Penn State Behrend’s Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers, or I.I.S.E., is preparing for another productive year. The Behrend organization has received a lot of attention after receiving a gold standard for the third year in a row, along with winning a bid to hold the national conference for the 2020 year.

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I.I.S.E. is an on-campus club for engineers based on informing and bettering the students in a welcoming setting. The group provides a community for industrial engineering students to network and enjoy the company of other engineering students. Organization president Safinaz Elhadary stated, “Everyone wants to feel like they belong somewhere, and being an IE where you may not want to join a sorority, [I.I.S.E.] allows you to join a group of people with the same mind set.”

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On Thursday, the organizations’ officials met to establish their semesterly plan. The club determined that the goal of the year to come was to top their past years’ accomplishments. In past years, Behrend’s group had achieved the elite gold status award from I.I.S.E. by doing an outstanding job in preparing industrial and systems engineering students. In order to prepare their members for the real world, they went on several plant tours in which students were able to view factory operations; the group also attended a regional conference.

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Experiences like this help engineering students prepare for their future careers by understanding the industry outside of a classroom. For instance, students who attended the past years’ regional conference at R.I.T. were able to listen to keynote speakers and talk to engineers in the workplace. Select students presented some of the projects they had been working on during the semester.

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President Safinaz Elhadary explained that the club plans on exceeding expectations this year by taking more plant tours, attending the regional conference at the University of Pittsburgh, holding a number of social events, and inviting several speakers to Behrend. The organization has hopes for new collaborations with other clubs on campus, such as the Society of Women in Engineering, and the Materials and Manufacturing Group to create a unified community within the engineering clubs. Another goal set by the organization officials is to hold smaller socials that will allow members of the group to mingle and make connections, especially between freshman and upperclassmen studying in the same field.

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President Elhadary is most excited for their fall semester Industrial Systems Engineers banquet. The banquet will celebrate industrial engineers and mechanical engineers and, “show the beauty of Industrial engineering, and how it’s flexible, and can be implemented in any field,” explained Elhadary, the group plans on calling the banquet “IE from all angles.” The banquet will have professors who will discuss their experiences, along with possible Penn State Alumni who graduated from the I.E. program.

If all goes well, the group would like to hold an additional banquet in the spring semester. Elhadary commented, “It will be a lot of work, but I think it will be worth it”. The second banquet would be more directed toward bringing in students from undecided backgrounds and showing them what I.E. has to offer.

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The group does hold programs which examine topics like Lean and O.S.H.A. These programs can last a few hours or a few days, but participants who attend walk away with a certificate in the subject. These programs are often a big hit with students from all majors as they cover topics any student will need in the workplace.

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Chris Lashway, a senior industrial engineer and treasurer of I.I.S.E. noted that his experiences with those workshops were beneficial, saying, “some of those techniques, and some of those strategies are things I used during my internship.”

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The I.I.S.E. organization is creating history for the Behrend campus with its outstanding performance and does not plan on slowing down. For those interested in joining I.I.S.E. they can attend the first meeting which will be held on Thursday at 4 p.m. in the AMIC conference room.