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Industrial Engineering in the Industry of the Future

By Pedro García - Industrial Cluster of Aguascalientes
President

STORY INLINE POST

By Pedro Gracia González | President - Tue, 01/17/2023 - 10:00

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To understand the role that industrial engineering needs to adopt as a profession with a vision of the  future, let's reflect on two important challenges for companies: the human side and the financial. 

The UN does well to share with us global challenges, of which it lists 24. There are four that catch my attention: water, food, climate change and health. 

Water consumption: Eighty percent of wastewater returns to the ecosystem without being treated or reused  (UNESCO, 2017). 

Food supply: Around 660 million people could suffer from hunger in 2030, partly due to the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on global food security (FAO 2021). 

Climate change: In 2019, greenhouse gas concentrations reached new highs. Carbon dioxide levels were 148 percent of pre-industrial levels (WMO 2020). 

Health: The world's population is not only living longer; it is living healthier. Life expectancy and healthy life expectancy (HALE) increased by more than 8 percent globally between 2000 and 2016, and continue to be deeply influenced by income (WHO 2020). 

In the financial sector, I would list four challenges to implementing financial management that maintains profitability. 

Customer service: Customer service and attention are becoming more competitive given the available technology. 

Uncertainty about the future: Using a wealth of globally available information, strategic plans become more detailed and innovative. 

Compliance with regulations and standards: Social responsibility plays a fundamental role in caring for and supporting the ecosystem where business operations are carried out. 

Human capital: It is essential to attract, recruit and develop a work team that allows a company to be generationally sustainable. 

Analyzing data from the World Economic Forum presents us with an interesting panorama where we observe how new technologies are playing an important role in society. 

The projections are that by 2025, 10 percent of people will wear clothes connected to the internet; 5 percent of  consumer products will be made using 3D printers; and the US will see its  first pharmacy robot US,  to mention some impacts on society. 

Today, in the healthcare sector, long-distance surgeries are already being performed, assisted by a  robotic system. In the agro-industrial sector, we see the use of drones for fertilization, or electronic applications for the rational use of water, such as the analysis of humidity in the field are being applied. 

Applied industrial engineering is evolving with the use of technology, which will allow us to potentiate  the methods used to optimize processes, not only manufacturing, but also administrative, where the combination of human capital, materials, finance, and administration becomes the whole to be competitive, productive, and profitable. This with the potential applied to any sector, such as manufacturing, health, agro-industrial, financial and energy.  

As clear examples in the manufacturing sector, the use of virtual reality can help  develop more precise layouts, seeking to optimize spaces, identifying risk or ergonomic conditions, optimal routes, etc. Or in the technical support area, where a person located in one region of the world can use virtual reality glasses to help another person to repair  production equipment or fine-tune a  manufacturing process, without requiring it to be done in person. In another example, during the training  process, a technical expert can train four people at a time in how to operate a machine, located in four plants in different parts of the world thousands of kilometers away, and that with the use  of technology can perform their training in their language. All at the same time, in four different places, with five different languages, and without having to be in the same place. A great positive environmental, social and financial impact. 

With all of the above global challenges, business and technological trends, any company in any sector undoubtedly needs to continue optimizing processes, reducing margins of error, efficiently use energy resources and raw materials, seek safety and ergonomics in activities, and increase profitability and productivity. 

This is where the question arises: What is the future of industrial engineering in the industry of the future? 

Industrial engineers have to learn to analyze robotics and automation, live with it, understand the timing and movements of these systems, find wasted time, organize it with 5's, and understand safety and ergonomics to keep people active and in optimal condition. 

Industrial engineers must also develop skills that allow the analysis of large amounts of information, known as big data and that can cause paralysis by analysis, and take time to make a decision or focus on trying to understand a whole world of data. 

Undoubtedly, industrial engineering will play an important role in the world in the optimization of  natural resources, such as water, in making the food sector productive without increasing the areas for  cultivation or cattle raising, and finding precision and speed in surgical processes, among others. 

Today, industrial engineering has to lay the foundations of knowledge, working with artificial intelligence at the level of reactive machines, and machines with limited memory. 

For the moment, the focus will be on the industrial engineering of big data.

Photo by:   Pedro Garcia

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