Overview

This book was created for an undergraduate Introduction to Industrial Engineering course at The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA). The chapters give an overview of the profession and an introduction to some of the tools used by industrial engineers. There are interactive content exercises included at the end of most chapters.  This interactive content aims to engage students in the content as they are reading. The book will continue to revised and updated with new information as it becomes necessary. More interactive content will be added to the end of each chapter in future versions of the book.

Creation Process

For many years, I assigned chapters from Dr. Jane Fraser’s Introduction to Industrial Engineering text available online.  Each semester I would refine the chapters I would assign, have them read only the parts that pertained to our class, and supplement the reading assignments with information from other sources.  My “customization by instruction” eventually became confusing even to me!  That is when I began exploring ways to more formally remix the various resources I had been using. An email for a workshop on Open Educational Resources being offered by UTA’s library caught my attention, and within weeks I had started putting together this text.   I applied for, and received, a UTA’s Coalition for Alternative Resources in Education for Students (CARES) grant and technical support to help me with the creation process. That process involved remixing portions of Fraser’s text with additional open source materials from Exploring Business produced by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing, Introduction to Problem Solving Skills produced by the MIT Office of Digital Learning, and my own original content. The book went through two semesters of “beta testing” by undergraduate students. Students were asked to use Hypothesis, within the learning management system to give feedback on the content of each chapters as well as to comment on any missing links or confusing text. The text was also reviewed by staff of the Open Educational Resources Office, which is part of UTA’s library system.

About the Author

Bonnie Boardman is an Assistant Professor of Instruction and Undergraduate Program Director in the Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Arlington. Her primary research interest is in engineering education.  She holds a B.S. and Ph.D. in Industrial Engineering from The University of Arkansas and an M.S. in Industrial Engineering from Texas A&M University. Dr. Boardman worked for the Logistics Support Agency, an agency of the Department of the Army, as a Senior Engineer. Other research interest areas include the development of scheduling algorithms and decision support systems and adapting and applying industrial engineering methodologies and techniques to the service industry. Dr. Boardman is active in numerous technical and professional organizations.