Industrial Engineering (IE)

The Learning Environment

The School of Engineering and Applied Sciences offers nine engineering programs leading to the degree of bachelor of science (BS) degree: aerospace, biomedical, chemical, civil, computer, electrical, environmental, industrial, and mechanical engineering.

Five combined BS/MBA programs are offered in conjunction with the School of Management. BA, BS, and BS/MS degrees in computer science are offered through the Department of Computer Science and Engineering. A BS degree in engineering physics is offered jointly with the Department of Physics.

Students may pursue minors in computer science, electrical engineering, and manufacturing, as well as a certificate in data-intensive computing.

The curricula allow students flexibility in their programs of study and encourages interaction between students and faculty. The undergraduate educational experience prepares students for professional practice and advanced study. Special programs including our experiential learning program, undergraduate research, and internship opportunities provide professional development skills and experiences and facilitate placement of our graduates in high-quality engineering positions.

About Our Facilities

The School of Engineering and Applied Sciences occupies six buildings on UB's north campus: Bell, Bonner, Davis, Furnas, Jarvis and Ketter Hall. Barbara and Jack Davis Hall is the newest building, which opened in 2011 and features an environmentally friendly design and construction.

Together, these buildings form an outstanding educational and research facility, comprising 275,000 square feet of laboratory and office space.

The ISE department has two teaching laboratories which allow students to obtain relevant experiences in analysis and design of modern work systems and processes, and collaborative use of current ISE software tools: (1) Work Systems Simulation Laboratory (427/428 Bell Hall), which supports a number of current manufacturing and healthcare equipment such as work simulation, patient care/health systems tasks, light manufacturing cells, robotic assembly, quality inspection, 3D printing, and digital and additive manufacturing. (2) Collaborative Learning Laboratory (216 Bell Hall), which contains space for computer supported group work.

About Our Faculty

In surveys of our graduating seniors, interactions with faculty are consistently cited as one of the best aspects of the department. Undergraduate IE students at UB have access to award-winning faculty who maintain high standards in teaching and research activities in diverse expertise areas (Human Factors, Operations Research, and Production Systems). The Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering has 19 full-time faculty, and other affiliated or adjunct faculty, all holding Ph.D. degrees. Adjunct faculty and teaching assistants teach about 2 courses per year. Teaching assistants also assist in grading and leading recitation sessions. Class sizes in IE are small (often less than 40 students) insuring personal connections between students and faculty. In addition to teaching undergraduate courses, our faculty regularly engage undergraduate students in ongoing engineering research.

Faculty List Directory

IE Courses

IE 101LEC Discover Industrial Engineering
Lecture

Introduces students to the field of industrial engineering, and the IE department at UB, through a series of real life IE case studies and examples.

Credits: 1
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
IE 198SEM UB Seminar
Seminar

The one credit UB Seminar is focused on a big idea or challenging issue to engage students with questions of significance in a field of study and, ultimately, to connect their studies with issues of consequence in the wider world. Essential to the UB Curriculum, the Seminar helps transition to UB through an early connection to UB faculty and the undergraduate experience at a comprehensive, research university. This course is equivalent to any 198 offered in any subject. This course is a controlled enrollment (impacted) course. Students who have previously attempted the course and received a grade of F or R may not be able to repeat the course during the fall or spring semester.

Credits: 1
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Other Requisites: Students who have already successfully completed the UB seminar course may not repeat this course. If you have any questions regarding enrollment for this course, please contact your academic advisor.
IE 199SEM UB Seminar
Seminar

The three credit UB Seminar is focused on a big idea or challenging issue to engage students with questions of significance in a field of study and, ultimately, to connect their studies with issues of consequence in the wider world. Essential to the UB Curriculum, the Seminar helps students with common learning outcomes focused on fundamental expectations for critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and oral communication, and learning at a university, all within topic focused subject matter. The Seminars provide students with an early connection to UB faculty and the undergraduate experience at a comprehensive, research university. This course is equivalent to any 199 offered in any subject. This course is a controlled enrollment (impacted) course. Students who have previously attempted the course and received a grade of F or R may not be able to repeat the course during the fall or spring semester.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Other Requisites: Students who have already successfully completed the first year seminar course may not repeat this course. If you have any questions regarding enrollment for this course, please contact your academic advisor.
IE 306LR Statistics for Engineers
Lecture

Principles and methodologies of statistical inference; methods of data analysis; point and interval estimation; tests of hypotheses; correlation and regression. Introduces analysis of variance methods.

Credits: 4
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
Prerequisites: EAS 305Industrial Engineering Majors Only
IE 320LEC Engineering Economy
Lecture

Applied concepts of economic decision making, including present worth analysis, cash-flow equivalence, replacement analysis, equipment selection. Open to students in any discipline.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
Prerequisites: MTH 141Engineering Majors Only
IE 321LLB Production Systems
Lecture

Credits: 4
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
IE 322LEC Analytics and Computing for Industrial Engineers
Lecture

The purpose of this course is to provide students with the knowledge and skills necessary to manage, manipulate, analyze, and derive insights from large data sets using IE related computational tools. Data and problems will be representative of typical problems faced by Industrial Engineers across a wide variety of industries including manufacturing, service, healthcare, and transportation industries.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
Prerequisites: EAS 230 or EAS 240 or CSE 115 or EAS 999TRCP;
Corequisites: EAS 305;Engineering and Applied Sciences Majors only.
IE 323LLB Human Factors in System Design
Lecture

Focuses on the interactions of humans with tasks, equipment, and the environment as part of the workplace system. Students learn about human capabilities and limitations, applications of human factors/ergonomics principles to system design, methodologies for human-system analysis, and experimental design and data analysis applied to human factors problems.

Credits: 4
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
Corequisites: EAS 305;Approved Engineering Majors Only
IE 326LEC Planning for Productions & Service Enterprises
Lecture

Examines principles central to the planning of a production process. These include topics germane to the planning, scheduling, and control of production.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
Prerequisites: MTH 241Approved Engineering Majors Only
IE 327LEC Facility Design & Materials Handling
Lecture

Basics of design, analysis, and selection of manufacturing facilities and material-handling equipment. Approaches to analyzing manufacturing and material-handling systems. Applications of computers in modern facilities design and material handling, emphasizing material-flow control and storage. Economic justification models for manufacturing and material-handling systems.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
Prerequisites: IE 326Industrial Engineering Majors Only
IE 373LR Systems Modeling and Optimization OR 1
Lecture

Concepts of operations research methodology including objective functions, theories of value, and optimization. Elementary mathematical models of reliability, Markov decision processes, waiting-line models with Poisson arrival and exponential service, game theory, and decision analysis.

Credits: 4
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
Prerequisites: MTH 306Industrial Engineering Majors Only
IE 374LR Systems Modeling and Optimization OR 2
Lecture

Continuation of IE 373, including uncertainty, risk, and the probabilistic approach in operations research. Topics include elementary mathematical models of decision analysis, stochastic processes (Markov chains and Markovian decision processes), queueing (waiting line) theory and applications of queueing.

Credits: 4
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
Prerequisites: EAS 305 and IE 373Industrial Engineering Majors Only
IE 406LEC Computer-Integrated Manufacturing
Lecture

Basic and important principles in computer-integrated manufacturing (CIM). Based on an understanding of modern production and manufacturing systems, the course further introduces to students the use of computers for the integration of all functional areas in a manufacturing enterprise. Topics include computer-aided design (CAD), geometric models and data structures, computer-aided process planning (CAPP), group technology (GT), computer-aided manufacturing (CAM), and database applications in manufacturing.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
Prerequisites: Senior standing in IE or permission of instructorIndustrial Engineering Majors only
Other Requisites: IE 406
IE 408LEC Quality Assurance
Lecture

Familiarizes students with the application of statistical quality problem-solving methodologies used to characterize, leverage, and reduce process variability. This course emphasizes the application of sampling methodologies, sample size determination, hypothesis testing, analysis of variance, correlation, regression, measurement systems analysis, design and analysis of saturated experimental designs, design and analysis response surface experimental designs, and statistical process control.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
Prerequisites: IE 306 or equivalentIndustrial Engineering Majors Only
IE 409LEC Six Sigma Quality
Lecture

Familiarizes students with customer-focused, process and design six sigma quality management methods. This course emphasizes methodologies used in the identification and selection of high impact, customer-focused, quality improvement projects. Topics covered include leadership soft-skills, the mathematics behind six sigma metrics, project selection criterion, risk assessment, quality tools, and structured six-sigma problem-solving methodologies (DMAIC and DMADV).

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
Prerequisites: Senior standing in IE or permission of instructorApproved Engineering Majors Only
Other Requisites: IE 409
IE 411LEC Social Network Behavior Models
Lecture

A review and discussion of concepts, models, tools and applications pertaining to social network formation and behavior.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
Prerequisites: Approved Engineering Majors Only
IE 412LEC Decision Analysis
Lecture

Decision analysis that extends the domain of decision-making problems from those considered in traditional statistical hypothesis testing scenarios: modeling decisions, which emphasize structuring decision problems using techniques such as influence diagrams and decision trees; modeling uncertainty, which covers subjective probability assessment, use of classical probability models, Bayesian analysis, and value of information; and modeling preferences, which introduces concepts of risk preference, expected utility, and multi-attribute value and utility models.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
Prerequisites: EAS 305Industrial Engineering Majors only
Other Requisites: IE 412
IE 414LEC Revenue Management and Pricing
Lecture

Revenue Management (RM), or yield Management, is a set of operational tools for generating more revenue with resource allocations and/or dynamic pricing. In this course, we will cover the fundamental concepts of RM, with mathematical models and algorithms, including capacity control, network capacity control, overbooking, dynamic pricing, customer choice modeling, pricing under competition, estimation and forecasting. By the end of this course, students will be able to understand the basic principles of RM, build mathematical models and suggest proper computational solution methods.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
Prerequisites: IE 373, IE 374Approved Industrial Engineering Majors Only
Other Requisites: IE 414 Requisite
IE 420LLB Systems Engineering Practicum
Lecture

Integrates and applies knowledge from multiple aspects of industrial engineering to analyze and solve real-world ID problems. Combines knowledge of production planning, facilities design, operations research, and human factors.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
Prerequisites: IE 320 AND EAS 305 AND IE 326 AND IE 322 AND IE 323 AND IE 374 AND IE 306 AND IE 327 AND (EAS 360 or ENG 201 or WS GETA STUDENT GROUP or WS SAT >730/ACT>32);IE MAJORS ONLY;Co-requisite IE 477
IE 421LEC Sustainable Manufacturing
Lecture

The course is designed for engineering undergraduate/graduate students who are interested in furthering their knowledge in green engineering techniques. The approaches presented in this class are from the levels of manufacturing, machine and systems, as well as the overall product lifecycle and supply chain perspective. The main goal of this course is to help students understand the importance of green and sustainable manufacturing. The course will discuss some practical aspects of sustainability and green engineering with students and encourage them to look at the processes and systems around them more carefully and think about opportunities to improve, reuse, replacement and reduction of the environmental impacts of the processes, systems, and behaviors.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
IE 425LEC Applications of Operations Research in Healthcare
Lecture

This course focuses on recent and future improvements in healthcare services through key applications of operations research (OR). In addition to developing a conceptual understanding of decision making in healthcare from a practical standpoint, the course also develops technical skills in optimization, stochastic processes and game theory. Lectures cover book chapters and journal articles from the intersection of OR and healthcare literature. Paper presentations and term projects help students master basic OR techniques on emerging healthcare problems.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
Prerequisites: IE 373, IE 374. Seats reserved for IE and BE majors only.
IE 435LEC Human-Computer Interaction
Lecture

Familiarizes students with the principles and practice of use- and user-centered design of human-computer interfaces. By the end of the course, students are able to identify, describe, and implement a subset of methods appropriate for requirements gathering, user and task modeling, prototype development, and user test plan development, implementation, and analysis. Additionally, students are able to apply principles in user-centered design to interface design.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Prerequisites: IE 323 or permission of instructorIndustrial Engineering Majors only
Other Requisites: IE 435
IE 436LEC Work Physiology
Lecture

Introduces structure and functioning of the human body. Examines environmental factors such as temperature, humidity, and biological rhythms; and applications and implications of physiological measures, such as energy expenditures, heart rate, and E.M.G.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
Other Requisites: Approved Industrial and Biomedical Engineering Majors Only.IE Majors must complete IE 323 as a prerequisite.
IE 441LEC Human Factors in Safety
Lecture

Overall view of the professional field, particularly emphasizing the role of the human, and human factors, in safe working systems. Provides information relevant to understanding basic concepts associated with systems safety, such as the legislative environment, management culture, and sources of workplace hazards; understanding the need to consider the human when designing safe, complex systems; and analyzing a work system to predict its hazards and select possible interventions.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
Prerequisites: IE 323 or permission of instructorIndustrial Engineering Majors Only
IE 459LEC Special Topics
Lecture

Studies special areas of interest to students and instructor. Content varies from section to section and semester to semester.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Prerequisites: Senior standing in engineering
Other Requisites: IE 459
IE 460LEC Lean Enterprise
Lecture

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Prerequisites: Senior standing in engineeringEngineering Majors Only
IE 477LR Simulation Modeling & Analysis
Lecture

Topics include the development of digital simulation models of complex systems using up-to-date software tools and methods.

Credits: 4
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall
Prerequisites: IE 306, IE 374 and computer programming skillsIndustrial Engineering Majors only
Other Requisites: IE 477
IE 482LEC Robotics
Lecture

Analyzes robots and robotic systems: kinematics, coordinate transform, numerical control, off-line programming, robot vision, and simulation of robotic systems.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring
Prerequisites: Senior standing in engineering
Other Requisites: IE 482
IE 494LEC Senior Capstone Industry Project
Lecture

A field experience working on an industrial engineering project in a manufacturing plant, hospital, library, police department, or similar location under the joint direction of a preceptor from industry and a faculty advisor. Projects are selected that integrate the material learned in academic courses. Requires a written report and an oral presentation.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Spring
Prerequisites: IE 420Approved Industrial Engineering Majors Only
IE 496TUT Internship
Tutorial

This course is designed to allow students to gain credits for their Industrial Engineering degree while applying the skills and knowledge learned in an industry position. This is a variable unit course, up to three (3) credits. The number of credits to be earned is designated by the number of credits for which the student registers. For each credit hour, a minimum of forty-five (45) hours at the internship or jobsite must be completed.

Credits: 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Varies
Other Requisites: IE 496 Requisite: Senior standing or Permission of Instructor; approved IE majors only.
IE 498TUT Undergraduate Research
Tutorial

Students collaborate with faculty research mentors on ongoing research of the faculty member or conduct independent research under the guidance of a faculty member.

Credits: 1 - 3
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
Prerequisites: Permission of instructorEngineering Majors Only
IE 499TUT Independent Study
Tutorial

Student directed independent learning activity guided & mentored by faculty. Students should discuss registration with the faculty member and have a plan in writing upon registering. Note that activities that are primarily research (vs. study or project based) should be conducted under the IE 498 number.

Credits: 1 - 12
Grading: Graded (GRD)
Typically Offered: Fall, Spring, Summer
Prerequisites: Permission of instructorIndustrial Engineering Majors Only

Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering