Industrial Engineers Help Retail Flow

In addition to building everything from bridges to sewer lines, engineers also help retailers design stores.

This type of industrial engineering concerns the flow of people through a store. There are two main theories: grid, which means stores are laid out like a maze to slow foot traffic down; and free-flow, which allows customers to walk through but still view merchandise along the way.

“You’re trying to get people to go through as much of your store as possible to see all your merchandise,” said Claudia Mobley, executive director of the Center for Retailing Excellence at the University of Arkansas’ Walton College of Business. “An engineer’s mind and the way most of them I know think is a perfect fit.”

Mobley said stores place discounted merchandise in the back so customers will walk through the entire store and maybe buy regular-priced items along the way. In the same way, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. stocks milk in the back of its 200,000-SF Supercenters so customers will have to walk through the entire store to purchase the product. Along the way, they’re likely to pick up other items.

Mike Duke, who oversees Wal-Mart’s U.S. stores, graduated from Georgia Tech in 1971 with a degree in industrial engineering.

He went to work for Rich’s Department Stores in Atlanta as an engineer working with store design.

“I went home and told my wife how fun this business sounded,” Duke told the Business Journal in a 2003 interview.

Duke said he studied customer flow, staffing and how stores were designed — “the micro-level design of a store that would translate into future adaptations of the store.”

Duke joined Wal-Mart in 1995 and rose through the ranks.

“I think Mike Duke is a unique individual,” Mobley said. “He had some vision and experience with retailing. I don’t think people go into engineering school thinking they’re going to go into retailing, unless it’s from a supply-chain perspective.”

John R. English, head of the UA’s industrial engineering department, said industrial engineers essentially help retailers to get products to distribution centers and eventually onto store shelves.

“We’re very operational,” he said. “We’re trying to get the product to the stores and do it in a very practical way.”

English said industrial engineers work with cross-dock operations at distribution centers, conveyor systems, automation and robotics.

“You’ll find engineers all over Wal-Mart that are systems integrators,” he said. “We’re tactical. That’s why people like Mr. Duke and Gary Maxwell [senior vice president of replenishment at Wal-Mart] have been so successful in the retail business. They help the company move merchandise across the country.”

English said Wal-Mart works with the UA’s Center for Engineering Logistics and Distribution.