Overview

The Master's in Industrial Management is a full-time, two year-program offered by the Department of Industrial Management (DIM) of the Taiwan Tech School of Management. Our program is designed to provide a comprehensive graduate education for individuals pursuing careers in industry or academia. With a strong focus on research, the DIM offers four specialized concentrations: Production Systems, Operation Research, Human Factor/Ergonomics, and Information Technology.
Our fexible curriculum allows students to tailor their studies and align with their personal and professional objectives. This is acieved by combining DIM courses with a broad range of electives offered by the School of Management, and by the business faculties of the NTU Alliance universities (National Taiwan University and National Taiwan University). All graduate-level courses at DIM are taught in English ensuring an international learning environment. In addition, DIM graduate students have the opportunity to obtain a Certificate of Concentration in the areas Systems Engineering, Human Factor Engineering or Data Science, showcasing their expertise in that field of Industrial Management.
The program leads to an internationally recognized M.Sc.degree and is taught by experienced full-time faculty, all of whom hold doctorates from prestigious institutions worldwide, including the US, Australia, and Taiwan. Drawing from the success of our alumni, who have excelled in various industries both in Taiwan and abroad, our extensive alumni network provides valuable support to our students and graduates as they embark on their professional journeys.

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Credit requirements

Program Structure

Our Master's program is designed to equip students with a solid foundation in the main areas of industrial management, while allowing to focus on one of the following concentrations, based on students' individual interests and talents. The DIM offers more than 140 courses in these four areas, most of them in Production Systems, while Human Factor/ Ergonomics is a comparatively smaller field.

• Production Systems (deals with the improvement of production efficiency and productivity)
• Operation Research (deals with the application of operation research and production system theories)
• Information Technology (deals with problems regarding production system automation and related areas)
• Human Factor/ Ergonomics (is an umbrella term for several areas of research that include human performance, technology design, and human-computer interaction)

"Four-out-of Eight"-Core Course Rule: Students are required to pass at least eight core courses offered by the DIM, with four of these courses to be selected from one area of spezialization (for Human Factors only three courses are required). The other four (or five) required core courses can be chosen from any of the above areas of specialization. It is recommended to take the eight DIM core courses within the first year of the program, so that you will get to know instructors who could be the future advisors of your Master's thesis. 
Download: Overview of Master's program courses in four spezializations 
Please note that this chart is for reference only, not all courses are offered every semester or academic year, some might only be taught every two years. Please check the current NTUST course catalogue to verify the actual course offer.

Seminars on Industrial Management  
All DIM graduate students have to take two seminars on Industrial Management (0 credits), i.e. semester-long small-group seminars where current issues of the field will be explored in depth, and where experts of the field are invited to give lectures.

Further regulations

• Currently, all international students (not including overseas Chinese students, and students from Hong Kong and Macao) are exempt from the requirement to take four credits of English Language Courses at the Taiwan Tech Language Centre 
• Starting from the academic year 2019, students are required to have passed at least one course titled (or equivalent to) "Production Management" or "Operation Management" or "Production Management and Operation Management" in their bachelor's or master's program. Students who cannot  prove to have passed such a course will be required to complete the course Production Management System [IM6307] before graduation, but this course will not be counted into the four required core courses (see "Four out of Eight"-Core Course Rule).  

Electives
The remaining 12 credits (4 courses) can be freely selected from the four areas of spezialization, if you wish to concentrate on a certain area of Industrial Management. If you wish to gain a broader perspective, you may choose electives from any department or institute at Taiwan Tech or the NTU system universities. Please note that electives have to be graduate-level courses.  

Credit Transfer

General NTUST regulations for credit transfer apply. Application for Credit transfer is possible only once and the application form has to be submitted within the period indicated in the NTUST academic calendar (usually the first two weeks of the semester). Please note that only courses that were taught in English can be waived for courses of the DIM Master's programs. Furthermore, credits earned through EMBA courses cannot be transferred due to the different nature of EMBA programs and general master's programs.   
Download: Credit Transfer Application Form for Graduate Students 

Certificate of Concentration
Graduate students are offered the opportunity to obtain a Certificate of Concentration in the areas Systems Engineering, Human Factor Engineering or Data Science if they fulfil certain requirements detailed in the Certificate of Engineering Concentration Regulations and Application Form, download here)

Academic Research Ethics Seminar

As a requirement by the Taiwan Ministry of Education, all graduate students enrolled at universities in Taiwan have to complete seminars in Academic Research Ethics (ARE) which usually consist of three teaching units, where the first two units are lectures, while the last unit is a test. All Taiwan Tech graduate students are required to attend at least one research ethics seminar before the end of the first year of studies, and to pass the ARE-exam. 

ARE seminars are not credit-bearing, but will appear in academic transcripts as PASSED with a passing grade of 70%. A successfully completed ARE seminar is a requirement for taking the degree examination of the IM master's program.
Every semester, the Taiwan Tech Centre of General Education offers eight or more ARE seminars which are taught by experienced instructors focusing on different aspects of academic research ethics. The schedule and topics of ARE seminars will be announced here.

Master’s Thesis

The Master's thesis is an important part of the Master's of Industrial Management program and a requirement for graduation, although no credits are awarded for the thesis.
Choosing an advisor/a topic: Students have to choose a thesis advisor within one month after enrollment. The advisor has to be a full-time member of the DIM faculty. Students are free to choose the topic of their thesis, but they need to get approval from their advisor at an initial stage of the thesis-writing process. Starting from the spring term 2023, graduate students are required to submit a "Postgraduate Thesis and Academic Discipline Conformity Verification"  in the early stages of the writing process, i.e. usually at the end of their 3rd semester or latest by the end of the add-and-drop -period of the 4th semester. By signing this form, the advisor confirms that the topic and content of the student's thesis is aligned with the DIM's field of expertise. If required by the topic, students can apply to invite a co-advisor from the DIM or another Taiwan Tech department or from another academic institution, but co-advisors may not be from the industry or other non-academic institutions according to DIM regulations. Students will work on their thesis during the second year of the program, and have to hand in a first draft of their thesis for the oral defense. After the defense, students will have several weeks to revise their thesis following the suggestions of the Defense Committee, before it will be finally submitted. Students can request to change the thesis advisor, but need to get the consent of both, the current thesis advisor and the new advisor. After receiving their approval, an application form has to be submitted to the DIM office.  

Master’s Degree Thesis Oral Examination ("Defense"): A first draft of the thesis has to be completed and submitted to the advisor within the designated period of studies. If all other credit requirements are fulfilled (cf. List of Completed Courses for Master Program), students can apply for the Master’s Degree Thesis Oral Examination (defense) where they have to defend their thesis to a panel of experts. The advisor makes suggestions on the members of the Defense Committee which has to consist of three to five members. The committee members must have research expertise in the field of the student’s research topic, and hold at least a PhD. degree as academic qualification. At least two members of the committee have to be from Taiwan Tech. Committee members from outside academia have to hold  "a distinguished record of achievement or practical experience in an unusual or highly specialized academic discipline or profession". The DIM requires students to hand in a a positive Similarity Report (less than 20% in content, excluding references, appendixes, surveys etc.) of the Plagiarism Detection Checker software Turnitin which is provided by the NTUST library. Please refer to the NTUST Master’s Degree Thesis Defense Examination Regulations for more details.

Submitting the Thesis: After a successful defense, students will have to revise their thesis according to the feedback given by the committee members.The deadline for submitting the final master’s thesis (both paper and digital copies) is in the beginning of the following term/ academic year as marked in the NTUST academic calendar. One printed copy has to be submitted to the NTUST library, and one to the DIM office which will be forwarded to the National Central Library. As a rule, all NTUST postgraduate thesis have to be published. Under special circumstances (such as pending patent applications or publications), the student can apply for a delay of publication (“Embargo of Thesis/Dissertation”) with the NTUST Library. The application, including supporting documents, needs to be approved by the thesis advisor.
All procedures, beginning with the registration for the defense, to the invitation of committee members, to the submission of the printed and digital copies, and the final school leaving process, are explained in detail in the information sheet Master’s Degree Thesis Oral Examination. Please read it carefully!
Download: Information Sheet Master’s Degree Thesis Oral Examination

Last update: 13 July 2023