Industrial engineering and management: what and how to teach and learn in an introductory course

Abstract

Industrial Engineering and Management (IEM) is a field of engineering highly relevant for today’s world challenges, with professionals specially trained to improve processes and systems by striving to eliminate all sources of waste while aiming for continuous improvement. However, students entering IEM undergraduate programmes across Europe experience difficulties in fully understand what IEM is, the fundamental areas it encompasses, and the roles graduates will perform in their future professional lives. This situation makes it relevant for IEM undergraduate students to have in the first semester of their first year an introductory course to IEM, opening-up some ideas for future roles after graduation and increasing their motivation levels to become IEM professionals able to contribute to a sustainable future. The aim of this work is to share the authors’ experience throughout the development and implementation of such an introductory course, at the University of Aveiro (UA), Portugal, where innovative teaching and learning methodologies were used. By combining expositive and ‘hands-on’ classes, and emphasising students’ group work under a Challenge Based Learning (CBL) approach, the first steps to offer students a sound, dynamic, interactive and broad introduction to IEM were taken. The use of assignments as part of the evaluation, as well as the use of games and flipped learning, also contributed to the development of students’ soft skills such as oral and written communication, teamwork, and critical thinking. Overall, it was possible to design a course both appealing and relevant to help students get in touch with IEM since they enter the undergraduate programme.