Editing Engineering management (section)

==Management engineering consulting==
Large and small engineering driven firms often require the expertise of external [[management consultant]]s that specialize in companies where engineering practice and product development are key drivers of value.  Most engineering management consultants will have as a minimum a [[professional engineering]] qualification.  But usually they will also have graduate degrees in engineering and or business or a management consulting designation.  It involves providing management consulting service that is specific to professional [[engineering]] practice or to the engineering industry sector.  Engineering management consultancies, are typically boutique firms and have a more specialized focus than the traditional mainstream consulting firms, [[A T Kearney]], [[Boston Consulting Group]], [[KPMG]], [[PricewaterhouseCoopers|PWC]], and [[McKinsey & Company|McKinsey]]. [[Applied science]] and engineering practice requires a combination of "management art", science, and engineering practice. There are many professional service companies delivering services in a consultancy type relationship to the engineering industry, including [[law]], accounting, [[human resources]], [[marketing]], [[politics]], economics, finance, [[Public administration|public affairs]], and [[communication]].  Commonly, engineering management consultants are used when firms require a combination of special [[Technology|technical]] knowledge, and [[management]] know how, to enhance [[knowledge]] or transform organizational performance and also keep any [[intellectual property]] developed confidential.

Engineering management consulting is concerned with the development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of organizations, people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy, materials and/or processes.  Management Engineering Consultants strive to improve upon existing organizations, processes, products or systems. Engineering management consulting draws upon the principles and methods of engineering analysis and synthesis, as well as the mathematical, physical and [[social sciences]] together with the principles and methods of engineering design to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems or processes. Engineering management consulting can focus on the social impact of the product, process or system that is being analyzed.  There is also an overlap between engineering management consulting and management science in services that require the adoption of more analytical approaches to problem solving.

Examples of where engineering management consulting might be used include developing and leading a company wide [[business transformation]] initiative, or designing and implementing a new product development process, designing and implementing a [[manufacturing engineering]] process, including an automated assembly workstation.  Management engineers may specialize in the acquisition and implementation of [[Computer-aided design|computer aided design]] (CAD), [[computer-aided manufacturing]] (CAM) and [[computer-aided engineering]] (CAE) applications.  Services may include strategizing for various operational logistics, new product introductions, or consulting as an efficiency expert.  It may include using management science techniques to develop a new financial algorithm or loan system for a bank, streamlining operation and emergency room location or usage in a hospital, planning complex distribution schemes for materials or products (referred to as supply chain management), and shortening lines (or [[queueing theory|queues]]) at a bank, hospital, or a theme park.  Management engineering consultants typically use [[computer simulation]] (especially [[discrete event simulation]]), along with extensive mathematical tools and modeling and computational methods for system analysis, evaluation, and optimization.