INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER DEVELOPMENT

Client: Large-Scale Logistics Company

Services

Problem/Objectives

Companies generally hire industrial engineers to help identify process or service opportunities and address overall efficiency. They own process improvement in these companies requiring in-depth process knowledge. As such, employee selection and onboarding for newly hired industrial engineers is vital and requires a quick turnaround time.

This logistics company employed industrial engineers across most distribution centers; however, no formal program for new hire industrial engineers was being used. Any existing training was centered purely around observation at the local site and any training material was obsolete or not standardized on a corporate level.

Solution

Standardized interviewing scoring matrix and interview questions for potential industrial engineer candidates
Replace obsolete training program and create new program centered around company’s operations
Create completion rating of candidates post completion of program
University recruiting score based on industrial engineer success rate

At a Glance

The large-scale logistics company employs industrial engineers for most distribution centers across its network. In most cases, several engineers are employed at each site. The challenge facing the company was the overall quality of their new hire engineers. In order to establish a baseline of the current industrial engineers, several industrial engineers were interviewed, and a survey was created. After sending out the survey companywide to all industrial engineers, results revealed that an integral amount employed as industrial engineers had been hired with degrees from other engineering disciplines, not related to industrial engineering, and had limited knowledge of industrial engineering techniques or process improvement. This was in part due to non-technical hiring managers overseeing the selection process per individual site versus company standard.

The existing method of bringing on a new hire industrial engineer typically involved a few weeks shadowing an existing engineer followed by progressive, yet small projects.

In conjunction with corporate HR, we recommended the candidates be initially interviewed by a senior regional industrial engineer. However, the actual selection of the new hire still be determined by local management. Also, a standard battery of interview questions were created complimentary to the job qualifications. This approach allowed the interviewer to filter through non-qualified candidates not familiar with industrial engineering techniques. Additionally, stakeholders involved with the potential candidate still possessed ownership of the final decision.

After additional interviews with senior industrial engineers, local managers at various facilities and our working knowledge from our industrial engineer specialists, we prioritized a training platform centered around operations. This enabled the new hire to better suited for operations, understand the various processes firsthand and implement positive changes more seamlessly into daily operations.

To measure success, managers (non-technical) of the new hires were required to review the progress of their employee against the predetermined milestones. At the end of the developmental program, a final assessment was performed to determined suitability and continued employment.

A long-term deliverable produced from the project included a recruiting rating per engineering institution. This is relevant as most companies may not know which programs at various universities to actively recruit industrial engineers.

Results

The creation of the training program allowed the large-scale logistics company to leverage a formalized program for the development of their new hire industrial engineers including candidate selection, standardized material and rating matrix for recruiting.