IEM Self-Assessment Tool

Mathematics and Economics consists of subjects that will be part of IEM.

Integration, Differentiation, Natural logarithm, goniometry and limits are part of the prior knowledge that you will need to be able to study IEM. Without this knowledge it might be hard to succeed in Industrial Engineering and Management. Therefore, if needed, try to catch up on these topics. For more information about the prior knowledge see this website.

The topics Cooperation with companies, Optimisation, Entrepreneurship, Management, Consultancy, Logistics, Production processes, Finance and Sustainability are typical Industrial Engineering and Management subjects. If you like to learn more about this, Industrial Engineering and Management could fit you.

A study week consists of 40 hours. Within these hours there are different forms of education. - Lectures: The teacher gives a presentation about a certain object - Tutorial: You are working on exercises and the teacher and his assistents offer guidance. - Project work: In a group of 4 to 10 students you are working on a case. Often this is a case of a real company. Most of this work is unsupervised but there are question hours - Self study: Besides the contact hours you also have to spent time on studying yourself. Preparing lectures, making homework and studying for exams. Lectures, tutorials and supervised project work are called contact hours.

In general, IEM has approximately 20 contact hours per week.

A study week consists of 40 hours. Within these hours there are different forms of education. - Lectures: The teacher gives a presentation about a certain object - Tutorial: You are working on exercises and the teacher and his assistents offer guidance. - Project work: In a group of 4 to 10 students you are working on a case. Often this is a case of a real company. Most of this work is unsupervised but there are question hours - Self-study: Besides the contact hours you also have to spent time on studying yourself. Preparing lectures, making homework and studying for exams. Lectures, tutorials and supervised project work are called contact hours.

In general, IEM has approximately 20 self-study hours per week.

We will now continue with some typical Industrial Engineering and Management exercises. Try to solve them to the best of your ability. By making these exercises, you can get an indication of the level of the programme. Please note that you do not have to worry if you do not have the correct answer to all exercises, as you will be working on the material during the programme.

Operations research

Giapetto manufactures two types of toys: soldiers and trains. The manufacturer of wooden soldiers and trains requires two types of skilled labor: Carpentry and finishing. A maximum of 40 soldiers per week can be sold. There is an unlimited demand for trains. Giapetto wants to maximize weekly profit.

We begin defining the relevant decision variables. In a linear programming model, the decision variables should completely describe the decisions to be made.

The decision variables describe the decision you should make. In this exercise you want to know how many soldiers and trains should be produced. That is the decision that should be made. Therefore, the number of soldiers and trains produced each week are the decision variables.

The correct answer is:

X1 = number of soldiers produced each week

X2 = number of trains produced each week

Operations research

Giapetto manufactures two types of toys: soldiers and trains. The manufacture of wooden soldiers and trains requires two types of skilled labor: Carpentry and finishing. A maximum of 40 soldiers per week can be sold. There is an unlimited demand for trains. Giapetto wants to maximize weekly profit.

As decision variables, we use:

X1 = number of soldiers produced each week and

X2 = number of trains produced each week.

The labor costs are $6 per hour for carpenting, while finishing costs $4 per hour. The function to be maximized is called the objective function.

Giapetto wants to maximize his weekly profit. The profit per sold good is the revenue – the costs.

The profit on each sold soldier is: $27 - $10 - $14 = $3.

The profit on each sold train is: $21 - $9 - $10 = $2.

The total profit each week can be calculated by multiplying the profit per sold good with the number of goods sold.

The objective function will be: 3X1 + 2X2

Mathematics

Combine the matching figures and options:

Correct answer: 

Figure 1: A = B

Figure 2: A ⊆ B and A ⊂ B

Figure 3: A ⊄ B and B ⊈ A

During mathematics you will learn more about this. We use the book Thomas’ Calculus, early transcendentals UT Edition (George B. Thomas). If you are curious about mathematics, you can take a look already.

Finance

Suppose a hospital wants to invest in a new type of MRI scanner. The current price of the MRI scanner is kr1,000,000. The currency rate is €1 to kr10. Next year, a MRI scanner will cost kr1,400,000 and the expected currency rate is €1 to kr13. The cumulative interest rate per month is 1%.

Today the MRI scanner costs: 1,000,000/10 = €100,000

The price of next year today: 1,400,000/13 x 1/(1,01)^12 = € 95,571

So it is cheaper to buy the MRI scanner next year.

Don’t worry, you will learn more about this during IEM. Curious about what you will learn about finance in the bachelor of Industrial Engineering and Management? Take a look at the book we use: Principles of corporate finance (Brealey, Myers and Allen).

Demand Supply Planning

Each week Harry sells 80 products. He orders 400 products at the time. When he places an order, it takes 3 weeks before it is delivered. He wants to keep as little inventory as is possible, but he always wants to meet the demand. The last time he ordered was in week 4.

The right answer is week 9 (C).

Every week he sells 80 products so if he orders 400 products each time, he has enough products for exactly 5 weeks. The last time he ordered was in week 4. The order arrived in week 7. Those products will all be sold in week 11. So, at the start of week 12 the next order had to be there. The ordertime is 3 weeks, so he had to order in week 9.

During this subject we use the book Supply Chain Management: Strategy, Planning and Operations (Chopra S. and Meindl P.)

Excel and programming

A very important skill for IEM is programming. We make use of different programming languages and it is especially important that you understand the way of thinking. In IEM, we start with excel and its programming language VBA.

A company currently uses Excel to log its orders. In this sheet, every order gets a unique ID. Furthermore, the date and customer name is stated per order. For every unique order in a order, a new orderline is made. These are the different rows in the sheet. It has a product name, category, unit price and quantity.

The company wants to know what the total quantity of order 10 was.

The correct answer is: D, =SUMIF(A:A,”10”, G:G).

Don’t worry, during Industrial Engineering and Management you will learn more about this!

Probability

The correct answer is B.

During Industrial Engineering and Management you will learn more about this!