Industrial engineering is an inter-disciplinary profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy and materials.
Industrial engineers use specialized knowledge and skills in business administration, management, mathematics, physical sciences, social sciences and methods of engineering analysis and design to specify, predict, and evaluate the results obtained from systems or processes. From these results, they are able to create new systems, processes or situations for the useful coordination of man, materials and machines and improve the quality and productivity of systems, physical or social. Depending on the sub-specialties involved, industrial engineering may also overlap with, operations research, systems engineering, manufacturing engineering, production engineering, management science, management engineering, financial engineering, ergonomics or human factors engineering, safety engineering, or others, depending on the viewpoint or motives of the user.
Even though its underlying concepts overlap considerably with certain business-oriented disciplines, such as operations management, Industrial engineering is a longstanding engineering discipline subject to (and eligible for) professional engineering licensure in most jurisdictions.