A branch of engineering that involves the design, control, and continuous improvement of integrated systems in order to provide customers with high-quality goods and services in a timely, cost-effective manner. It is an interdisciplinary area requiring the collaboration of individuals trained in industrial engineering, manufacturing engineering, product design, marketing, finance, and corporate planning. In many organizations, production engineering activities are carried out by teams of individuals with different skills rather than by a formal production engineering department. Although production engineering originated in the manufacturing sector, recently it has found increasing application in the service industries, such as banking, airlines, and entertainment. Thus “product” denotes both a traditional manufactured product and a service product, such as an insurance policy or a bank loan. While traditional production engineering activities have taken place within a single factory, it is becoming more common for the production engineering team to include not only in-house personnel from the different skill sets mentioned above, but also personnel from several geographic locations and even other companies. It is quite common for a firm's design activity to take place in one country, production of components in another, and assembly of the final product in a third. Important components and subsystems of the finished product may be subcontracted to other firms, requiring production engineering teams to include personnel from different companies. Recent developments in information technology, such as the Internet and computer-supported cooperative work, are important enablers of this process.