Industrial Engineer

US Department of Veterans Affairs; Salt Lake City (UT); On-site; USD 90,000 - 120,000; Full time

Job summary

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is seeking an Industrial Engineer to join the Strength Analysis team within Workforce Strategy and Standardization.

You will contribute to simulation, forecasting, and staffing models to assess position allocation and workforce demand in support of the VHA mission. Applicants must meet engineering degree requirements, professional licensure options, and have experience with quantitative staffing models and OR/IR tools.

Qualifications

• Engineering degree and ABET accreditation are required.
• Demonstrated professional registration or licensure is a typical qualification.
• Extensive coursework or experience in core engineering sciences is expected.

Skills

Staffing model design

Industrial engineering methods

Statistical analysis

Education

ABET-accredited engineering degree

Professional registration (EI/EIT) or PE

60 semester hours in physical, mathematical, and engineering sciences

Related curriculum in engineering/physics/CS

Tools

Python

R

Excel/VBA

Arena

Job description

The Industrial Engineer is a member of the Strength Analysis team, Workforce Strategy and Standardization (WSS), within Workforce Solutions, within the Office of Workforce Management and Consulting (WMC), in the Human Capital Management (HCM) Office. The incumbent is part of a team that functions as the VHA authority and subject matter expert on simulation, forecasting, and staffing models and standards that assess position allocation and demand in support of the VHA mission.

To qualify for this position, applicants must meet the following requirements:

Basic Requirements

• A. Degree: Engineering. To be acceptable, the program must: (1) lead to a bachelor's degree in a school of engineering with at least one program accredited by ABET; or (2) include differential and integral calculus and courses (more advanced than first-year physics and chemistry) in five of the following seven areas of engineering science or physics: (a) statics, dynamics; (b) strength of materials (stress‑strain relationships); (c) fluid mechanics, hydraulics; (d) thermodynamics; (e) electrical fields and circuits; (f) nature and properties of materials (relating particle and aggregate structure to properties); and (g) any other comparable area of fundamental engineering science or physics, such as optics, heat transfer, soil mechanics, or electronics.
• B. Combination of Education and Experience: College‑level education, training, and/or technical experience that furnished (1) a thorough knowledge of the physical and mathematical sciences underlying engineering, and (2) a good understanding, both theoretical and practical, of the engineering sciences and techniques and their applications to one of the branches of engineering. The adequacy of such background must be demonstrated by one of the following, select the most appropriate response.
  • 1. Professional Registration or Licensure - Current registration as an Engineer Intern (EI), Engineer in Training (EIT), or licensure as a Professional Engineer (PE) by any State, the District of Columbia, Guam, or Puerto Rico. Absent other means of qualifying under this standard, those applicants who achieved such registration by means other than written test (e.g., State grandfather or eminence provisions) are eligible only for positions that are within or closely related to the specialty field of their registration. For example, an applicant who attains registration through a State Board's eminence provision as a manufacturing engineer typically would be rated eligible only for manufacturing engineering positions.
  • 2. Written Test - Evidence of having successfully passed the Fundamentals of Engineering (FE) examination or any other written test required for professional registration by an engineering licensure board in the various States, the District of Columbia, Guam, and Puerto Rico.
  • 3. Specified Academic Courses - Successful completion of at least 60 semester hours of courses in the physical, mathematical, and engineering sciences and that included the courses specified in the basic requirements under paragraph A. The courses must be fully acceptable toward meeting the requirements of an engineering program as described in paragraph A.
  • 4. Related Curriculum - Successful completion of a curriculum leading to a bachelor's degree in an appropriate scientific field, e.g., engineering technology, physics, chemistry, architecture, computer science, mathematics, hydrology, or geology, may be accepted in lieu of a bachelor's degree in engineering, provided the applicant has had at least 1 year of professional engineering experience acquired under professional engineering supervision and guidance. Ordinarily there should be either an established plan of intensive training to develop professional engineering competence, or several years of prior professional engineering‑type experience, e.g., in interdisciplinary positions. (The above examples of related curricula are not all inclusive.)

Selective Placement Factor

This position includes a Selective Placement Factor (skill, knowledge, ability or other worker characteristic basic to - and essential for - satisfactory performance of the job). Selective Placement Factors are a prerequisite to appointment and represent minimum requirements for a position. Applicants who do not meet it are ineligible for further consideration. Evidence of the Selective Placement Factor must be reflected in your resume.

The Selective Placement Factor for this position is: Demonstrated experience designing, building, and validating quantitative staffing models (e.g., workload-based, acuity-based, or simulation-based) in a complex service or healthcare environment.

In addition to the Basic Requirement and Selective Placement Factor, applicants must meet the additional experience requirement for this Industrial Engineer position.

Specialized Experience

One (1) full year of specialized experience that equipped me with the particular knowledge, skills, and abilities to perform successfully the duties of the position, and that is typically in or related to the work of the position to be filled. To be creditable, specialized experience must have been equivalent to at least the next lower grade level (GS-12) in the normal line of progression for the occupation in the organization. Professional engineering experience is defined as non‑routine engineering work that required and was characterized by (1) professional knowledge of engineering; (2) professional ability to apply such knowledge to engineering problems; and (3) positive and continuing development of professional knowledge and ability.

Specialized experience also includes proficiency in Industrial Engineering methods such as time and motion studies, process mapping, queuing theory, and capacity analysis as applied to workforce planning; using statistical or operations research tools (e.g., Python, R, Excel/VBA, Arena or similar) to develop and test workforce models; managing databases, dashboards, and statistics; and, writing policies and performing regulatory interpretation. Note: Evidence of specialized experience must be supported by detailed documentation of duties performed in positions held on your resume. You must provide work experience information such as hours per week, salary, and starting/ending dates of employment (month and year format) to establish you have one (1) full year of Specialized Experience at or comparable to the required grade level.

For more information on these qualification standards, please visit the United States Office of Personnel Management's website at https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/general-schedule-qualification-standards/.