Engineering management

Engineering management is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the application of engineering principles to business and organizational practice.

Engineering management is a career that brings together the technological problem-solving savvy of engineering and the organizational, administrative, and planning abilities of management in order to oversee complex enterprises from conception to completion. A Master of Engineering Management (MEM) is sometimes compared to a Master of Business Administration (MBA) for professionals seeking a graduate degree as a qualifying credential for a career in engineering management.

Engineering management utilizes the techniques and tools of industrial engineering/systems engineering. Successful engineering managers typically require training and experience in business, management, and engineering. Technically inept managers tend to be deprived of support by their technical team, and non-commercial managers tend to lack commercial acumen to deliver in a market economy. Largely, engineering managers manage engineers who are driven by non-entrepreneurial thinking, and thus require the necessary people skills to coach, mentor and motivate technical professionals. Engineering professionals joining manufacturing companies sometimes become engineering managers by default after a period of time. They are required to learn how to manage once they are on the job, though this is usually an ineffective way to develop managerial abilities.

Stevens Institute of Technology is believed to have the oldest Engineering management department, established as the School of Business Engineering in 1908. This was later called the Bachelor of Engineering in Engineering Management (BEEM) program and moved into the School of Systems and Enterprises. Drexel University established the first graduate engineering management degree in the U.S., which was first offered in 1959. In 1967 the first university department titled "Engineering Management" was founded at the Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T, formerly the University of Missouri-Rolla, formerly Missouri School of Mines).

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