The graduate program in Operations Research and Industrial Engineering (ORIE) offers programs leading to master's and doctor's degrees. It is a part of the Mechanical Engineering Department at The University of Texas at Austin's Cockrell School of Engineering, and has been in existence since 1963. ORIE is strictly a graduate program that consists of 10 faculty members and 70 full-time students (about 45 M.S. and 25 Ph.D.).
Operations Research is a mathematical science concerned with optimal decision making and modeling of deterministic and probabilistic systems. Its focus and field of application are interdisciplinary, embracing a range of quantitative techniques with components in economics, computer science and systems theory.
Similarly, Industrial Engineering is concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of persons, material and equipment.
The practice of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering addresses both the performance objectives and the resource constraints of an organization and works toward establishing policies that are the most beneficial to the organization as a whole. Related problems may be as specific as improving the efficiency of a production line or as broad as developing a long-range corporate strategy involving a combination of financial, marketing and technological concerns.
