Industrial Engineering plays a vital role in the world economy but has reached a critical transition point. Advances in technology (e.g., computing & communication) now allow the focus of IE to move beyond operations to embrace strategic management of very large systems (e.g., global supply chains, healthcare delivery, and global manufacturing). New computational environments (high performance computing coupled with information & intelligence acquisition) now allow us to address the design and strategic operation of "systems of systems." This grant provides funding for a workshop to bring together leading researchers, educators and practitioners in the industrial engineering (IE) communities to identify critical research opportunities in emerging areas and position IE for essential contributions for the next decade. It will also serve as a catalyst to initiate collaborative efforts between IE and related fields. The main objective is to identify, organize and produce a taxonomy and roadmap that defines the research and educational thrusts in IE for the next decade.
If successful, the results of this research will have a great impact on the research and educational thrusts in IE for the next decade. The unified focus and roadmap that results will maintain the vitality of IE and help establish collaborations with related fields. Increased productivity and efficiency will have a significant economic impact.
