EngSpotlight Interview: Industrial Engineering
I graduated from Industrial Engineering here at TMU back in 2022. Fun fact about me, I’m a massive aviation nerd. Love airplanes, anything to do with them. I ended up working at the airport, various jobs. My favorite job was fielding airplanes.
I graduated from TMU in 2019 and I currently work as an Industrial Engineer at MHI Canada Aerospace. An interesting fact: I recently discovered a passion for cooking. There’s a sense of joy and accomplishment that I feel when I try a new dish from start to finish.
What made you decide to go into Industrial Engineering?
Adam: I really appreciated the critical thinking skills that engineering provides the graduate, and I also wanted a line of work where my day-to-day wasn’t exactly the same. I enjoy tackling new challenges and solving new problems. It definitely broadens my horizon. So knowing that industrial engineers can be applied in really any scenario where an optimization can be done made it a pretty easy choice for me to go into it.
Lois: Why I chose industrial engineering is that I enjoy seeing how things are made from start to finish. Most of my work environments have been manufacturing environments where I get to see the final product from start to finish, and it's something that I really enjoy seeing how something is made right from the implementation phase. So I get to meet a lot of people from other departments like engineering, methods, quality, and get me working with so many different teams.
I also get to work with process improvements after the design is made. So, there's a technical aspect of it, which is the engineering side, but I also get to work with the business aspect of it. I get to work with logistics, warehouse, supply chain finance, and so many other business type departments to be able to implement the process on the floor, which is something I enjoy learning.
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How was your journey after graduation?
Lois: I graduated in April of 2019 and I started working at Chrysler Manufacturing in Brampton. I was there for about 6 months as an industrial engineer. I worked on a lot of process improvement type activities, implementing kaizen activities on the floor. I did a lot of studies on the floor to identify non-value added activities and to process improvements on the floor. After that position, I moved on to Mitsubishi Aerospace which I'm currently working on right now.
Adam: My journey began, I guess before my graduation. During my studies, I was lucky enough to get an internship at Metro where I work now and I was a warehouse intern so I was helping the operations team. I thought this was unglamorous at first, but it ended up being one of the most transformative experiences of my career. I had worked in logistics previously, but never exposed to the day-to-day operation of what it is like to move a large number of cases to serve your customers. So, after completing that internship and coming back to school, I was filled with all of these ideas of how I wanted to proceed in my career, and I felt that supply chain would be a really good start. I was able to come back to Metro, so I continued to work there in the operations management team while I finished my degree. Really, it came from an internship that originally didn’t think much of. It ended up changing my perspective and my career, truly.
What is your current role?
Adam: My title is Industrial Engineering Supervisor, and I’m part of a team that were responsible for modernizing our distribution network here in Ontario. So that would be construction of new buildings. It is my role in the team to really optimize the interior; what happens within the four walls. So whether that’s the facility layout, looking at laver plans, looking at how we might want to move over product from building to building as we transition really plays a big part at how it can contribute to this project. And in doing so, to accomplish these great tasks, I’m relying on the methodologies that I learned during my education here.
Lois: MHI Canada Aerospace is a manufacturer of aircraft structures and assemblies. It’s based in Mississauga, Ontario. MHI Canada Aerospace builds the Challenger 350 wing, the global express wings and the global center fuse lush, and we supply to Bombardier in Montreal. MHI takes a lot of importance on quality and safety at every stage of the production. So building these complex aircraft structures requires a well-designed inventory system.
As an industrial engineer at Mitsubishi Aerospace, I work with production supervisors, production operators on the floor to implement kaizen activities. So kaizen means ‘continuous improvement,’ so I work on implementing process improvement activities, and these are done by performing time studies, observing various processes on the floor to identify any non-value activities that are happening through the assembly line. On a daily basis I’m working with lots of other departments to ensure that problems are being analyzed and root cause analysis is being performed, so everyday is different. Not every day has the same task, it's like almost solving a puzzle everyday.
To Adam: You’ve mentioned your goals in improving logistical processes, as well as designing safe and effective solutions. How are you going about achieving them?
It comes back to one of the earliest courses I took here at TMU. And it was ‘Engineering Design’ course where you really spend a lot of time trying to understand your end-user. What are their paying points? What would they like better? What do they not like about what they currently have? And really including them as part of the design process. Ultimately, these individuals you’re designing the intervention for, whether it’s a product or a layout or a process, they’re going to have the day-to-day experience that maybe you just can’t capture from just your theoretical knowledge. So, tapping into this wealth of experience that these operators have is really an invaluable resource into the work that we do, and ensuring that not only does our solution function as required in terms of performance specification, but also functions as required in terms of how our operators feel about it, how their health and safety is affected. So, taking their knowledge combined with what I learned here at TMU, such as ergonomics, understanding noise and vibrations, and lifting, and strains, and MSDs (Musculoskeletal disorders) is really important to bridge that into designing solutions that end-users are happy with. At the end of the day, well-designed solutions function better and it engages our workforce at a higher level.
To Lois: What other engineering projects or research have you worked on?
I am currently designing a lot of 3D printed parts for the wing. I work as an industrial engineer on the Challenger 350 wing, so I do a lot of 3D modeling on Solidworks to print protection for the wings. As the wing moves from one area to the next area there's potential for damage and scratches so to protect those specific areas on the wing. I've gotten used to working with Solidworks a lot which is something that I learned in school in my first year at TMU.
What are the different fields that Industrial Engineers can specialize in?
Lois: Industrial engineers can specialize in various fields such as operations, research and analysis, optimization, manufacturing engineering, quality management, and human factors and safety engineering. Some of the various fields that industrial engineers go to, specifically they can perform time studies on the floor to find ways to improve the process as an industrial engineer.
Another role that industrial engineers can specialize in any field that they go to is, facility design. So if you're working in a large factory, if there's room for expansion and areas where you can design a specific system, industrial engineers, they tend to design systems working with other engineers, layout engineers, on the floor.
Another area that industrial engineers can specialize in is system maintenance. To ensure that systems are working in order, they can be involved with preparing various maintenance policies, repair and replacement plants.
Adam: It ties back to one of my earlier answers where anything that could use some optimization, some improvement, this is where you would likely find in industrial engineers. So, in my case, retail supply chain, we deal with various challenges in our logistics whether it’s the tight shelf life of our products, whether it's the different sourcing countries where our products come from, and even optimizing the space within the building, is a great application, you'll also find industrial engineers helping out in, kind of, tech firms, where there's a whole host of programs where you need to facilitate our bills, and we need to perhaps cut down our production time or reduce our defects. There’s a lot of continuous improvement applications you'll find, in these fields as well that industrial engineers have the training for. Other sorts of logistics, where you think of air cargo, rail logistics, right? All of these are opportunities for us to apply our methodologies and there's so, so much more. I think it's one of the strengths of the field that if you have an interest in something, odds are you could participate in it in some capacity.
Career advice: For our future engineers who want to enter companies such as yours, what is looked for in a candidate?
Adam: For all future engineers some of the skill sets that I think are very important; one is teamwork. I know working in different teams in school, you get to develop that skill. So even at the workplace you get to work with various teams. At my work currently, I'm constantly on the production floor working with the production, especially, mainly to implement various process improvements. So, gaining that ability to work as a team in your school years is very important.
Another skill set that I think is very important as an engineer is problem solving. Being able to detect a problem, analyze a situation and propose a solution as to how it can be solved to make the process more efficient.
As engineers, we are always bringing up new ideas and designs to various departments, so being able to verbally speak, and written communication skills, are quite important as an engineer because sometimes you're communicating your ideas with upper management and in order to persuade them of the specific design change to be made, it’s important to develop those communication skills.
Career advice: Knowing what you know now, is there anything different you would have done in your engineering career pathway?
Lois: If there's anything that I could have done differently in my engineering career pathway, is I could have gotten more involved with other engineering organizations and activities within my school. The important thing is, if there's anything out there in terms of engineering related extracurricular activities that you can join, this way you can get to meet new people, you also get to see if there's any job opportunities out there like internships or other opportunities that will enhance your career better.
Another thing that goes hand in hand is networking. Being able to attend networking events to kind of build your portfolio and put yourself out there and make yourself stand out.
Another thing that I could have done differently is getting certified in various other industrial related certifications, like I remembered when I was in school, there was a certification for Six Sigma. That's a very good certification to have especially when you're working as an industrial engineer. So, if there’s a chance to get certified in any- it doesn't have to be industrial engineering related. It could be improving your leadership skills, or if it’s improving your communication skills, if there's specific courses that can be taken to kind of early-on develop those skills in your career, that'll be great for your future endeavors.
What advice would you give for first-year engineering students?
Adam: I would say, enjoy! These years fly by! I drove to campus this afternoon and I'm like, wow! It hasn't been that long, it’s only been 2 years since I graduated, but a lot has changed already, whether what's happened on campus or what's happened in my own life. I’m a different version of the person that studied here. And I felt so many feelings of nostalgia just driving in and finding a place to park. So enjoy this. Enjoy the all-night sessions with your friends, you'll definitely remember those. Enjoy learning your material. At the end of the day, I find industrial engineering, and any type of engineering, immensely interesting.
Lois: Ask questions, both in class and outside. Professors, they usually have something called office hours where you can ask questions if you're struggling and clarify those questions. They have lots of experience in the engineering field, they might even be able to provide you with resources that will help you with career related questions you might have, so I think asking questions is very important.
Another one, I would say, is to hone your communication skills right from your early days at university. Whether it be conversations, writing or verbal, being able to improve on those communication skills is very important.
And lastly, I would say, just to persevere through that first year of engineering. It's quite hard and quite challenging, and there might be lots of days where you're working on difficult problem sets or you're frustrated with so many other things that are happening so just preserve and work hard and challenge yourself to get through those times so that it'll get better as the years go by.