【正文】 robably better educated than in the past, but they have some misconception about the types of jobs they will perform. “A lot of (students) ing out today want to sit behind a puter and they think that is their job. Well, a puter is just another tool. It?s just something you use to do something else,” he says. He suggests that onthe job training while in school may be one of the best ways to prepare students. On healthcare side, Sahney (Henry Ford Health Systems) thinks that in general terms, schools are providing properly trained students, but they often are not given the opportunity to bee wellrounded in other areas. Because what he says is the profession’ s “roots of accreditation,” the curriculum is too tightly controlled. He does not think individual institutions have enough variety. In other words, he says, the electives are very limited by the time all of the required courses are finished. This problem is often exhibit as a lack of writing and presentation skills in many of the new graduates. Most IEs eventually must sell their ideas and plans to management, which often requires aboveaverage munication skills. For many IE graduates, this is a tough challenge. Russell Cartmill, IE director at The CocaCola Co., says he is frequently confronted with hiring recent graduates who lack basic munication skills. He says CocaCola ends up having to teach people things once they get in the areas of public speaking and report writing, “some of the basic things that you really need to have in industry in order to make a good presentation.” One way schools are bating this problem, which is also a problem with students in other engineering disciplines, is semesterlong undergraduate and graduatelevel courses directed at familiarizing engineering students from all disciplines with the nontechnical aspects of engineering. These courses focus on topics such as financial management, project management, business planning and business development. Other schools have even gone as far as offering graduate degrees that are a bination of an IE degree and business degree in an attempt to target students seeking manufacturing engineering job But Vieth is not the business route is the best path for the industrial engineering curriculum to follow. “I think if we lose track of the technical knowledge, we?re just going to look like a highpriced business graduate,” he says. Another option IE departments at universities and colleges might consider is specializing in a particular function of IE (. operations research, material handling, ergonomics, human factors, etc.), and market their program accordingly. For example, says Cherubin, if a college student wants to be an IE and has a particular interest in material handling, that student should be able to choose certain schools whose charter is very specific. In addition to helping the student, he says, it provides an important service to a potential employer. “Don?t put students out in the work environment and, at that point, let them start defining their career,” says Cherubin. Vieth has similar views. “Maybe the IEs that our universities train today should be trained to be part of a specific department,” he says. Ray thinks that the problem might not be what is taught, but the way it is taught. IE classes and departments at universities are structured in a way that teaches students to work alone, she says. Students model themselves after the people they admire, Ray states. “While student are in college, they are looking at their professors. If they see their professors operating autonomously on their own island and not interrelating across other disciplines, the IE is going to e out of that program thinking they don?t need anybody?s help to solve a problem, “ she says. She says it takes her up to 18 months to put a newly hired graduate through “boot camp” to make them realize that they have to work as a member of a team to facilitate the flow of information within her anization. Future directions With all of these challenges facing the IE profession, there may be some who doubt the IEs? future. But if the individual IE will assume the role as a change implementer not a change follower broad opportunities are on the horizon. Some see a renewed interest in traditional IE functions, specifically, cost estimation and analysis. E. Rranklin Livingston, senior industrial engineer at Weber USA Inc. , a manufacturer of carburetors and fuel injectors cites a recent request from General Motor?s vice president of worldwide purchasing, J. Ignacio Lopez de Amortua, as proof. “he is expecting drastic cost reductions from suppliers over the next five years, “ says Livingston. Livingston points out that Chrysler and Ford will probably follow suit and make similar demands on their suppliers. If that is true, Livingston foresees in the next 10 years that probably more emphasis will be placed on conventional industrial engineering. “but I don?t think it will ever go back to the way it was 25 years ago, “ Livingston says. Others see the IE heading in the direction of large processes and systems. Process thinking has bee widespread in recent years, due largely to the quality movement. Industrial engineers seeking to expand their opportunities and improve the quality of operations are now looking at the entire process, rather than just a particular task or business function.] Two areas that may be of special importance to IEs in the ing years include information technology (IT) and business process redesign. As IT continues to evolve, technological advancements will have a big impact on how panies look at business processes of the next decade. Working together, IT and BPR has