Management Engineering Program

Management engineers design and optimize processes in modern, data-driven organizations.

Waterloo's innovative management engineering program uniquely integrates knowledge and skills from advanced analytics and operations research, software and information systems, and organization science. Students gain the experience and confidence to implement solutions to complex socio-technical and operational problems. This distinctive skillset is broadly applicable in a variety of industries, including software, finance, supply chain and logistics, manufacturing, and health care.

Overview

The program provides undergraduate students with an engineering education required to understand, design, implement, and manage complex management systems upon which organisations depend. The curriculum has these main components: 

i) A foundation in natural and engineering sciences, mathematics, and computer programming

ii) Specialised courses in our theme areas:

• Big data analytics
• Operations management and optimisation
• Logistics and supply chain management
• Software and user experience
• People, organisations, and technology

iii) A capstone design project 

iv) A series of professional development courses (WatPD-Engineering) 

Management Engineering: The engineering of management systems (PDF) - a discussion paper that helps explain Management Engineering.

In the first year, students develop a strong engineering foundation, taking core courses such as physics, chemistry, calculus, and linear algebra. They also take their first management engineering course, which exposes them to the fundamentals of the program.

In the upper years, students dive deeper with courses that study operations planning and optimisation, data mining and analytics, information systems design, and organisational behaviour and design.

Cap it all off with two years of work experience and a fourth-year design project and students end up with a resume that boasts strong technical skills, teamwork, leadership, problem solving, and interpersonal skills - a great start for a career in any industry!