KNOXVILLE — The Department of Industrial Engineering at the University of Tennessee has changed its name to reflect increased emphasis on information technology.
The newly named Department of Industrial and Information Engineering is the result of the information revolution now sweeping through industrial engineering programs, Dr. Adedeji B. Badiru, professor and head of the department, said Wednesday.
“We hope to take advantage of emerging information age technologies and processes to build synergy with other information-related programs,” Badiru said. “Cross-disciplinary opportunities to collaborate with other academic departments will be aggressively pursued.”
Badiru said plans are underway for interdisciplinary research and instructional collaboration with computer science, computer engineering, information sciences and management information sciences.
The renamed department will add engineering-related applications to conventional information sciences fields such as library sciences, business administration and computer sciences, he said.
Engineering applications he cited include modeling and optimization of information, engineering processes, systems integration, enterprise systems, and cross-functional information system design.
A long-range objective of the department is to establish an interdisciplinary undergraduate degree program in information science and technology, he said.