Analysis of Industrial Engineering in South China University of Technology
Jian-jun Yu, Wen-hui Zhou, Yu-ting Shu
School of Business Administration, South China University of Technology, Guangzhou, China
(yujj@scut.edu.cn)
Abstract - South China University of Technology
performs some new experiments in industrial engineering
education and obtains some effectiveness, and these
experiences can provide reference for other universities. In
the paper, industrial engineering characteristic is
introduced, and industrial engineering education is
analyzed. Demand analysis and importance evaluation of
industrial engineering are performed. Competition ability of
industrial engineering is analyzed. Industrial engineering
employment data of South China University of Technology
are collected, and the reasons for good employment are
analyzed. Analysis results show that education innovation
can improve industrial engineering of South China
University of Technology.
Keywords
- Industrial engineering,
innovation, demand, competition ability
education
I. INTRODUCTION
Industrial engineering comes from the scientific
management of Taylor, and is one of seven engineering
subjects of America. Industrial engineering has also been
paid attention to by education world and industry world in
China. The demand for industrial engineering rapidly
increases. In order to form the characteristic of South
China University of Technology (SCUT) for industrial
engineering and to reinforce the competition ability of
industrial engineering student of SCUT, SCUT
implements some exploration for industrial engineering
and obtains some results. In order to improve industrial
engineering education, it’s necessary to analyze the
industrial engineering of SCUT. In the last few years,
some scholars have researched industrial engineering.
Hu[1] summarized the formation and development of
industrial engineering subject. Qi and Wang [2] reviewed
the development of industrial engineering in China and
put forward the new concept about CIE. Luo [3] analyzed
the application trend of industrial engineering and
summarized four characteristics of industrial engineering.
Lu [4] established box of knowledge for industrial
engineering. Chen [5] analyzed the industrial engineering
internationalization of Huazhong University of Science
and Technology. Wang and Guo[6] put forward innovative
teaching method for industrial engineering. Sun[7]
analyzed industrial engineering of Georgia Institute of
Technology. Ding[8] analyzed the practice teaching of
industrial engineering and illuminated its importance.
Xue[9] proposed to build a kind of practical teaching
system of the surface-point-surface mode oriented to
industrial engineering talents. Du[10] studied the case of
Shanghai Ocean University and put forward the
construction thinking and content of the innovation
practice base.
II. DEMAND ASCERTAIN
Firstly, status about industrial engineering of ten
representative universities in China is collected, which
include Tsinghua university, Tianjing university, Xian
Jiaotong University, Shanghai Jiaotong University,
Chongqing University, Sichuan University, Zhejiang
University, Nanjing University, Nanjing University of
Aeronautics
and
Astronautics
and
Northwest
Polytechnical University. Here, five universities of them
establish industrial engineering specialty in mechanical
school, and the other five universities of them establish
industrial engineering specialty in management school.
The students in mechanical school pay more attention to
cultivating practice ability of engineering. They are
accomplished in engineering drawing, principle of
mechanics, and related courses, but lack economic and
management knowledge. The students in management
school pay more attention to cultivating management
skills and humanism accomplishment, but ignore
mechanical technologies. Secondly, status about industrial
engineering of Hong Kong university of Science and
Technology, Michigan University, Purdue University,
Georgia Institute of technology. They have special
engineering school. In these universities, industrial
engineering is a big branch of engineering, and mainly
cultivated talents for manufacture before, and now pay
attention to basic theory teaching includes physics,
mathematics and operational research. They are not like
engineering, and not like management, but like natural
science. Industrial engineering belongs to inter discipline
of technology and management, which requires students
to have solid engineering base and master modern
economic and management knowledge and industrial
engineering theories.
Table 1 Industrial engineering of representative universities in China
No University name
Subjection school
1
Tsinghua university
Engineering
2
Tianjing university
Management
3
Xian Jiaotong University
Management
4
Shanghai Jiaotong University
Engineering
5
Chongqing University
Engineering
6
Sichuan University
Management
7
Zhejiang University
Engineering
8
Nanjing University
Management
9
Nanjing University of Aeronautics and
Astronautics
Northwest Polytechnical University
Management
Hong Kong university of Science and
Technology
Engineering
10
11
Engineering
12
Michigan University
Engineering
13
Purdue University
Engineering
14
Georgia Institute of technology
Engineering
The intercommunion with teachers of industrial
engineering department in SCUT is finished, and their
opinion about SCUT industrial engineering development
is obtained. They think that students should participate in
the teaching actively, or else teaching effectiveness can’t
be guaranteed no matter how teachers teach hard.
Teachers hope that excellent undergraduates continue to
study as graduate student in industrial engineering
department of SCUT, even to study as doctor candidate,
so they hope that these students can master the basic
knowledge in undergraduate phase, especially the ability
of modeling and programming. Graduate students need
read lots of English paper, so teachers hope that these
students have good information retrieval ability and
English ability.
The conversation with in industrial engineering
undergraduates and the students of other specialty is
finished. The conversation are involved with many
questions, for example, what will you do? What work will
you look for? What abilities should you think industrial
engineer have? What do you think you lack in
undergraduate phase? What aspects do you think SCUT
and school do well? What aspects do you think SCUT and
school do badly? What courses do you think very
important? How will you run industrial engineering if you
are dean of industrial engineering department? By the
conversation with undergraduates, detailed demand of
students is obtained which are very useful for industrial
engineering development. In students’ opinion, industrial
engineering specialty can provide students with platform
of self-fulfillment, and they can enhance integrative
ability by industrial engineering learning. They hope that
they can study easily and have much free time. They hope
that there are some selective professional courses and
general selective courses, for example history, geography,
law. They also hope that there are teachers to guide them
and help banish the perplexed psychology.
At the other hand, the communion with employers is
implemented, and some information about employment
demand is obtained. For example, operation department of
Sinotrans Guangdong Co., Ltd recruits logistics modeling
analyst, and the job content includes analysis and design
of logistics supply chain system, analysis and design of
decision aided system, evaluation and application of news
technology, optimization of support system, implement,
operation, management and control of solution. The job
requires that the candidate can use data analysis software
to collect and analyze the data, and can use logistics
software and simulation software to configure and
optimize the net resource of logistics supply chain system.
In addition, the communion with parents of students is
implemented, and some useful information is obtained.
They hope that the pressure to student from school isn’t
too large and their children can grow up healthily and
happily. They require the school to ensure the safe of
students. They hope that teachers teach students in real
earnest, and impart useful knowledge as much as possible.
Their intense hope is that their children can obtain ideal
job after graduation.
III. DEMAND ANALYSIS AND IMPORTANCE
EVALUATION
All kinds of demand about industrial engineering
graduate are collected. The demand includes graduate
quality demand, for example, the government requires
that the students have sense of social responsibility, and
employer requires that the students have good skills for
work. The demand also includes teaching system demand,
for example, students require that teachers can show the
course emphases effectively. The demand also includes
teaching condition demand. The demand is analyzed and
filtered, and some mainly demand is distinguished.
 intense sense of social responsibility
 good ideology and morality
 competent for job
 powerful learn ability
 adapt work environment
 have creative mind
 active involvement in class
 have advanced study potentiality
 obtain ideal job
 access to good university
 business establish potentiality
 happiness
Here, intense sense of social responsibility and good
ideology and morality originate from the government
demand. Competent for job, powerful learn ability and
adapt work environment are demand of employer.
Creative mind, active involvement in class and advanced
study potentiality originate from the teacher demand.
Obtaining ideal job, access to good university, business
establish potentiality and happiness are student demand.
Then questionnaire is designed based on the above
demand, and distributed to teacher and students of
industrial engineering. Students include junior, senior,
Grade 1 graduate student, Grade 2 graduate student. 100
questionnaires are distributed in total, and 78
questionnaires are taken back. Because some student have
prejudice, and fill in questionnaires freely, so there are
only 52 valid questionnaires. The score of different
persons in same item is totaled up, and subtotal score is
obtained. Then the subtotal score is normalized and the
weight is obtained. Namely, every subtotal score is
divided by total score. Weight is the importance degree of
demand. The statistical result is Table 2.
Object
Government
Table 2 Demand statistical result
Demand
Subtotal
score
intense sense of social
123
responsibility
good ideology and morality
123
weight
0.085
0.085
Employer
Teacher
Student
competent for job
125
0.087
powerful learn ability
133
0.092
adapt work environment
127
0.088
have creative mind
125
0.087
active involvement in class
100
0.069
have advanced study
potentiality
obtain ideal job
115
0.080
124
0.086
access to good university
117
0.081
business establish potentiality
110
0.076
happiness
120
0.083
1442
1.000
Statistical result shows that powerful learn ability
gains maximal score, and its score is 133. Its weight is
0.092, and this indicates that powerful learn ability is the
most important demand. Teacher and students often
emphasis that university is the place to cultivate the learn
ability and the most important ability for student is the
learn ability. Society changes from minute to minute
nowadays, and science and technology updates rapidly.
It’s the person who has powerful learning ability that can
adapt the society. Adapting work environment gains
second score. Every student will be faced with looking for
job, so it’s reasonable for adapting work environment to
become important. Adapting work environment requires
university paying attention to practice teaching, and
cultivating students’ operation ability and the ability of
solving problem. Being competent for job and having
creative mind both rank the third. Being competent for job
has similar reason to adapting work environment to gain
the high score, and they all require that undergraduate
education should pay attention to cultivating the practice
ability of student. Having creative mind has similar reason
to powerful learn ability to gain the high score. Active
involvement in class ranks last. And the reasons maybe
include: firstly, questionnaire object is mainly students,
and they don’t want to bring forward too many demands
for themselves. Secondly, the students which transfer into
industrial engineering from other specialties have
generally powerful learning ability, and won’t spend lots
of time on the theoretical knowledge which is regarded as
detaching reality by the students. Thirdly, the teachers pay
less attention to teaching than research and prepare the
lesson deficiently, and accordingly their lessons are
tedious and students won’t listen to the teacher in class
positively.
IV. COMPETITION ABILITY ANALYSIS
Based on demand analysis, market orientation is
planned for new specialty. More consultation and
investigation are performed. The level of SCUT industrial
engineering is compared with other universities.
Satisfaction degree of new specialty to every kind of
demand is analyzed, and market competition ability of
SCUT industrial engineering, improved industrial
engineering and other universities is obtained. Firstly,
adopt expert marking method to evaluate satisfaction
degree to every kind of demand of Tsinghua university,
Xian Jiaotong University and SCUT industrial
engineering, then every score multiply by the
corresponding weight, and the summarized result is just
market competition ability. The calculation matrix is as
following Table.
Table 3 Calculation matrix of market competition ability
Demand
intense sense of social
responsibility
good ideology and morality
weight
Tsinghua university
Xian Jiaotong University
SCUT
improved
0.085
4
4
4
4
0.085
4
4
4
4
competent for job
0.087
3
3
3
3
powerful learn ability
0.092
5
3
4
4
adapt work environment
0.088
4
4
3
5
have creative mind
0.087
5
4
3
5
active involvement in class
0.069
5
4
3
3
have advanced study
potentiality
obtain ideal job
0.080
5
4
3
4
0.086
5
4
4
5
access to good university
0.081
5
4
3
4
business establish potentiality
0.076
4
4
5
5
happiness
0.083
3
3
4
4
4.325
3.738
3.585
4.181
competition ability
V. EMPLOYMENT ANALYSIS
of
Industrial engineering graduates of SCUT master lots
both engineering technology and management
knowledge, and have good organization ability and
cooperation ability. They win the favor of overseasfunded enterprises, joint-venture enterprises and largescale state-owned enterprises. Employment range of
industrial engineering graduates of SCUT is extensive.
They are competent for the industrial engineer, the
manufacture engineer, the system engineer, the quality
engineer, logistics engineer and manager in the
manufacturing enterprise and the service industry, and
2006 class
2007class
they can also become the civil servant, the manager and
the consultant in the government or the consultant
corporation. First and second period students of industrial
engineering (2+2+2) had graduated successfully, and their
graduate states are as follows.
TABLE 4 GRADUATE STATES OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING (2+2+2)
Postgraduate
Study-abroad
State-owned
Overseas-funded
recommendation
enterprise
enterprise
53%
16%
19%
12%
63%
3%
9%
25%
The employment statistical data show that student
employment of industrial engineering is better than
student employment of other specialties. Most of
industrial engineering students continue to study for
further education, and some students get admitted to
famous universities overseas. Other students obtain good
employment, and every student gets several employment
offers generally. Finally these students all enter into large
scale national enterprises or well-known foreign
companies, and their salary is high. Industrial engineering
employment is analyzed, and the reasons for good
employment are summarized. Satisfactory employment is
because of these reasons as follows.
(1) Industrial engineering characteristic
Industrial engineering is the doctor for enterprise
which can solve many problems for enterprise. Industrial
engineering can diagnose enterprise problem and find the
bottleneck, and accordingly adopt scientific methods to
solve the problem. Industrial engineering can increase the
production efficiency, improve the product quality, reduce
product cost and increase benefit for enterprise. As the big
manufacture country, China has lots of manufacture
enterprises, and most of these enterprises are not excellent
and their management level is low. But most enterprises
start to pay attention to industrial engineering and have
strong interest and demand for industrial engineering.
However, industrial engineering starts late in China, and
industrial engineering education period is less than 20
years. So China is short of industrial engineering talent
now.
(2) Industrial engineering evolvement
As the vigorous subject, industrial engineering
develops continually. The industrial engineering of Taylor
period 100 years ago mainly aims at manufacture and
industrial engineering graduate mainly enter into
manufacture enterprise. With the ceaseless expansion of
industrial engineering, industrial engineering has
extended to service industry. In the last few years, service
industry pay attention to industrial engineering very much
and many service enterprises recruit industrial
engineering graduate. Hence industrial engineering
graduates may enter into aviation enterprise, bank,
telecom enterprise, post system.
(3) Industrial engineering difference between China and
other countries
Industrial engineering originated in America and has
the long history with more than 100 years. Other
developed countries, for example Japan, also develop
industrial engineering early. But industrial engineering
starts in China very late. In 90s of last century, Xi’an
Jiaotong University and Tianjin University begin to make
experiment for industrial engineering education. The time
difference results in large gap of industrial engineering
level between China and other countries, especially, the
gap in industrial engineering education is larger.
Industrial engineering education level of universities in
America and other developed countries is higher greatly
than that in China. This makes many students hope to
study further industrial engineering overseas.
(4) Geographical location of Perl River Delta region
Perl River Delta region is the manufacture center of
not only China but also the whole world. All kinds of
manufacture enterprises are located in Perl River Delta
region. Most of these enterprises still adopt traditional and
simple management methods, and there are big spaces for
improvement in production cost, quality, time and other
aspects, so these enterprises urgently need industrial
engineering talent. Especially, there are many Taiwan
fund enterprises in Perl River Delta region, for example,
Foxconn. These Taiwan fund enterprises pay attention to
industrial engineering very much, and recruit industrial
engineering talent very year. SCUT is located in core of
Perl River Delta region, and industrial engineering
graduate of SCUT has more opportunity to work in wellknown enterprise naturally.
(5) Industrial engineering education innovation of SCUT
Industrial engineering is inter-discipline which is
involved with both technology and management.
Industrial engineering requires student to master the
knowledge and technology of both technology and
management. The object of industrial engineering is to
cultivate the inter-disciplinary talent. Under the advocacy
and proposal of Pro, Xu Xuejun and substantial support of
many aspects, SCUT adopts innovative education mode
for industrial engineering, and implements industrial
engineering (2+2+2) strategy. Some excellent second
grade students with science specialty are selected to enter
into school of business administration to study industrial
engineering. Thus both the skill of engineering and the
knowledge of management can be taken into account. On
the other hand, these students are selected from many
candidates, so they are relatively excellent. In addition,
they transform from original specialty to industrial
engineering midway, and they perform the acquaintance
and analysis in advance, so they are more rational than
high school graduate who select industrial engineering.
Most of these students like industrial engineering really
and truly, and are fit for industrial engineering. In this
way, the comprehensive quality of industrial engineering
will be excellent, and the employment ability will be
powerful.
VI. CONCLUSION
Finally, Industrial engineering is an emerging subject
in China, and industrial engineering education is still in
explore phase. South China University of Technology
performs some new experiment in industrial engineering
education and obtains some effectiveness, and these
experiences can provide reference for other universities.
In the paper, industrial engineering is introduced, and
industrial engineering education is analyzed. Industrial
engineering demand is analyzed, and the significance of
all kinds of demands is ascertained. Competition abilities
of industrial engineering of South China University of
Technology and other several well-known universities are
analyzed. Industrial engineering employment data of
South China University of Technology is collected, and
the reasons for good employment are analyzed.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
This project is supported by the cooperation project
of industry, education and academy about undergraduate
education of South China University of Technology;
teaching research project of South China University of
Technology; quality engineering project about
undergraduate teaching of school business administration;
excellent course project; student research plan of South
China University of Technology.
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