The New B.Tech programme in IEOR: An Inside Look

Insight had the opportunity to interview Professor Jayendran Venkateswaran, the Head of the IEOR Department. He is also an Institute Chair Professor and has been a faculty member at IITB since 2005. In this interview, he enlightened us about the IEOR department and the newly launched B.Tech programme in the same.

History of the department

The roots of the department go back to 1976 when an Interdisciplinary Programme (IDP) surrounding IEOR was initiated by Prof. P. G. Awate, an esteemed alumnus and faculty member of the Institute. Drawing inspiration from similar departments at UC Berkeley and Cornell, the programme was inculcated to embrace an interdisciplinary approach to engineering and technology. The IDP initially focussed on the Postgraduate programs of MTech and PhDs, which are still open to students from all branches of engineering. In the mid-2000s, the (erstwhile) integrated MSc-PhD degree was introduced to attract students with a background in Maths / Statistics. In 2016, the IEOR minor programme was introduced, and it has gained significant popularity among undergraduate students of other departments. The IEOR IDP recently transitioned to a fully-fledged department in March 2024 and will now offer a B.Tech (from July 2024) in addition to the already active MSc, M.Tech and PhD.

What is IEOR?

Industrial Engineering and Operations Research (IEOR) is a confluence of applied mathematics, computing, technology and management that aims to solve real-world problems through appropriate decision models. Operations Research (OR) as a field provides understanding and tools to manage complex human systems and formal structures, such as planning, scheduling, etc. The Engineering aspect is provided by the need to reinvent processes as these systems evolve continuously. Examples of these are reflected in the research undertaken by the professors in the department. One such is a massive project to redesign the timetable of long-distance passenger trains on the Indian Railway network, which Prof Narayan Rangaraj and team worked on.  While often conflated with Production Engineering, which deals with manufacturing processes, the IEOR UG program has a much broader ambit, covering many more areas of application, as well as techniques of Operations Research. Operations research today includes many disciplines of applied mathematics and computing, which are applied to decision-making in large, complex human and technical systems.

The need for and process of developing a B.Tech programme

Discussions regarding an undergraduate programme have been simmering for a long time. There was also a consensus that the skills attained through such a programme need not be reserved for postgraduates. Unfortunately, the department (then an Interdisciplinary Programme) was restricted by the number of faculty. When the institute started the Minor and IDDDP (Interdisciplinary Dual Degree Programme) programmes, they received an overwhelmingly positive response, with the total number of registrations for all IE courses reaching upwards of 1000, with a high demand for IEOR courses like financial engineering, machine learning, deep learning, optimisation, stochastic models, game theory and operations analysis.

“The tipping point came when a few former IDDDP students, during a reunion, said that these few IEOR courses were some of the most valuable courses they had ever taken and suggested that we start an undergraduate degree course.” 

-Prof. Venkateswaran

The efforts for the BTech course’s formulation started in 2022. It was an initiative of the IDP and was supported by the alumni. They assembled a faculty team and looked at the undergraduate curriculum of similar IEOR programmes worldwide. They also surveyed industry participants to gauge their expectations of an undergraduate degree. This process took 18 months, following which they approached the institute for feedback on the structural aspects of the programme. After multiple rounds of feedback, they finally zeroed in on the curriculum, which IITB’s Senate then approved. 

A Vibrant Curriculum

The curriculum is designed to give a broad foundation to UG students and to develop transferable skills across domains. It will be a balance of applied mathematics, computing and hands-on problem-solving.

The first-year department course, ‘An Introduction to IE and OR’, introduces “systems”  and related decision aspects to students. Examples of these systems include Amazon package delivery, healthcare operations, digital manufacturing, public transportation, and many more. We have all been a part of these systems, but we have always viewed them from a customer point of view. This course is designed to change that. It aims to teach students about what goes on behind the scenes and view it from a designer’s point of view. The second-semester course is on probability and statistics.  This course is being introduced at least a semester earlier than its counterpart in other departments since the concepts form a basis for many decision models.

The curriculum further provides fundamental exposure to optimisation, classical and modern algorithms, stochastic models, AI/ML, control systems, simulation, and domain courses on industrial systems, logistics, and supply chain operations. There will be six labs, four of which will be computational and cover computer programming, data analytics, AI/ML, optimisation and simulation, and two of which will be hardware labs. The hardware labs will have a modern twist and are meant to teach how data is collected and the various tools around it. These include but are not limited to IoT tools. The labs also aim to impart AR/VR experience. The department is also developing a digital enterprise lab around it. Students can further specialise by choosing appropriate departments and STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) electives that suit their interests.

The detailed curriculum can be found here on the department’s official website.

Prof Venkateswaran also mentioned that they are considering offering some of these courses as interdisciplinary STEM electives and are working on the modalities. However, he also remarked that the limited faculty may be a hurdle. In lieu of it, the department is also looking to restructure its PG curriculum, and there might be a possible restructuring of the minor programme in the near future.

Organisational Setup

The department is approved to grow to 25 faculty members (from the current 11), with two more faculty expected to join in a couple of months and a few more by the end of the following year. The Department is also hiring non-teaching staff members to manage the UG programme. To begin with, the B.Tech programme will start with 35 students. The department has also engaged in discussions with faculty colleagues across IITs to understand what academic experience to anticipate in the running of an undergraduate programme. 

When asked about the funding and space requirements for the new programme, the HoD said that another building of the IEOR department has been allotted space in the upcoming  Academic Block 2 and is expected to come up in the next 2-3 years. Currently, they are redistributing space in the current IEOR building (next to Biosciences) itself. Since lectures will be held in the Lecture Hall Complex (LHC) and students can use their laptops in computational labs, the only spatial and budgetary constraints are hardware labs. As for the recruitment of additional faculty, it is supported by the Government.

Placements and Internships

Prof. Venkateswaran is very optimistic about the placement opportunities for IEOR.

“Most IEOR students get good internships and placements as every industry has an OR division, be it an airline or even Disneyland.”

-Prof. Venkateswaran

He also mentions that the traditional non-core engineering jobs in analytics, finance, and supply chain are effectively core jobs for IEOR students as their curriculum is geared towards analytics and computing. This is particularly true for data science roles, where an average analyst might look at past data to understand what happens. IEOR students are trained to look at the underlying process and make suggestions for the future, and a degree with a decision-making flavour sets them apart. Almost all manufacturing organisations, service providers, financial services, and infrastructure firms have roles that IEOR graduates could fulfil, and in addition, can also contribute to public policy. Graduates of the program can also go on to pursue Masters and PhD in a range of disciplines, both in India and abroad. 

In the grand scheme of things, introducing a B.Tech degree in IEOR aligns with IIT Bombay’s vision of offering its students a greater diversity of courses which are more relevant to today’s job market. IIT Bombay is also leading the way for other IITs to introduce such courses and programmes while updating their curriculum to suit industry needs.

Message from the Head

“The new B.Tech in IE & OR is designed to meet the future needs of industry & the world and is likely to appeal to students with interests in data science, computing, and decision analysis. It is multidisciplinary in scope and, with our dynamic faculty who specialise in a range of domains, has the potential to nurture a diverse range of learners and professionals who can serve the sector better. We hope to expose students to state-of-the-art technology & practices in this area and build the department to be one of the leading entities in the world.”

Editorial Credits: Shivam Agarwal, Pranav Savla