We are going to start with the most important point: Industrial Engineering is a Leadership Role.

At most companies, Industrial Engineers are assigned a particular area to support. They are expected to be more than just number-crunchers. Industrial Engineers work right alongside Operations Managers to help them run the business as efficiently as possible. They are going to be the senior advisor to the leadership within their areas of support.

Operations regularly looks to Industrial Engineers to find ways to keep their area operating efficiently and profitably. With that comes a heavy responsibility: Operations leaders who trust and value the contributions of their engineers will do what engineers advise to them. Which for you, means your recommendations have major consequences. Operations will execute your plan.

While operations may not directly report to you, basic leadership principles will still apply to you. Things like domain knowledge, competence, floor presence, and building relationships. We are going to dive in these four principles below.

But before we do that, there is one item I begin every day with that has made me immensely successful: At the start of each day, make a to-do list. Type it up, print it out, and place it right next to your computer. A simple to-do list will help keep your head straight and stay on track during the chaos of the work day.

Part One – Domain Knowledge

You cannot lead an area that you know absolutely nothing about. If you want any credibility as an Industrial Engineer, you need to know your area. From top to bottom, inside and out. Below is a quick list of some things you should know about the area you support.

General Questions:

1. What products are being made, or what services are being delivered?
2. How many shifts operate in the area? 
3. How many employees work in each shift?
4. Who are the managers?
5. Who are the subordinate leaders?

For Each Cell, Line, or Module:

• How many cells/lines/modules operate in the area?
• What does each cell/line/module do?
• How does each cell/line/module measure performance?
• What is the capacity of each cell/line/module?
• What is the average size of a production run? (or service transaction?)
• How long are production runs? (Or service transaction?)
• What are the human-performed tasks in each part of the process?
• What materials are required?
• What, and how much, material handling equipment is used?
• What are the bottlenecks?
• What parts of the operations cause the most defects?
• What parts of the operation are hardest to staff?

It is vitally important that all of the information above is committed to memory, not just written down on a cheat sheet. This way when providing recommendations, giving tours, discussing plant performance, etc., you can sound intelligent. “Knowing your stuff” will greatly increase your credibility with operations leadership, and with your boss.

If you are wanting to improve your domain knowledge, perform these steps:

1. Answer all the 17 questions above for each area you support.
   1. Work with an operations manager or team leader to do this. They will give you a very detailed walkthrough of the operation since they live it every day.
2. Take an hour a day for 5 days to study your answers to these questions.
   1. Whatever study method works best for you. Flash cards, reading, quizzes, reciting to others, etc.
3. Describe the operation and all questions above to the manager or team leader who helped you initially.
   1. This will be awkward. However, it will show them that you put in the effort to learn the area you support, and that you are actually retaining the information. Helps gain credibility with them.
4. Describe the operation to your team and manager.
   1. This helps you build credibility with your manager. This definitely looks good come review time.

There is a reason two of these steps involve teaching others. If you are able to correctly and sufficiently teach someone else how the area operates, then you know the area well enough.

Part Two – Competence

Your work will have consequences. So you will need to be highly proficient. While your entire Industrial Engineering skillset will develop throughout your career, you should be proficient with these tools right from the start:

1. Time Studies
2. Data Analysis
3. Standard Work
4. Measuring Key Performance Indicators
5. Identifying Opportunities for Improvement
6. Capacity Planning

The numbers you produce in your various analyses will have very real consequences. The results of your work will determine how much overtime is needed, if an underperforming employee is retained or relocated, if the operating area has adequate capacity to meet demand or not, or what opportunities exist to increase efficiency.

Be sure to proofread your analysis multiple times. You will experience a major loss of confidence in you if you get the analysis output wrong too frequently. So your analysis being correct is of vital importance. Treat the accuracy of your analysis as if it is life-or-death for your Industrial Engineering career, because it is.

But competence does not end at the analysis. You will need to communicate those results in a way that your customers will understand. This is more than just fancy reports. You will need to display your information in ways that employees of all levels will understand. This means more than just displaying a wall of numbers and a hope that operations leadership knows what you are talking about. A good report, in the language your customer understands, is vital here.

The next piece is presentation skills. Giving a walkthrough of the report you typed up will get you 70% of the way there. But we want to be top-tier, not just good. A top-tier presentation to operations leadership will typically consist of the following:

1. Strong knowledge of the topic at hand.
2. Eye contact, looking at the report minimally.
3. Minimal jargon or technical terms.
4. Most time spent on key points.
5. Preparation for hard follow-up questions.

In other words, know what you are talking about, speak the language of the operations leadership, speak with confidence, and be ready for some fairly knit-picky follow-up questions. You may not need that last point, but its always good to be ready for that one meeting that goes sideways (because one day it will).

So how can you improve your competence? Practice makes perfect for both the technical analysis and the communication of your results. Rounds and Reps will greatly improve your proficiency. Take on additional projects to do this. Spend a little bit each day doing a time study, analyzing process times and outputs in Excel, identifying ways to improve efficiency, and presenting your facts using the five points listed earlier. Over time, you will improve substantially, increasing your credibility along with your skill.

Part Three – Floor Presence:

I have written another article about the value of floor presence, so I will not completely retell the story here. But the importance of time out in the operation cannot be understated. Just like with managers of all levels, it is important for you to be seen by the team. And more than once a month or so just to keep employees from forgetting about you. Regular floor presence allows you to develop a deep understanding of the process and the team.

A wall of data does not make any sense if you do not understand the underlying process. And the best way to understand the underlying process is to spend time out in it. Don’t just stand out there like a creep staring out the window. Go talk to the employees doing the job, look through the Human-Machine Interfaces (HMI), and watch the automation up close.

Earn bonus points with team members by trying out the job for yourself. Yes, you will fail and they will probably laugh at you. But they will also remember how you, the engineer who supposedly never leaves the office, got out there and worked alongside them.

If operations will not let you do the job yourself, talk to the operators. Have them walk you through what they do, where their pain points are, what goes well, etc. On a relational side, talk about non-work-related things as well. Nothing builds rapport with the team quite like a good BS’ing session.

If floor presence is a weak spot for you, whether it is a confidence or a time thing, the good news is that it’s an easy problem to solve. Make a point to begin each day with a 15-minute walk out in the operation. Go talk to an operator or two. Watch a production run or a truck/container loading for a bit. By beginning each day out in the operation, you automatically check the floor presence box before your day really gets started.

Part Four – Building Relationships:

The other three principles all lead into this one. Take the time to build relationships with the team out in the operation. Not just the leadership either. Make sure you are building solid relationships with the employees out in the operation. They need to know you and what value you bring.

Ultimately, your ability to have your plans executed and your recommendations implemented comes down to your relationships with the employees who do the work. If they don’t like you, never see you, or think you are full of it, they will not implement the recommendations you make. You may present an operating plan to them only for them to turn around and do their own thing.

The inverse of that is also true. If operations likes you, your reputation as a good engineer will spread like wildfire. Operations will want to work with you. They will look to you as that trusted senior advisor. And your plans and recommendations will be implemented. Once your plans and recommendations get implemented and leadership gets to see your results, your paychecks will start growing nicely as well.

So how do you build relationships with operations? I’m no love coach, but here is the process that worked for me:

1. Spend time out in the operation each day. I usually like to go out to the floor after lunch.
2. Talk to at least two employees.
3. When asked to do an analysis, observe the operation you are analyzing multiple times.
4. Conduct your quantitative analysis with precision, covering all the important details.
5. Walk a team member through your work to ensure that you covered and understand the required analysis.
6. Study hard for your presentation with operations.
7. Present with confidence and strength.
8. BS with the operations team every once in a while.

Just like your love life, building a good relationship will take time and effort. But the most effective way to build a good relationship with operations is to be good at your job. Rinse and repeat the steps above until more and more people get to know you and the value you provide. Couple that with some good teambuilding (BS) sessions, and you will become known as an outstanding Industrial Engineer.