Optimizing industry

The growing industrial demand for optimization and management strategies in the booming economic growth of the 1950s leads to the development of the Industrial Engineering Department, which eventually becomes the Department of Industrial Engineering and Operations Research.

Started as a division within the mechanical engineering department, industrial engineering sees rapid growth after World War II as the supply chain and logistics lessons learned during the war are translated into industrial contexts. Professor Paul DeGarmo, known by his students as Mr. E120 for his enthusiastic teaching of the intro engineering economics class, is largely credited with pushing for development of the department.

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