.”
50%
47%
45%
40%
35%
30%
27%
25%
20%
15%
10%
7%
5%
7%
0%
Poor
Fair
Neutral
Satisfactory
19. On a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being poor and 5 being best, how effective is IE
marketed by IIE?
A high number of respondents (40%) agree that IE is poorly marketed by IIE. Comments
offer some suggestions.
45%
40%
40%
35%
30%
25%
20%
20%
20%
20%
15%
10%
5%
0%
Poor
Confidential
Fair
Neutral
Page 11
Good
0%
Excellent
Oct. 2008
20. What could be improved? Here are your comments.













“Outreach beyond people already inside the profession.
“Focus on higher level communication; US World Reports, WSJ, etc.”
“More pro-active involvement in the current "non-manufacturing" (outsourced) base of
American Business would help IIE regain relevancy.”
“Need to Market IE beyond the IIE membership - to include more companies and more
senior executives.”
“Need to benchmark how other engineering societies market their professions.
May need to use an outside Marketing agency.”
“More active partnering with National Engineers Week groups (Discovery-E, JETS, &
ASEE). “
“Maybe let the IIE Fellows take this Marketing activity on, initially?”
“The reach and the message. Although we don't have an answer, we do need to modify
awareness of the profession”
“Other than my talking about it, IIE is not advertised that much inside the company”
“I'm a Lean practitioner and any education on team improvement, Lean accounting or
Lean thinking (systems thinking) would be very useful at the educational level.”
“more educational sessions / teleconferences / webinars outside of the Annual
Conference”
“I have heard examples of the "ball" being dropped.”
Confidential
Page 12
Oct. 2008
21. On a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being poor and 5 being best, how useful are IIE’s
publications?
Very useful
20%
Neutral
20%
Useful
60%
22. What could be improved?

“I prefer more practical articles.”

“More focus on more pro-active involvement in the current "non-manufacturing"
(outsourced) base of contemporary American Business.”

“Not sure how easy it is to do historical searches on past topics (from either IE magazine
or Industrial Management magazine online) - but that might be useful. I don't read the
publications regularly (due to time constraints at work and at home) - but I keep the
actual magazines around so I can do an occasional information search on past topics.
Over the years I have gone from regularly reading all articles (30 years ago), to scanning
all articles & reading some (20 years ago), to glancing at only a few articles (10 years
ago), to now only using magazines for informational searches, sporadically. However,
when I finally do read an entire article, it’s usually only those that are related to my
current projects. I regularly have access to over 10 major publications (some monthly,
some weekly, & some daily), plus daily Internet information through my company
(industry related newspaper articles) - so technical reading is a rare luxury these days.”

“IEs as it relate to other industries and disciplines outside of manufacturing. We do see
awareness in healthcare, but rarely finance, information systems, etc. “
Confidential
Page 13
Oct. 2008
Category
Questions related to industry and university IE departments
23. How are IEs at your company involved with a local University I.E. department?
Mark all that apply.
Most respondents actively participate in university events (54%) with a little over one-fifth (21%)
actively serving or (14%) partially serving on the university’s industry advisory board.
Active member
of a University’s
Industry
Advisory Board
21%
Other, please
specify
11%
Participate in
University
events (like:
Mock
Interviews,
Senior Design
Project
Judging)
54%
Attend
University
events
29%
Partially active
in a University’s
Industry
Advisory Board
14%
Your comments:

“Our Sr. IIE Chapter IEs work with Student IIE chapters”

“Faculty Members - We are a University”

“There are no IE programs near my employer.”
24. How is your company involved nationally with other I.E. Universities?
Financial support
 “Financial support regional conference.”
Recruiting efforts

“Only for recruiting….recruiting and mentoring through key academic advisors”

“Regular hiring events at many IE schools. Manager alumni visit their alma mater school
(usually a senior manager, not an IE manager). An active IE Summer Intern program
from many U.S. IE schools. Local company IEs usually on University's Industry Advisory
Board for many of our U.S facilities.”

“Recruiting and our IBM Academic Initiative in donation, monies and professors.
Research and training.”

“recruiting, hiring interns and full time”

“Via recruiting and special speaking opportunities, support for student conferences”
Other connections

“Only a little through some VP connections”

“Cooperate with other institutions in area”
Confidential
Page 14
Oct. 2008
25. How well are new IE graduates (BS, MS & PhD.) meeting your company’s
expectations? What could be improved? (This was an open-ended question.)
Positive

“Pretty well. Need all to have co-op experience...very helpful to not have to teach them
everything related to being employed”

“Meets or exceeds. Continue to improve communication and presentation skills. Also
finding some universities dropping core IE skills e.g. work measurement which we find
valuable.”

They do well once understood.

IEs meet the expectations well

Well trained in theory, lacking in hands on experience

Excellent!

more healthcare industry knowledge

In general, there has been an improvement in this area. Main issue is QUANTITY!!!
Needs improvement

“Unaware of any special hiring of IE's specific to "Tradition IE Roles".

“Most are OK - but require a lot of on-the-job training. Most new IEs have not had a very
useful Intern work experience (either not doing IE work while an Intern or did not Intern
anywhere). Weak at working as a Team and Project Management skills, and basic Time
Management skills. Often can take over two to three years to teach these basic skills to
newly hired IEs (regardless of which IE school they attended). “

“New IEs don't seem to apply their Senior Design Project learning experience very well,
to any new projects. “

“Sometimes a poor attitude can keep up to half of our new IE hires from being as
productive as they could be (not forming useful partnerships or collaborating enough on
their initial assignments). “

“Recent, significant problems with latest Gen. Y IEs wanting to "run before they know
how to walk" (many are not willing to take the time to learn enough basics and how we
build products to earn a promotion based on good project work - they want the promotion
given to them after some time spent on the job, whether they deserve a promotion or
not).”

“leadership skills”
This concludes the survey results document.
Confidential
Page 15
Oct. 2008