Engineering management

Ron Diftler (left), NASA Robonaut manager assisting in a Robonaut familiarization training session in the Space Environment Simulation Laboratory at NASA's Johnson Space Center.

Engineering Management or Management Engineering is a specialized form of management and engineering that is concerned with the application of engineering principles to business practice. Engineering Management is a career that brings together the technological problem-solving savvy of engineering and the organizational, administrative, and planning abilities of management in order to oversee complex enterprises from conception to completion.

Example areas of engineering are product development, manufacturing, construction, design engineering, industrial engineering, technology, production, or any other field that employs personnel who perform an engineering function.

Successful engineering managers typically require training and experience in business and engineering. Technically inept managers tend to be deprived of support by their technical team, and non-commercial managers tend to lack commercial acumen to deliver in a market economy. Largely, engineering managers manage engineers who are driven by non-entrepreneurial thinking, thus require the necessary people skills to coach, mentor and motivate technical professionals. Engineering professionals joining manufacturing companies sometimes become engineering managers by default after a period of time. They are required to learn how to manage once they are on the job, though this is usually an ineffective way to develop managerial abilities.

History

Departments

The first university department titled "Engineering Management" was founded at the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T, formerly the University of Missouri-Rolla) in 1967. Stevens Institute of Technology is believed to have the oldest EM department, established as the School of Business Engineering in 1908. This was later called the Bachelor of Engineering in Engineering Management (BEEM) program and moved into the School of Systems and Enterprises. Outside the USA, Istanbul Technical University has a Management Engineering Department established in 1982, offering a number of graduate and undergraduate programs in Management Engineering.

Education

Engineering Management programs typically include instruction in accounting, economics, finance, project management, systems engineering, mathematical modeling and optimization, management information systems, quality control & six sigma, operations research, human resources management, industrial psychology, safety and health.

There are many options for entering into engineering management, albeit that the foundation requirement is an engineering degree (or other computer science, mathematics or science degree) and a business degree.

Undergraduate Degrees

Although most engineering management programs are geared for graduate studies, there are a few elite institutions that teach EM at the undergraduate level. Some of the ones that are accredited and/or recognized by ASEM include: WestPoint (United States Military Academy), Stevens Institute of Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, George Washington University. Graduates of these programs regularly command nearly $65,000 their first year out of school .

Outside the USA, Istanbul Technical University Management Engineering Department offers an elite undergraduate degree in Management Engineering, attracting top students. The University of Waterloo offers a 4-year undergraduate degree (5 years including co-op education) in the field of Management Engineering. This is the first program of its kind in Canada.

Graduate Degrees

Missouri S&T is credited with awarding the first Ph.D. in Engineering Management in 1984. The National Institute of Industrial Engineering based in Mumbai has been awarding degrees in the field of Post Graduate Diploma in Industrial Engineering since 1973 and the Fellowship (Doctoral) degrees have been awarded since 1980.

Istanbul Technical University Management Engineering Department offers a graduate degree, and a Ph.D. degree in Management Engineering.

According to the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE) PRISM Magazine (March 2008) the largest Master's of Engineering Management (MEM) programs (in terms of degrees awarded for 2005 -2006) are shown in the following chart.

Engineering management consultants

As engineering firms are usually small partnerships, they cannot afford in-house management, therefore giving rise to the need for engineering management consultancy. It involves providing management consulting advice that is specific to engineering. Indifferent from the traditional focus of the Boston Consulting Group and McKinsey, science and engineering requires a particularly holistic approach involving art and science. There are many branches of engineering management consultancy (commerce), including law, accounting, human resources, marketing, politics, economics, finance, public affairs, and communication. Commonly, engineering management consultants are also used when firms require special technical knowledge, though many prefer to use engineering educational consultants for such a task, to upgrade organizational knowledge and in able to keep the intellectual property confidential. Though many firms opt to use traditional management consulting firms, many lack the know-how to tailor the traditional theories to accommodate technical workers.

Professional organizations

There are a number of societies and organizations dedicated to the field of engineering management. One of the largest societies is a division of IEEE, the Engineering Management Society, which regularly publishes a trade magazine. Another prominent professional organization in the field is the American Society of Engineering Management (ASEM), which was founded in 1979 by a group of 20 engineering managers from industry. ASEM currently certifies engineering managers (two levels) via the Associate Engineering Manager (AEM) or Professional Engineering Manager (PEM) certifiaction exam. The Master of Engineering Management Programs Consortium is a newly formed consortium of prominent universities intended to raise the value and visibility of the MEM degree. Also, engineering management university programs have the possibility of being accredited by ABET or ATMAE.

See also

• Engineering law
• Remote laboratory
• Management Engineering
• Master of Engineering Management
• List of engineering topics
• List of management topics
• Industrial Engineering
• Association of Technology, Management, and Applied Engineering

Further reading

• Eric T-S. Pan|Pan, Eric T-S. Perpetual Business Machines: Principles of Success for Technical Professionals ISBN 0-9754480-0-5

External links

• Engineering Management Review - A Publication of the IEEE
• IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management Journal