The differences among the engineering areas are artificial. In the case of the Mechanical and Industrial Engineering  basically differs in that although the industrial engineers, among other areas of interest, work with processes that have to do with the mechanics, they are in charge mainly of the aspects linked to it organization.

Thank You Mr. Jose.

I agree that the differences among engineering disciplines are artificial, and blurred. There is always overlap. However, industrial engineering is much more related to operations research, different methods for optimizing processes of all types, using techniques like linear programming, dynamic programming, graph theory, statistics, and not much involved in the actual design of machinery.

For example, routing protocols used in the Internet grew out of graph theory, which is a field in operations research, which I would classify as belonging to industrial engineering. This discipline originated mostly in World War II, to try to get a grip on optimizing production of war materiel. Including, for example, sampling production runs efficiently, to assure a certain level of quality, efficient production lines, metrics, and so on.

I'd say that mechanical and electrical engineering are more similar to each other than they are to industrial engineering, for instance. In both of these engineering disciplines, you are applying science to build things. Whereas industrial engineering is more purely "applied math," with the goal of optimizing processes.

We can not talk about differences between mechanical and industrial engineering but it is best to describe the commons and similarities between the two disciplines and each one is complement the other. Mechanical engineering deals with pure mechanical issue on the other side industrial is covering more area including other sciences like chemical, architecture,..etc. I hope to right in my explanation.!

Regards, Emad

Thank u Emand

Distinguished Anirbid Sicar, I fully agree with Dr. Arzola, who I acknowledge as an expert in these fields. The only thing I would add is that mechanical engineers concentrate on the machine itself, on the "mechanical" of equipment and machinery.

Many successes in your research.

Best regards,

José Hernández.

Thank u Jose

Mechanical Engineering as well as all engineering areas requires using Operational Research. The difference consists in that the Industrial Engineering works on production and process planning problems while Mechanical Engineering, the same as Hydraulics, Energetic, and others need of Operational Research for solving design, technologies generation and processes operation problems. I am attaching a work where these problems are formulated and solved for several engineering areas, including  Industrial one Mechanical. Most of them are related with PhD Thesis tutored by me.

Mechanical engineering and industrial engineering are very different career paths.

Mechanical engineers design machines, supervise their operation and maintenance, and do projects to improve the machines. Example a larger size bolt might replace one that broke.

Industrial engineers are more concerned with how people and machines work together, and how that interaction can be improved. Example a bin of parts might be moved closer to a work place or swapped from right to left side of the worker.

Both disciplines may combine together into a project of value engineering. Example is when a custom manufactured machine part is replaced by an assembly of standard components that achieve the same purpose. Other example a metal part might be redesigned slightly to allow a machining operation to be replaced with a casting operation or a stamping operation or a forging operation.

Thank you Jerry for your answer

The word engineering comes from INGENIUM, which means the ease of man to invent.

Engineering is the profession in which knowledge of the mathematical, physical, economic and social sciences, of technology and computer science, experimentation and good judgment, together with the specialized knowledge, principles and methods of design and analysis are used to provide solutions to problems for the benefit of mankind.

Without a doubt, engineering careers have in common the objective of finding the most adequate solutions, even when the data are incomplete and inaccurate, to ensure efficient and constant human, social and economic progress, but differ in the work object, sphere and the fields of action defined in the curricula.

In our university we are in a process of updating the curricula, to move to the Plans E. However I attach an article of Curriculum D of Industrial Engineering.

Conference Paper Modelo del profesional en el nuevo plan de estudio de ingeni...

Thank you Alicia for a great insight in the subject.

Mechanical Engineering and Industrial are very much the same. The main difference I would say is, that Industrial Engineering is deeply concerned with achieving organizational excellence at any stage of business. The Mechanical Engineering course structure is basically applied physics and mathematics. Both the branches are coherent to some extent. The remarkable difference also lies in the part that an Industrial Engineering undergraduate can make far more better and diverse choices as compared to a Mechanical Undergrad. If a student is good at mathematics and loves to solve problem he should possibly choose Industrial Engineering. But at the same time, if we talk of Industrial Engineering in India, not many chances students have had in recent trends. But it is very likely, that in near future this field skill will emanate as one of the most needful skills as far as taking up good jobs in organizations is concerned. A student with inquisitive and curious mind with an aim in research should possibly make a choice for mechanical Engineering. Also, there are some really good opportunities in Government sector for Mechanical Undergraduates.

They exert differences between both university careers, although in my consideration they are not so deep. Even in many universities of the world both races are studied in the same school. There are contents that converge in a well defined way, especially in what concerns the organization of technological processes, including quality analysis of finished productions.

I agree with Dr.Jose Arzola -Ruiz about that ,so each branch deal with organizing of production Engineering and process planning problems adding that another processes ( Hydraulics, Energetic, vibration,power).

thanks