On the Role of Industrial Engineering in the COVID-19 Era

The purpose of this study is to consider the role of industrial engineering in the era of COVID-19. This paper is divided into three parts. Firstly, the history of industrial engineering are reviewed to confirm the richness and compensation of life brought by the division of labor. Second part describes the exchange that should be paired with the division of labor, and what it is like to be, and then explain that the integration of division of labor and its exchange is the future issue for humanity. Third part, regarding the touch strategy that is the first step of exchange, reviews the concept of visual management, which is a precedent case, and try to systematize the three touch strategies that people tried in the early stages of the spread of COVID-19 in Japan. The results obtained from this survey argue that it is important for industrial engineering, which has been trying to understand management resources from various perspectives, to engage not only in the division of labor, but also in their exchange. Also, in an era where environmental destruction and digitalization are progressing at a speed that humanity does not notice, the findings can be considered as a problem in order to create human resources people whose value is higher than ever.