An industrial engineer (IE) can turn an ordinary manufacturer into a successful business. In industrial engineering 101, the IE learns to set up an average production operation with job sequencing, time studies, ergonomic evaluations, and facility layout. However, more advanced techniques will expand the IE role, making him or her a partner with the business managers to increase productivity while reducing costs.

Budgets

A Comptroller uses accounting practices to establish profit/ loss and how much cash a business has available. The IE provides the foundation for this by determining the operational budget with a bottoms up analysis. Bottoms up means measuring the number of worker positions required, multiplied by the number of shifts needed, to obtain the desired production output. This business plan is expressed in labor hours. The Comptroller can then dollarize the hours based on interest rates, taxes, and applicable overhead.

There is one other budget that the industrial engineer should periodically submit. This is the Capital Asset Budget, a study of the operations department future required tooling with estimates on costs and dates needed.