The William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering & Management at the Technion

The William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering & Management at the Technion is the oldest suchdepartment in Israel. The department is currently headed by [Prof. Boaz Golany] [http://ie.technion.ac.il/Home/Users/golany0.html] and is based in the Cooper and Bloomfield buildings at Technion City. The department employs 54 faculty members, who in 2006 served a total of 600 graduate and 1000 undergraduate students.

History

IE&M (Industrial Engineering & Management) was launched as a Technion academic Department in 1958. The Department grew under the visionary leadership of the late Professor Pinchas Naor, who served as its founding Dean. In a more traditional disciplinary model, which is still quite common today, Industrial Engineering (IE), which is typically associated with an engineering school, is separated from management programs that are taught in business schools. In contrast, Naor's vision was to combine IE with management by creating a large, inherently multi-disciplinary unit covering a wide spectrum of activities, from applied engineering to mathematical modeling; from economics and behavioral sciences to operations research and statistics. He saw all of these areas, and more, working in harmony to produce graduates who would form a highly skilled managerial elite for Israeli industry, as well as graduates who would pursue research careers to further enrich the academic community from which they graduated.

Academics

Undergraduate degree programs

The IE&M faculty offers three programs of study towards the undergraduate degree. 1.Industrial Engineering and ManagementIndustrial engineers plan and manage complicated systems in industry (both manufacturing and services) utilizing sophisticated planning and operational tools. Their activities include the building of models, their testing and application, with relation to engineering, operational, economics and human factors. This program include courses in the exact sciences, in management sciences, and in the engineering of computerized systems with the goal of training industrial engineers to provide them with the knowledge and tools which will allow:
*Professional functioning in a wide range of industrial organizations and services in Israel.
*Continued professional development in the changing environment of technological knowledge and needs of society.All of this is accomplished with attention to professional ethics and social responsibility.Three main areas of study are offers from which each student chooses one:
*"Manufacturing and Services Systems Engineering." Provides expertise in these areas, with emphasis on current issues such as supply chain management, engineering of service systems, plant layout and location, capacity planning, revenue management and more.
*"Enterprise Information System Engineering." Emphasizes the aspect of information technology and its use in the varied areas of industrial engineering and management. This area of concentration trains students in the use of basic computer science tools (databases and algorithms, internet systems) and system analysis. Here too, special emphasis is put on advance subjects such as management of organizations – customer relations, electronic commerce and knowledge management.
*"Economics." The planning, evaluation and marketing aspects of economics systems associated with the various areas in industrial engineering and management are explored. 2.Information Systems Engineering
Information systems engineers participate in the planning and establishment of computer-based systems, coupled with organizational processes and operations. They mist have a deep knowledge of the system side, as well as the organizational and human aspects, to function well in the areas of information technology. They must also be versed in methods of operations and planning of information systems. This programs is offered jointly with the faculty of Computer Science, and students in this program are well trained in the basic computer sciences, as well as gaining expertise in the area of information systems (system analysis, databases and more). 3.Economics and ManagementEconomists, graduate in the Faculty of IE&M, work in the areas of planning, evaluation, and management of economic systems in the private and public sectors, making use of their knowledge an understanding of all aspects connected with these activities. They have the ability to analyze and to make predictions regarding of all business systems under various assumptions. Their training allows them to be employed in both the private and public sectors, and to formulate and analyze policies through the understanding of organizational, economic, and human influences, and with regard to the special conditions of the open economy during periods of growth. Economics and Management studies at the Technion provide students with wide range of knowledge in the profession, and the tools to apply this knowledge towards solving the economic problems of industry.

Graduate Programs

The IE&M faculty offers five research and two non-research graduate programs:1.Information Management Engineering:The graduate program in Information Management Engineering, in designed to provide the knowledge needed by today's and tomorrow's professionals for understanding and developing intelligent and complex information systems with emphasis on the technological-engineering side. The program emphasizes research and focuses on development, implementation and evaluation of methodologies in the areas of systems and software engineering, system analysis, database, artificial intelligence, game theory, computer graphics and vision, communication and distributed systems. These research areas constitute the infrastructure for building the necessary technologies and tools for developing technologically innovation and fundamentally advanced information systems.

2.Economics and Finance:This program offers Master and Ph. D. degrees in Economics. It focuses on the quantitative/technological aspects of economics. The program enables the students to participate in elective courses in related areas within the faculty of Industrial Engineering and Management.

3.Operation research (OR) and System Analysis:This research area deals with building mathematical models of decision-making processes, development of mathematical techniques and algorithms for processing the models, and applications of the resulting techniques and algorithms in engineering, finance, management, medicine, service systems, and more. OR is extremely rich theoretically and covers a very wide spectrum of applications. As a result, with a good OR background, one is well prepared to succeed in academia and beyond.

4.Behavioral Science and Management:The purpose of this program is to give students advanced training in scientific theory, methodology and applications related to behavior of individuals at work, as well as social behavior in industrial systems and in formal organizations. The program deals with various aspects of integrating the human operator with engineering systems.This program has two basic options:
*"Industrial Psychology (limited to students with a degree in psychology):" Within this option there are two areas of specialization: "Industrial and Organizational Psychology" and "Human-Factors Engineering". The program confers the degree os Master of Science in Behavioral and Management Sciences – Industrial Psychology.
*"Labor Relations and Personnel Management:" This option prepares students for both academic and practical work in function of managing human resources in an organization. The program confers the degree of Master of Science in Behavioral and Management Sciences – Industrial Relations and Manpower Administration.

5.Industrial Engineering (IE):The graduate program in Industrial Engineering (IE) offers both M.Sc. and Ph. D. degrees. The program is designed to prepare both for academics and professional careers. IE covers a wide spectrum of areas and the program reflects this fact. These areas include supply chain management, project management, plant layout, operations management, material handling, and service engineering.To facilitate research in these areas, the program offers a broad theoretical background in problem-solving tools. The ability to apply these tools to the IE enables students to succeed in their research theses and their chosen profession after graduation

MBA:The faculty of IE&M offers a Master of Business Administration (MBA) program with many advantages and unique characteristics, including the building of a strong foundation in all aspects of high-tech business administration and the opportunity to choose from a variety of electives. This, combined with an excellent academic faculty and world-class lecturers from the Israeli and international high-tech industries, provides the students with an intellectually stimulating environment where they can prepare to become the next generation of management professionals.

M.E.:The faculty of IE&M offers MASTER in Engineering (ME) in which students can specialize in various areas of study.

External links

* [http://www.technion.ac.il Technion - Israel Institution of Technology]
* [http://ie.technion.ac.il The William Davidson Faculty of Industrial Engineering & Management at the Technion]
* [http://iew3.technion.ac.il/MBA/ MBA Program]