Industrial Engineer Office Automation study plan

Map the productivity-suite feature set (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, email/collaboration) against a checklist of exam-relevant capabilities, marking each as known, shaky, or unknown.

Build a spreadsheet workbook that demonstrates lookup functions, pivot summaries, conditional formatting, and data validation on a 200-row sample dataset.

Write a one-page comparison of document templates, styles, and mail-merge workflows, noting where automation replaces manual steps.

Configure a personal macro or script that automates one repetitive office task end to end and record the before/after time.

Draft a document-template and version-control standard for a fictional office, covering naming conventions, metadata fields, and review cycles.

Model a normalized relational schema (at least five tables, primary/foreign keys, one many-to-many resolved) for an office records system.

Write and run core SQL statements against your schema: SELECT with joins, GROUP BY aggregates, and a subquery filter.

Explain the difference between normalization and denormalization and state one reporting scenario favoring each.

Compare flat-file, relational, and document-oriented data stores on integrity, query flexibility, and scaling, and select one for a stated office use case with justification.

Produce an as-is process map (swimlane) for an approval workflow of at least eight steps, identifying handoffs and queues.

Apply a waste analysis to that map and label each non-value-adding step as delay, rework, over-processing, or transport.

Draft a to-be process that removes at least 30 percent of steps and state the assumed cycle-time reduction.

Build a process model using BPMN conventions (start/end events, gateways, parallel split) for the to-be workflow and verify every path terminates correctly.

Define cycle time, throughput, and Little's Law for the workflow and compute expected work-in-process at a stated arrival rate.

Conduct a time study: define the observed element breakdown, compute mean observed time, apply a performance rating and allowance factor, and derive standard time.

Perform a methods-study analysis of one workstation using a questioning technique (why/what/where/when/who/how) and propose two ergonomic or layout improvements.

Apply work-sampling principles: size a sample for a desired confidence and precision, and interpret a completed observation summary.

Evaluate ergonomic risk factors (repetition, posture, force, duration) for an office workstation and recommend controls in a hierarchy-of-controls order.

Diagram an office network (LAN, WAN link, firewall, switch, wireless access point, servers, endpoints) and label each device's role.

Compare on-premises, cloud, and hybrid hosting for an office application on cost, latency, availability, and administrative burden.

Explain how bandwidth, latency, and redundancy affect a shared database or collaboration tool used by a distributed team.

Build a work breakdown structure and critical-path schedule for an office-system implementation, identifying dependencies and float.

Identify project risks, score them on likelihood and impact, and assign a mitigation to each of the top five.

Map data-protection obligations (lawful basis, retention, access rights, breach notification) to the records handled in your week-2 schema.

Draft access-control rules (role-based) and an audit-logging requirement for the same system, tying each control to a specific risk.

Write a rollback and business-continuity outline for a failed go-live, including recovery time and recovery point targets.

Build a decision matrix with weighted criteria for a software selection and test the recommendation's sensitivity to weight changes.

Compute and interpret basic forecasting and descriptive statistics (moving average, standard deviation) on a small operations dataset.

Construct a break-even or cost-benefit analysis for an automation investment and state the payback period.

Review the week-6 schedule against actual progress assumptions and recompute earned-value indicators (planned value, earned value, cost variance).

Re-audit the week-1 capability matrix and close or explicitly defer every remaining gap with a dated action.

Complete two timed mixed-domain practice sets and log every miss by domain and error type (knowledge gap, misread, calculation).

Re-derive from memory the key formulas: standard time, Little's Law, break-even, earned-value variances, and sampling size.

Write a one-page exam-day strategy covering pacing, question triage, and review order by domain weight.