Study of Trends and Perspectives of Industrial Engineering Research

Abstract

Industrial engineering is an engineering discipline which, because of its multi-disciplinary nature, has played an important role in the development and optimization of different systems at macro and micro levels. In this paper, the results of a research to study the position and trend of Industrial Engineering research in recent years are described. The data from a sample of 7 114 IE-related articles from international journals during the last 27 years were used for the analysis. The results showed that the development of IE in many countries has a strong correlation with their industrial and economic development. However, IE research topics are spreading in other management and engineering departments and so there is a need to redefine the discipline and its specific areas of interest. According to the prediction made using time series analysis, the most favorite fields of IE research in future will be on subjects related to information technology, intelligent systems, optimization, quality, and supply chain management. OPSOMMINGBedryfsingenieurswese is 'n ingenieursdissipline wat vanweë die multi-dissiplinêre aard daarvan 'n belangrike rol gespeel het in die optimisering van verskillende sisteme op makroen mikrovlak. Hierdie artikel hou die resultate voor van 'n navorsingsprojek wat onderneem is om die posisie en rigting van Bedryfsingenieursnavorsing in onlangse jare te bepaal. Die data van 'n monster van 7 114 Bedryfsingenieursverwante artikels wat verskyn het in internasionale joernale oor die afgelope 27 jaar is gebruik vir die ontleding. Die resultate toon dat die groei van Bedryfsingenieurswese in verskeie lande sterk korreleer met industriële en ekonomiese ontwikkeling. Tog blyk dit dat die navorsingsonderwerpe van Bedryfsingenieurswese sprei na ander bestuurs-en ingenieursdepartemente en dus bestaan daar 'n nodigheid om die dissipline en die spesifieke belangstellingsvelde te herdefinieer. Volgens die vooruitskatting wat gedoen is met behulp van 'n tydreeksanalise, blyk dit dat die gunstelingterreine vir navorsing in die toekoms op die gebiede van inligtingstegnologie, intelligente sisteme, optimisering, gehalte en voorsienings-kettingbestuur sal wees.

Trends in a South African Industrial Engineering Research Journal: A Textual Information Analysis Perspective

“…the words of the article you are reading), the underlying structures correspond to the topics 7 or themes indirectly addressed in the text, while the observed data corresponds to the actual words found in the text. Topics are comprised of words associated with the individual topics.…”

“…Dastkhan and Owlia [7] analysed the trends in IE research over the past three decades in an attempt to predict future research developments in this field. The publications on different IE topics from four main international publishers -Pergamon, Elsevier, Springer, and Emerald -were studied.…”

“…It is argued that the trend of research on the subjects categories has varied during different periods (Figure 6), possibly due to changes in research demand by industry and society (pull factor) as well as the scientific interest of researchers (push factor). To relate the trends in IE research in the SAJIE to the trends in international IE research publications, each of the 50 topics attained through the topic modelling approach outlined in this article was allocated to one of the ten main categories defined by Dastkhan and Owlia 13 [7]. The eight topics with dual labels were treated as 16 individual topics in the mapping exercise for improved allocation accuracy.…”

“…Knowing what the role and function of IE will be in the future is a point of interest for IE researchers and practitioners alike. Dastkhan and Owlia [7] found that, in an international publication context, most future IE research will be focused on subjects like information technology, intelligent systems, optimisation, quality, and supply chain management. Their research further highlights that the proportion of publication outputs on production management has decreased during the last decade.…”

“…In order to discover similar South African research scope trends and benchmark these against those of the international study [7], an objective method serves to determine the themes covered in SAJIE articles. The effective analysis of such a substantial collection requires a structured approach: finding articles similar to those of interest, and exploring the collection by means of prevailing underlying themes.…”