The education of industrial engineers does not seem to have much tradition in our country yet. The field of industrial engineering was introduced at the University of West Bohemia in 1994/1995, in response to the needs of practice and newly born small and medium-sized enterprises, which need generally educated professionals. Of course, the field did not emerge suddenly and out of nothing, but has had a long and varied development phase.

The Department of Machining and Economics, headed by Prof. Bartuška, was created in 1966 as a spin-off from the original founding Department of Machine Tools led by Prof. Breník. Another transformation of the Department took place in 1970, when under the leadership of doc. Červený transformed into the Department of Technology and Management.

In 1983, the department was transformed into the Department of Machining and Production Management, headed by Prof. Straka, and it was a large department with three closely cooperating disciplines:

  1. Mechanical Engineering Technology
  2. Economics and management of engineering production
  3. Automated control systems for production systems

At that time the Department was located in several places around Pilsen, and therefore in 1990 a new Department of Computer Integrated Manufacturing was created by separating the second and third branches of the Department, which gradually changed into the Department of Industrial Engineering and Management in 1994 with the establishment of the University and the increase of international contacts.