What is Management Engineering?

Today we will talk about Management Engineering, that is a specialized form of management that is concerned with the application of engineering principles to business practice.

The management engineer, unlike other engineers, has a thorough understanding of the decision-making techniques and business strategies; he also differs from graduates in economics because a management engineer develops specialized skills and quantitative modeling approach to decision-making problems. He, therefore, is specialized in the design, organization and management of enterprises.

The first degree courses in management engineering dates back to the early ’80s, but it was in the 90s that the figure of the management succeeds in breaking out all over the country. Although this branch of engineering, as relatively new, in most of the universities it was born as a Mechanical Engineering economic-organizational course. In addition, Management engineering in Italy was born much later that in the rest of the world (and in particular in the United States of America, where it was born in the 30s) and called Industrial Engineering.

The main activities carried out by graduates in this field may include: the analysis of costs and benefits of individual employees, work teams or departments; control of the quality and reliability of business processes; management control and planning; managing innovative projects; the design and restructuring of sectors or departments of the company, as well as design, plan and manage individual processes in organizations; the analysis of the cost-effectiveness of different investment opportunities or financing of the company; the study of the market demand and supply chain; the design and management of production processes and integrated logistics systems; procurement of materials and chances of outsourcing; automation of production systems; the choice of technologies and their integration; product innovation and service; the design and management of the flow of information and integrated information systems; process reengineering intra-and inter-organizational.

Ultimately, the management engineer is a figure of reconciliation between technical departments and the management.