40 ISE Magazine | www.iise.org/ISEmagazine

Industrial engineering forefathers Frederick W. Taylor

and Frank and Lillian Gilbreth pioneered the study of

mass production methods. They took their engineering

roots and formed a new discipline to deal with the rising

consumer demands for goods and services at economical

prices. They lived in the transitional time when “hand-

made” goods could no longer keep pace with the growing

consumer appetites for goods and services.

It was their out-of-the-box thinking that help create a

structured discipline to deal with the undisciplined issues

they needed to solve. Through the years, tools and techniques

would evolve that would help analyze the activities of people

and processes and realign resources to complete business pro-

cesses more efﬁciently. These approaches served as the beacon

of change as business evolved during the industrial revolution.

Now that we have achieved this success, what is next? Will

the industrial engineering discipline lead the way into the

computer revolution or will it sit by and watch another dis-

cipline lead the way? ISEs are equipped to be that beacon of

change, but to complete this the role will require they evolve

their perspective and take leadership positions.

A market shift is underway

The shift in the way goods are sold puts a strain on the tradi-

tional views of how to transact business. As the digital com-

merce stream continues to explode, traditional brick-and-

mortar retail is struggling to ﬁnd its way in the new world

(see Figure 1). Recognizing this burgeoning trend does not

require one to throw out all of our traditional thinking; it

merely requires that the application of these approaches evolve

to meet the new conditions.

Gartner, a leading technology research ﬁrm, deﬁnes digital

commerce as “the buying and selling of goods and services using

the internet, mobile networks and commerce infrastructure. ...

Digital commerce goes beyond simple online transactions.” In

digesting the magnitude of the processes encompassed by this

process, we begin to appreciate that solving the new issues is

not isolated on a single discipline but requires a cross-discipline

understanding and ability to solve complex issues.

Unlike the physical needs to streamline people-based pro-

cesses, the new commerce requires the need to solve less tan-

gible business processes. Fundamental skills must be applied to

cross-functional inefﬁciencies that require structured, business

process solutions. Of all of the engineering disciplines, indus-

trial engineers are the best suited to solve their issues.

An engineering discipline shift

Over the last decade, industrial engineering has shifted its fo-

cus to system engineers. They have created an interdisciplinary

ﬁeld of engineering and engineering management that focuses

Holistic approach needed to

meet digital commerce needs

Supply chains must blend engineering, business principles to meet emerging challenges

By M. Scott Moon

May 2020 | ISE Magazine 41

on how to design and manage complex systems

over their life cycles. As such, they have set up the

study of work processes, optimization methods

and risk management tools. Systems engineering

deals with work-processes, optimization methods

and risk management tools in complex projects.

What this fails to do is put the solutions being

developed in the context of business processes,

ﬁnancial conditions and overall business strat-

egy. Traditional solutions that focus on silo-based

optimization must be changed to include holis-

tic business problem-solving to ensure the right

issues are being optimized. By not understand-

ing the operation of the entire business, problem-

solvers are left to their understanding of the is-

sue they will address and fail to understand the

greater business context.

Today’s systems engineering fails to provide an

overall understanding of business, how it works

and the impact of the process to the bottom line. A failure to

give graduates this holistic understanding leaves them unable to

address the underlying business issues. Educating graduates by

relying on engineering techniques and approaches leaves prob-

lem-solvers without the tools they need to add optimal value.

Solving the problems of tomorrow will require optimiza-

tion analytics, ﬁnancial acumen and an overall understand-

ing of the business operation that emulates a combination of

engineering and business. These two disciplines must work

together to deliver a consolidated degree of business architects.

In this union, associates would be able knowledgeable archi-

tects able to construct customized solutions to complex busi-

ness problems.

New grads need the following critical skills:

• Business process. The typical issues that businesses must

manage to compete in a digital commerce world. They

need root cause analysis to ﬁnd the real issue versus the

symptom being proposed.

• Overall business understanding. An overview of the

different functions within the business, how they operate,

the major issues they address and how the optimal business

should work to streamline the business. Without knowing

how the business works, it is hard to determine the driver of

the symptom raising concern.

• Statistical modelling. The value of statistical analytics

in ﬁnding underlying trends of the business and the differ-

ent processes that can beneﬁt from these approaches. The

evolving artiﬁcial intelligence will rely on developing an

understanding of critical underlying cause/affect relation-

ships that can only come with sound analytics.

• Supply chain skills. A detailed understanding of the total

supply chain and the issues that one must address to move

goods efﬁciently and cost-effectively. Concepts like dis-

tributive logistics, customs, cross-border issues and service

level modelling are critical to competing in the high-stakes

marketplace.

• Organizational dynamics. Aligning roles, functions and

tasks organizationally is critical to ensure the right skills are

cultivated and reﬁned.

Unless we equip tomorrow’s leaders with the right toolbox,

they will be unable to evolve business to meet the changing

customer requirements.

Customers are demanding products when they want them,

as they want them, for a low price. The requirements of this

endless aisle constant access will continue to challenge previ-

ous approaches to business. By arming our next round of busi-

ness leaders with the right foundational skills, we can drive

through this change and lead business to new heights.

If we fail to evolve the industrial engineering discipline to

these new needs, another discipline will need to evolve to ﬁll

our gap. Like the early days when Taylor evolved from his me-

chanical engineering roots to become the father of industrial

engineering, the time is now to refocus the current curricu-

lum to generate the next generation business architects. The

sustainability of many long-standing businesses will rest on

our ability to create business architects to help them navigate

the turbulent waters. 

M. Scott Moon is vice president of Digital Commerce and Solution

Modelling for Tompkins International. His background is in inventory

management, demand planning, business process engineering and sup-

ply chain optimization. He has an MBA from the University of Notre

Dame and a bachelor’s degree in industrial engineering and operations

research BSIEOR from Virginia Tech.

FIGURE 1

Digital commerce booming

A comparison of revenue by physical stores vs. digital buying since 2007,

including retail giants Amazon and Walmart.