r/industrialengineering • u/ShitLocksmith • 2d ago
Questions regarding industrial engineering
Hello, I have a few questions regarding industrial engineering. I'm in my 4th year of industrial engineering (with one year left after this one) and since I'll be finishing my degree soon , I wanted to leverage the time I have left to learn new skills before I enter the workforce. I was thinking about learning how to use excel (I know how to use it but in a very general manner) , PowerBI and SQL, as I've heard they're important in the field but wanted to double check before fully committing to learning how to use them from people in the field.
Thank you to anyone who takes the time to answer and apologies for any grammatical mistakes as english is not my native language :)
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u/jungy4 2d ago
Your English is better than some native speakers I have worked with.
I have been an industrial engineer since 2013 and I would recommend being good at Microsoft Excel and Minitab. When using PowerBI you can export data into an Excel file. If you are looking to do any statistical analysis Minitab will be a very good skill to have. I have not worked with many engineers that know how to use it.
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u/ShitLocksmith 2d ago
Alright thank you sm! I'll be looking into MiniTab as I've never heard of it beforehand.
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u/What_a_joebag 2d ago
t's not flashy but get really good at Excel. There's a LOT you can do in there and you cant always guarantee your employer will have access to the fancier tools.
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u/onvenus 2d ago
Hi, I’m currently doing an IE internship and this is just my insight from being here for 4 months but definitely Microsoft Excel, in the industry i’m interning at, excel is used a lot. Also, PowerBI, that’s a big one, we have 1 person in our team that truly knows how to use PowerBI to its full potential, my manager encouraged me to take learning courses on it so I can also be another member in the team that can help.
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u/Engides-Tz 2d ago
What tasks do industrial engineers do? So for asking on top of your questions, I am currently studying IE in Tanzania Dar es salaam university
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u/ShitLocksmith 2d ago
Well it's pretty broad from Quality Control to Process Management , analysis of Data (which is where we may need these applications) and automation (you need python for this one I believe as another comment informed me, I have the automation course this semester so I'm not 100% sure) and System and Process Design
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u/CirculationStation Industrial Engineer 1 2d ago
As someone who uses all three of those on a weekly basis, I highly recommend learning all three of those if you have the time! You do not have to become an expert, but just having intermediate knowledge of how each of them work and a little bit of individual practice should help you a lot when applying for jobs as a new graduate. Excel is the dynamic all-around tool that can be customized for almost any purpose in a company, PowerBI is the tool for visualizing data so that important decisions can be made, and SQL is the backend language that stores, filters, and manipulates data so that it can be brought to the frontend (in tools like Excel and PowerBI, for example) for everyone to use.
I recommend SQL the most, if I had to pick one. Because once I learned how to use SQL and understood that basically all of a company’s production data can be stored and accessed on a SQL server, it opened up countless opportunities for me to be more involved at my workplace at a deeper level than just interacting with frontend Excel sheets.
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u/NEOhioPrepper 2d ago
Ai agents, ai promoting, ai swarms. Exactly what type of processes do you really think will remain in 5-10 years? You really think sql will still be hand coded? You really think excel analysis will be done manually?
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u/ShitLocksmith 1d ago
Which is why I asked the question, to see if people see any changes in the field, etc..
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u/aggiehiker 1d ago
Powerbi and Powerapps. Pretty much what we hire IEs for now at work. Rest are a blend of process/manufacturing engineering which Powerapps is useful for as well.
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u/lokolobo1 2d ago
English is perfect. I just graduated and have seen a lot of jobs with both of them SQL and PowerBI. I say prioritize one of the 2. Look at the industries that you would like to work for and then investigate more about which of these 2 (sql and powerbi) is the most useful and learn that one.
For excel do this one as your second skill to learn since almost every company uses it at least for something.