Saint Louis University

SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
Otto Hahn Room 611
Telephone Number 074-4432001 local 227

Chapter 13 Engineers in Marketing and Service Industries

Many engineers work in industries producing a service rather than a physical

product. Engineering employment in the service industry makes up nearly 50% of
all engineers employed. They are in sectors such as computer applications,
government services (such as DPWH, DENR, DTI, NEDA, DOST, DA, LGUs, banks,
etc.), colleges and universities, research, biomedical and health services.

Engineering involvement in marketing industrial products

In all, there are eight types of industrial products, and the role of the
engineer is different for each type, as summarized in the table below.

Type of Description Engineering involvement

product
Installations Large, durable custom Selling and performance of design service,
constructions cost estimation and construction supervision
Accessories Shorter-lived capital Seller’ engineers design for general customer
goods (equipment)
Raw materials Extractive and agricultural Assessment of quality
products
Process Goods that change form Buyer’s engineers establish specifications
materials in production
Component Catalog items that do not Supplier’s engineers design for general
parts lose identity in production customer and introduce to user’s engineers
Fabricated Custom-made items Buyer’s engineers design and specify, seller
items bids on manufacture
Maintenance, Consumed in process of Repair parts and methods specified by
repair production or use maker’s engineers; users have ,little
and operating engineering involvement
items
Services Involve only incidental For engineering services, engineers sell as
product line well as perform

After-Sales Service

Engineers are also involved with client-related tasks after the sales
transaction, including delivery and payment, is completed.

These client maintenance tasks include installation, warranty, field service,

documentation, training, provisioning, providing repair facilities, providing retrofit,
rebuild and overhaul, and supplying spares and supplies.

Many industrial and military purchases are very expensive, often priced at
millions of dollars per unit, and therefore must have a long service life to justify the

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 Saint Louis University
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
Otto Hahn Room 611
Telephone Number 074-4432001 local 227

expenditure. This implies that units cannot be discarded when they malfunction, but
must be repaired.

To accommodate different levels of maintenance ability, firms typically form

departments for servicing the continuing needs of their clients. Engineers are used
in these functions as back-up to crews of technicians where problems become
severe or complicated by multiple interactive failures of complex systems.

Engineers in service organizations

Most services are intangible, and are usually performed in real time, often in
the presence of the customer. Services can seldom be inventoried, they must be
performed on a schedule that fits the needs of the customer.

Most professional or consulting services are customized, personalized, and

labor intensive. Others such as airline transportation or telephone or electrical
service, are standardized and very capital intensive..

Like manufacturing, service producing industries prosper by providing value

for the customer, but often in a more immediate and personalized manner. The
following companies have been identified as service-producing industries that have
achieved excellence in performance- Delta Airlines, Mariott Hotels, McDonald’s,
Disney Productions, Wal Mart, and both Bechtel and Fluor.

Some specific industry examples

Computer application- computer system analysts, engineers and scientists

Both software and hardware development are usually customized according to each
company’s needs. Many companies use available technology as a leverage over
other competitors.

Government service – at the state level, the largest employment of engineers is

in the state highway (or transportation), energy, environmental, various regulatory
functions, defense, intelligence, space agencies, agriculture, etc.

Green engineering- defined as environmentally conscious attitudes, values and

principles, combined with science, technology, and engineering practice, all directed
toward improving local and global environmental quality. Green engineering
encompasses all of the engineering disciplines, and is consistent and compatible
with sound engineering design principles.

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 Saint Louis University
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
Otto Hahn Room 611
Telephone Number 074-4432001 local 227

College teaching and research. Engineering professors or engineers working in

research or advanced design soon find they need more technological depth than
what a BS degree provides. Hence an appropriate master’s degree is required for
the profession or even doctoral degree, for those who would like to hold
administrative positions.

Biomedical Engineering and the Health Services. The recent world health crisis
has increased the need for medical specialists of all types: chemists, biochemists,
and pharmacists. The increasing technical complexity has required the service of a
new breed of engineer- the biomedical engineer.

Biomedical engineering can be broadly defined as the application of engineering

concepts, methods and techniques to biology and medicine.

Work done by biomedical engineers may include a wide range of activities such as
the following:

 Artificial organs (hearing aids, cardiac pacemakers, artificial kidneys and

hearts, blood oxygenators, synthetic blood vessels, joints, arms and legs.
 Automated patient monitoring (during surgery or in intensive care, or for
patients with highly contagious diseases such as Covid19; healthy persons in
unusual environments, such as astronauts in space, or underwater divers at
great depth)
 Blood chemistry sensors (potassium, sodium, O, CO, and pH)
 Advanced therapeutic and surgical devices (laser system for eye surgery,
automated delivery of insulin, etc.)
 Application of expert systems and artificial intelligence to clinical decision
making (computer-based systems for diagnosing diseases)
 Design of optimal clinical laboratories
 Medical imaging systems
 Biomaterials design
 Biomechanics of wound injury and wound healing
 Sports medicine

Health care systems engineering deals with problems in the analysis of health-
care concepts and health-care systems, such as socio-economic ans psychological
determinants of health. It is also concerned with the design and implementation of
more efficient and less costly modes of health care delivery.

Case Studies (Chapter 13)

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 Saint Louis University
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING AND ARCHITECTURE
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT
Otto Hahn Room 611
Telephone Number 074-4432001 local 227

1. Find an application of engineering concepts and techniques to the health services

from literature (past researches or studies, use the more recent ones), and write a
summary describing it. You may also refer to applications in current events.

2. What could be the future of engineering careers after this pandemic? What types
of jobs/careers will be more relevant in the engineering field after the pandemic
and why? You can use data from more recent researches.