The Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT Bombay or IITB) has started offering a one-of-its-kind new B Tech degree in Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (B Tech IEOR).
In its year of commencement, the new undergraduate (UG) course has already attracted high-ranking candidates as the opening rank for the general category for admission to IEOR was 1,042 whereas the closing rank was 1,726.
Prof. Jayendran Venkateswaran, head of the Department of IEOR at IIT Bombay to understand more about the newest UG course, its industry relevance, and its future in this field.
Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR) is broadly focussed on designing, analysing, improving, and controlling industrial and service systems to better their efficiency and effectiveness in a sustained and resilient manner. This involves mathematical and decision models, including a range of optimisation, simulation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning approaches. The profile created by the combination of IE and OR can play a key role in many industry sectors, including manufacturing, E-commerce, logistics and supply chains, technology, automotive, airlines, retail, financial services, etc.
The job roles include data analyst, business/ supply chain analyst, financial/risk analyst, AI engineer, consultant, operations manager, apart from, obviously, industrial engineer, or operations researcher.
Prof. Jayendran Venkateswaran, Head Department of IEOR at IIT Bombay, reportedly said, “India is steadily moving towards becoming a major supply chain hub for the world, which requires a large number of skilled workforce to significantly improve productivity, quality, and efficiency. We hope our IEOR program will help contribute towards the same.
Several IITs and NITs offer UG programmes on production and industrial engineering, or mathematics and computing. In a sense, the B Tech in IEOR brings together the best of these two programmes. We do have similar IEOR programmes in universities across the world including UC Berkeley, Columbia University, Cornell, National University of Singapore, to name a few.
IE and OR have a long history in IIT Bombay. It started in 1976 with MTech and PhD programmes. In 2009, MSc in Operations Research was also started for science background students, and in 2016, UG Minor in IEOR (for students of other BTech programs) was started. Since 2019 we have a steady stream of 2-6 IITB BTechs who pursue Dual Degree with MTech in IEOR by spending an extra (5th) year. We have been offering 15-20 basic and advanced courses each year in optimization, probability models, AI/ML, simulation, operations analysis, etc.” Source : The Indian Express
