Research in Department of Industrial Engineering and Management is focusing on manufacturing and information intensive organisations, where organisations and their operations are analysed as comprehensive processes from perspectives of engineering, economic and behavioral sciences. The research in DIEM has strong nature of design sciences, finding new models for the future from existing practices. It utilizes and combines theories and methods from engineering, business economics, psychology, sociology and ergonomics. The main target of this applied science is to strengthen the national and also international innovation system to boost economy, business activities and employment. This is important from the research point of view as in DIEM “the industry itself is our laboratory” and therefore our research is conducted in close co-operation with various types of organizations.

It is very difficult to control the economic problems in information intensive or manufacturing oriented organisations without understanding the operations or even the engineering itself. This includes functions lsuch as product development, production, marketing and also utilisation of products and services. The close connection to engineering sciences emphasises the nature of design science as an ambition to create constructs. The task is to create methods, models and tools as research results to support decision making, operations and development. The most essential criteria for our research are improving productivity, effectiveness, competitiveness and quality.

The Department of Industrial Engineering and Management has currently three main research areas; the Industrial Management, Work Sciences, and Quality and Project Management. All of these focus areas have professors as responsible leaders and they are self steering in planning the research activities together with the staff.

The Research Development Committee

DIEM has organized The Research Development Committee (TKTR - Tutkimuksen kehittämistyöryhmä) to develop research comprehensively. This is and example pf innovative approach in DIEM, since there are no universal level instructions for any kind of committee on development for research supervision at the department level. The purpose of the TKTR is defined as follows:

• it focuses on developing activities and it is a part of the quality system in research,
• it is a part of operations, management and strategic planning of research,
• it coordinates, develops and supervises research,
• it is a continuous development forum for research; a channel for analysing feedback and initiatives, promoting two way communication,
• it gives statements on research at department level and
• it prepares the research related issues for the department decision making

Focus areas

• Efficiency and effectiveness of product development, and production (ICT).
• eLearning in universities