IE (Industrial Engineering) originated in the United States and is an applied engineering technology discipline developed on the basis of Taylor science. It emphasizes improving productivity in an all-round way, reducing production costs, ensuring product quality, making the system in the best operation state and obtaining huge overall benefits. It is a mainstream science that assists enterprise management, from method engineering, job measurement, job evaluation, salary system and factory design to job research and decision analysis, and even absorbs the research and practical experience of statistical methods and information technology, network planning technology and behavioral science development. The goal of IE is to improve the production management infrastructure of the factory, increase labor productivity, make theory and practice complement each other, ensure management effect, reduce costs, improve economic benefits, and find problems, solve problems and prevent problems based on engineering technology and scientific management skills. Due to the different emphases and times, there are many opinions about industrial engineers at home and abroad, which can be summarized into five types: "Industrial engineers are such people, they are the designers of the best working system; Is an assistant to decision makers and managers at all levels; It is the interface, communicator and coordinator between management and technology, managers and engineers, departments and departments, enterprises and external environment; At the same time, he is also a professional engineer with his own independent and specific business, which is different from technical personnel such as management. Moreover, they are brave and good at putting forward new ideas and concepts, and can accept, advocate and popularize new technologies, new processes, new materials, new methods, new ideas, new strategies, or "regardless of ministers" that are difficult for ordinary people to accept or temporarily unknown to people.

The above statement reflects the nature, content and function of industrial engineers from different angles, among which the most core or basic statement is 1, that is, industrial engineers are the designers of the best working system. In other words, industrial engineers are engaged in an optimal design/redesign of a certain system, so that the manpower and other resources put into the system can be fully and effectively utilized, all kinds of waste can be eliminated/reduced, and the maximum/optimal output of the system can be realized. The second view holds that industrial engineers are assistants, staff officers and think tanks of leaders at all levels from their position and function, helping managers find problems, make correct production and operation decisions and provide scientific basis for management. It can be seen that IE major does not directly train managers such as factory directors and managers, but trains engineers, a special kind of engineers. On the other hand, managers must have IE knowledge, especially IE awareness. Otherwise, it is impossible for them to organize production and business activities reasonably and scientifically and do a good job in enterprises according to the requirements of industrial engineering. On the other hand, as IIE Institute in the United States said, industrial engineers often develop into senior managers because they have more business skills and training than other professional engineers. Therefore, the top management of many large companies now has a background in industrial engineering. The third argument is that industrial engineers, as "interface engineers", are different from other professional engineers and are irreplaceable by leaders and other departments or professional engineers. They always proceed from the overall situation, provide convenience for managers at all levels, make suggestions for various departments, and coordinate and integrate the business (such as design, manufacturing and supply) between various departments. The fourth statement emphasizes that the work of industrial engineers cannot be understood as the overall planning and design of the system or just as assistants and interfaces. They also have a clear professional division of labor and relatively independent work functions, which are very specific and practical, that is, they can be professionals who specialize in or focus on a certain aspect of work, such as quality control/management engineers, method research engineers, time research engineers, industrial safety engineers and so on. The fifth statement embodies the innovative characteristics of IE. What no one wants to do, or what others can't do, is exactly where industrial engineers come in. AgileMfg, for example, is a new strategy put forward by American industrial engineering experts to revitalize American manufacturing. It is the industrial engineering experts in China who quickly accepted and actively spread this new idea.