How to Use This Book

Every chapter uses the same small set of building blocks, so once you know them you can read any week quickly. Here’s what each one looks like.

Highlighted terms

Industrial engineering has its own vocabulary. When an important term first appears, it is highlighted like this: throughput, Little’s Law, kaizen.

  • Hover (or tap on a phone) to see a short definition.
  • Click to open the full entry in the Glossary.
  • At the end of each chapter, a Key terms box lists every term the chapter used.

Stories from the field

Story from the field
Why stories?

Engineering concepts are easier to remember when they come with a person, a place, and a problem. Each story box gives a short, real example and links to its source so you can read more.

Source: IISE: What is Industrial and Systems Engineering?

In-class activities

In-class activity
Try it: one-minute observation

Look around the room. Name one input, one process, and one output of the system you’re sitting in right now. Compare your answer with a neighbor’s.

Career spotlights

Career spotlight
Where IMEs work

Career boxes profile real roles, employers, and pathways, from plant floors to hospitals to distribution centers.

Colab notebooks

Each chapter links to a Python notebook that runs in your browser with Google Colab. Click the badge, then choose File → Save a copy in Drive so you can edit your own copy.

Hands-on notebook
Notebook template

Open In Colab View on GitHub · Download .ipynb

See Colab Notebooks for the full list and a short getting-started guide.

Callouts

ImportantLearning objectives

Each chapter opens with what you should be able to do by the end of the week.

Practice questions appear at the end of each chapter. Click to expand the answers.

Diagrams and figures

Process maps are drawn as diagrams that stay sharp at any zoom level:

flowchart LR
  A[Inputs<br/>people, materials,<br/>information, energy] --> B[Process<br/>transformation]
  B --> C[Outputs<br/>products, services]
  C -. feedback .-> B

A simple input-process-output view of a system.

References

Sources are cited inline, for example (Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, n.d.; Taylor, 1911). Hover over a citation to preview it, or see the full References list.