Purpose
Democritus University of Thrace established the Department of Production and Management Engineering at the Department of Engineering in 2000. The purpose of this department was to contribute to the economic development of Thrace and the entire country and to play an important and leading role in the wider region of Southeast Europe and the Black Sea countries. The creation in our country of a second university department in this discipline, after the corresponding department of the Technical University of Crete, was considered appropriate and necessary because the absorption rate of the graduates of the Technical University of Crete of this discipline by the economy is currently satisfactory and with a continuous upward trend.
The Department of Production and Management Engineering aims to cultivate and promote the science of production and management engineering, through academic and applied research and to provide students with the necessary skills that ensure their thorough qualification for a successful scientific and professional career and development.
In particular, the Department of Production and Management Engineering fulfills its mission by teaching, researching, and implementing systematic ways of improving productivity (increasing the quality and quantity of production while simultaneously reducing required resources) and training qualified engineers capable of surveying, researching, and dealing scientifically with designing the structure and operation of modern technological and administrative systems. The graduate engineer of the Department of Production and Management Engineering can staff departments of business organization, management, and planning and design. He/she can also develop critical skills necessary to organize human, material, and financial resources. Through his/her education, he or she acquires the necessary skills to manage and communicate with his/her partners.
The trend of deeper specialization of traditional engineering disciplines in increasingly narrow knowledge subjects, due to the rapid increase of knowledge, requires that there be engineers who combine knowledge, which makes them able to coordinate the entire production process, design the entire system, manage, and make decisions.
Production and management engineering engineers can be employed as business consultants on matters pertaining to the introduction of new technologies, quality assurance (ISO), ergonomic design and work safety, as well as environmental management and protection, in departments of research and development, business planning and design in the secondary and tertiary sectors of the economy. Production and management engineering engineers cover needs created by modern society and production and have the means, either as company executives or as freelance engineers, on their own or in collaboration with other scientists, to prepare and proceed with scientific decision-making after assessing the existing situation (a statistical consideration) and forecasting future developments (a dynamic view). The employment of our engineering graduates mainly concerns the following activities:
Production process planning and control (optimization of production rates, work allocation, inventory control, allocation of repair resources, equipment maintenance and replacement planning, raw material allocation, and other related activities).
Research, design, and automation of the manufacture of all kinds of products with the help of computers.
Selection of the location of the production unit (a factory or the service provision unit for the selection of the location of which many technical, economic, and environmental factors are taken into account).
Intra-business layout and design of individual production systems (optimization of the location of the machinery and production stations in general, without ignoring human resource parameters).
Scientific preparation of decision-making and/or exercise of scientific management in any joint administrative and technical system in public and private enterprises and industrial organizations.
Project management and technical and financial planning of projects.
Surveys of all kinds concerning the organization of businesses with the aim of effective administration.
Market analysis and product promotion surveys using scientific methods.
Development and implementation of quality assurance systems in the production of products and the provision of services.
Surveys on the environmental impact of production.
Surveys concerning workplace safety and health.
Production and management engineering graduates can register with the Technical Chamber of Greece, the Register of Contracting Companies, the Register of Experience of Contractors, and the Advisory Committee of Engineering Surveys for respective projects.
