"It's about people relating to machines"

THEY "WAGE a war on waste". That's how Professor Eddie O'Kelly describes the work of graduates from the industrial engineering and information systems.

"The students must be interested in making changes happen," says O'Kelly, head of the department of industrial engineering at UCG. "They should be interested in technology in the workforce, that is in relating the good side of technology for the benefit of mankind. They have to have an interest in and understanding of people."

Essential to students' thinking, he says, is a grasp of the importance of employee involvement" in industrial processes. In the old days, people left their brains at the factory gate. Nowadays you want to involve everybody, and of course people are better educated."

The first graduates of the four year industrial engineering and information systems degree course left UCG in 1974; the degree awarded is the a bachelor of engineering. As literature from the department explains, the information systems" element in the course title reflects the modern demands from industry for engineers to have knowledge of information technology, computers and software programming.

"We've added information systems to indicate the relevance of computers to the whole area of industrial engineering," O'Kelly says.

Sandra Divilly, a fourth year student from Salthill, Galway, loves "the diversity of subjects" within the course. "We cover business, science, engineering and computers. You are given a very broad knowledge of business along with manufacturing."

It appealed to herb initially because she loved commerce and science at school, and this course was a combination of these two subjects. "You really have to be a people's person to do it. You are constantly talking to people from top management down and you have to be able to adjust to that," she says.

"It's about people relating to machines. You are aware (in an industrial environment) that you want to make money, but you also have to value your people.

A key aspect of industrial engineering, O'Kelly explains, is looking at this interface in businesses between the technical - computers and machines - and the social - management and workers. It's about being more conscious of costs and of the use of "human resources" and other resources. The roles carried out by industrial engineers vary from systems design and management to quality assurance and operations research.

Brian Ivory, from Banagher, Co Offaly, another fourth year student, says "you don't have to stick with the maths side of engineering, which scares a lot of people off. You could go into the human resources area, for example. The course is very varied."

The idea of working in teams rather than individually was, says Ivory, "a shock to the system at first". However, he adds, "it's a very important part of what we do." O'Kelly says group projects are a valuable part of their training. "Industrial employee involvement really means team working."

"One of the better thrills," he says, "is to see how students mature over the four years."

IN THE SEASON of CAO applications, O'Kelly admits that industrial engineering and information systems doesn't have the greatest allure (last year's points requirement was 345, with random selection applying). "It's very hard to convey the excitement of this course to second level students. This is my perpetual difficulty. There's nothing like the satisfaction you get from having satisfied customers.

Graduates go into all sorts of areas, including quality assurance, project engineering, logistics, safety engineering and management, materials control, vendor support, training, etc.

Donal O'Connor, who graduated in 1986, works in a multinational company which assembles 100,000 machines per year. He is responsible for the design of the factory, i.e. the selection and installation of machines and computer equipment.

Aoife Delaney graduated in 1991. She is production manager for an Irish company which supplies steel components to the automobile industry. She is responsible for scheduling production and managing the efficient operation of the plant and the equipment. She is also responsible for the company's quality assurance and its high system performance.