Engineering management

Engineering management is the application of engineering methods, tools, and techniques to business management systems. Engineering management is a career that brings together the technological problem-solving ability of engineering and the organizational, administrative, legal and planning abilities of management in order to oversee the operational performance of complex engineering-driven enterprises.
Universities offering bachelor degrees in engineering management typically have programs covering courses such as engineering management, project management, operations management, logistics, supply chain management, programming concepts, programming applications, operations research, engineering law, value engineering, quality control, quality assurance, six sigma, safety engineering, systems engineering, engineering leadership, accounting, applied engineering design, business statistics and calculus. A Master of Engineering Management and Master of Business Engineering are sometimes compared to a Master of Business Administration for professionals seeking a graduate degree as a qualifying credential for a career in engineering management.

History

is believed to have the oldest engineering management department, established as the School of Business Engineering in 1908. This was later called the Bachelor of Engineering in Engineering Management program and moved into the School of Systems and Enterprises. Syracuse University established the first graduate engineering management degree in the United States, which was first offered in 1957. In 1967 the first university department explicitly titled "Engineering Management" was founded at the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Inside the United States, other notable engineering management programs includes:

In 1959, Western Michigan University began offering the predecessor to the modern engineering management bachelor's degree and in 1977, Western Michigan University started its MS degree in Manufacturing Administration, later renamed as Engineering Management.
In 1998, University of Wisconsin–Madison established the predecessor to their online graduate engineering management degree.
Michigan Technological University began an Engineering Management program in the School of Business & Economics in the Fall of 2012.

Outside the United States, engineering management includes:

In Germany the first department concentrating on Engineering Management was established 1927 at the Technische Hochschule in Charlottenburg..
In Turkey the Istanbul Technical University has a Management Engineering Department established in 1982, offering a number of graduate and undergraduate programs in Management Engineering. In UK the University of Warwick has a specialised department WMG established in 1980, which offers a graduate programme in MSc Engineering Business Management.
In Canada, Memorial University of Newfoundland has started a complete master's degree Program in Engineering Management.
In Denmark, the Technical University of Denmark offers a MSc program in Engineering Management.
In Pakistan, University of Engineering and Technology, Taxila, University of Engineering and Technology, Lahore and National University of Science and Technology offer admission both at Master and Doctorate level in Engineering Management while Capital University of Science & Technology, NED University of Engineering & Technology, Karachi and Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology have been running a Master of Engineering/MS in Engineering Management program. A variant of this program is within Quality Management. COMSATS offers a MSc Project Management program to Local and Overseas Pakistanis as an on-campus/off-campus student.
In Poland, Warsaw University of Technology, Poznań University of Technology, WSB Merito University, Wrocław University of Science and Technology, Kielce University of Technology all offer first-cycle studies, with some of them also offering second-cycle studies.
In Italy, the first Engineering Management program was established in 1972 at the University of Calabria by Beniamino Andreatta. Politecnico di Milano offers degrees in Management Engineering., among many other public or private universities belonging to the same post-secondary academic degrees' classification.
In Morocco, École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Rabat offers an Engineering Management degree. The degree offered is referred to locally as Diplôme d'Ingénieur and is equivalent to Master level degree.
In Russia, since 2014 the Faculty of Engineering Management of The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration offers bachelor's and master's degrees in Engineering Management.
In France, the EPF will offer, from January 2018, a 2-year Engineering & Management major in English for the 4th and 5th years of its 5-year Engineering master's degree. The final two years are open to students who have completed an undergraduate engineering degree elsewhere.
Areas of practice

Engineering management is a broad field and can cover a wide range of technical and managerial topics. An important resource is the Engineering Management Body of Knowledge. The topics below are representative of typical topics in the field.

Leadership and organization management

and organization management are concerned with the skills involving positive direction of technical organizations and motivation of employees. Often a manager must shape engineering policy within an organization.

Operations, operations research, and supply chain

is concerned with designing and controlling the process of production and redesigning business operations in the production of goods or services. Operations research deals with quantitative models of complex operations and uses these models to support decision-making in any sector of industry or public services. Supply chain management is the process of planning, implementing and managing the flow of goods, services and related information from the point of origin to the point of consumption.

Engineering law

and the related statutes are critical to management practice and engineering. Engineering legislation makes engineering a controlled activity and an engineering manager must know which statutes apply to their practice. Codes of ethics can be enshrined in law. Professional misconduct and negligence are defined in law. An engineering manager must be licensed as an engineer and may have engineers, technicians and natural scientists reporting to her or him. Understanding how licensed engineers supervise non-licensed technicians and natural scientists is critical to safe practice.
An engineering manager must always use engineering legislation to push back against schedule pressure or budget pressure to ensure public safety.

Management of technology

Introducing and utilizing new technology is a major route to cost reduction and quality improvement in production engineering.
The management of technology theme builds on the foundation of management topics in accounting, finance, economics, organizational behavior and organizational design. Courses in this theme deal with operational and organizational issues related to managing innovation and technological change.

New product development and product engineering

is the complete process of bringing a new product to market. Product engineering refers to the process of designing and developing a device, assembly, or system such that it be produced as an item for sale through some production manufacturing process. Product engineering usually entails activity dealing with issues of cost, producibility, quality, performance, reliability, serviceability, intended lifespan and user features. Project management techniques are used to manage the design and development progress using the phase-gate model in the product development process. Design for manufacturability is the general engineering art of designing products in such a way that they are easy to manufacture.

Systems engineering

is an interdisciplinary field of engineering and engineering management that focuses on how to design and manage complex systems over their life cycles.

Industrial engineering

is a branch of engineering which deals with the optimization of complex processes, systems or organizations. Industrial engineers work to eliminate waste of time, money, materials, man-hours, machine time, energy and other resources that do not generate value.

Management science

uses various scientific research-based principles, strategies, and analytical methods including mathematical modeling, statistics and numerical algorithms to improve an organization's ability to enact rational and meaningful management decisions by arriving at optimal or near optimal solutions to complex decision problems.

Engineering design management

Engineering design management represents the adaptation and application of customary management practices, with the intention of achieving a productive engineering design process. Engineering design management is primarily applied in the context of engineering design teams, whereby the activities, outputs and influences of design teams are planned, guided, monitored and controlled.

Human factors safety culture

Critical to management success in engineering is the study of human factors and safety culture involved with highly complex tasks within organizations large and small. In complex engineering systems, human factors safety culture can be critical in preventing catastrophe and minimizing the realized hazard rate. Critical areas of safety culture are minimizing blame avoidance, minimizing power distance, an appropriate ambiguity tolerance and minimizing a culture of concealment. Increasing organizational empathy and an ability to clearly report problems up the chain of management is important to the success of any engineering program.
Managing an engineering firm is in opposition to the management of a law firm. Law firms keep secrets while engineering firms succeed when information is deiminated clearly and quickly. Engineering managers must push against a culture of concealment which may be promoted by the law department.
Managers in an engineering firm must be ready to push back against schedule and budget constraints from the executive suite. Engineering managers must use engineering law to push back against the executive suite to ensure public safety. The executive suite in an engineering organization can become consumed with financial data imperiling public safety.