Industrial engineers articulate their critical thinking for problem solving via the D.R.I.V.E.S. model

Abstract

Industrial engineers face a challenge to develop sustainable continuous improvement implementations, to help businesses change and adapt to continual survival challenges. Recent industrial engineering graduates face difficulties in structuring their acquired knowledge from an open-ended problem solving perspective. Leadership at Boeing is determined by the ability to define knowledge, model and mentor/teach others that knowledge. By this definition, industrial engineers fall short on their ability to teach others their problem solving process. This paper first provides a framework for a set of attributes, defined to establish the core elements of what industrial engineers must learn, practice and develop for sustainable solutions, to later introduce the D.R.I.V.E.S. model as a structured methodology for continuous improvement, using different industrial engineering tools to narrow down open-ended problems into a sequence of steps to propose the right set of solutions and ensure sustainable improvement implementations.