Manufacturing engineering | EPFL Graph Search

Manufacturing engineering or production engineering is a branch of professional engineering that shares many common concepts and ideas with other fields of engineering such as mechanical, chemical, electrical, and industrial engineering. Manufacturing engineering requires the ability to plan the practices of manufacturing; to research and to develop tools, processes, machines and equipment; and to integrate the facilities and systems for producing quality products with the optimum expenditure of capital. The manufacturing or production engineer's primary focus is to turn raw material into an updated or new product in the most effective, efficient & economic way possible. An example would be a company uses computer integrated technology in order for them to produce their product so that it is faster and uses less human labor. Manufacturing Engineering is based on core industrial engineering and mechanical engineering skills, adding important elements from mechatronics, commerce, economics and business management. This field also deals with the integration of different facilities and systems for producing quality products (with optimal expenditure) by applying the principles of physics and the results of manufacturing systems studies, such as the following: Craft Putting-out system British factory system American system of manufacturing Mass production Computer integrated manufacturing Computer-aided technologies in manufacturing Just in time manufacturing Lean manufacturing Flexible manufacturing Mass customization Agile manufacturing Rapid manufacturing Prefabrication Ownership Fabrication Publication Manufacturing engineers develop and create physical artifacts, production processes, and technology. It is a very broad area which includes the design and development of products. Manufacturing engineering is considered to be a subdiscipline of industrial engineering/systems engineering and has very strong overlaps with mechanical engineering. Manufacturing engineers' success or failure directly impacts the advancement of technology and the spread of innovation.