Industrial Engineering

The “roots” of Industrial Engineering are certainly extensive, diverse and deep. Similarly, there are numerous historical “heroes” that made significant contributions to the development of the Industrial Engineering discipline. For the sake of argument, this article will assume that Industrial Engineering has at least two identifiable main roots, namely Determinism and Stochastism. The article attempts to trace the early history of the stochastic root which is very closely linked to the history of probability and statistics and hence games of chance, gambling and divinity. Therefore, the life and times, contributions and personalities of some of the heroes and villains, champions and sad cases of the stochastic world, will be briefly discussed in a somewhat light-hearted, but not necessarily flippant, manner.