▶ People ①
Lee Sung Joo, Professor in the Department of Industrial Engineering
Engineering is often viewed as a discipline that chases crystalline answers. However, in a field that appreciates certainty, Professor Lee has forged a career pursuing research questions for which no definite answers exist. In a move rarely seen among engineers, she earned a doctoral degree in innovation management. Professor Lee has served as a maestro, standing where innumerable fields intersect while crafting structures and weaving knowledge together.
Professor Lee Sung Joo stands as one of engineering’s few female professors. The initial curiosity about her due to the underrepresentation of female professors soon gave way to her reputation as an admirable researcher and educator. This is attributable to her unwavering commitment as an industrial engineer to carving her own path, focusing on “how to make it better,” not “what to make.”
“If mechanical engineering shapes the car itself, industrial engineering focuses on the process of making it, designing the entire system that carries a car from its inception to the customer. Because this type of process is vital to every industry, the discipline of industrial engineering can seamlessly mingle and merge with nearly any field.”
Rather than concentrating on any one component, industrial engineering reads the whole system—people, technology, organization, and process—weaving its many components into coherence. It is also common to rearrange components depending on their impact on the overall system. That is why the discipline is often called “the business school within engineering.” Indeed, during her sabbatical, Professor Lee earned a PhD in innovation management from the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) of the University of Sussex in the UK.
“I wanted to witness firsthand how engineering and policy science/business management approach the same subject in different ways. Having been trained to approach problems from an engineering perspective, I found it challenging to explore disciplines that examine social and economic phenomena or public policies, and given their interdisciplinary nature, I constantly felt that no amount of study could ever suffice. Nevertheless, I acquired a great deal of knowledge.”
Professor Lee, with extensive exposure to research approaches—such as case studies and surveys—rarely used in engineering, has now added another tool to her arsenal: the ability to choose the path to making things better.
Professor Lee passes on her hard-earned knowledge to her students in the classroom. At the start of every Technology Management course, she purposefully unsettles her students by saying, “In this course, you will learn how to choose the best possible option based on the given information, but there can be multiple answers to each of the multiple questions.”
“Engineers are primarily trained to push the boundaries of their own disciplines. However, wouldn’t it be better to know how the technology one has developed is incorporated into other fields and what economic benefits such synergy can deliver? That is why it is of utmost importance to foster the capability of reading the context hidden in the figures and of drawing meaning from the underlying phenomena.”
Even before studying management, she was already accustomed to getting to the heart of things, leading her to focus on intangible assets rather than tangible assets that are traditionally addressed in industrial engineering. When Professor Yongtae Park, an expert in technology management, came on board, her analysis of intangible assets—exemplified by patents—gained momentum. The fact that patents are the only form of corporate technological information subject to public disclosure enhanced the significance and appeal of this approach. Despite the demanding task of tracing the intricate relationships between technologies, the reward of uncovering hidden value through persistent analysis and applying it in real-world settings was far greater.
“A patent analysis comes into its own when it digs deep into the fine-grained domains of technology. Korea has long engaged in systematic patent analyses. For example, once we identify the technologies in which we lag behind, the relevant patents, and the institutions or countries that hold them, we can then determine whom to work with and how to collaborate.”
Professor Lee’s research has been translated into practical applications, facilitating the formulation of government technology policies and helping companies with their technology scouting. What sustained her most throughout her research journey was an open, proactive mindset that would embrace everything, from the fundamentals to the fringes.
The same goes for AI, which excels at rapidly connecting and expanding knowledge. Professor Lee observes that “AI is useful by virtue of its ability to weave the world’s knowledge together,” yet emphasizes that “Even so, it is human judgment that matters all the more.”
“AI can predict the future using data, but it struggles to determine what the future should look like. Take green technologies, for example. They were not born of a trend, but of the future we consider desirable. This is where we cannot rely on AI.”
She notes that defining the concepts is the key to any project or collaboration. In the task of identifying “promising” technologies, even the most sophisticated analysis loses its significance without first establishing a common conceptual ground for “promising.” She adds that it was hard to move forward without deciding on a strategic horizon—whether to look five or ten years ahead, or whether to prioritize marketability or technological ramifications. And so, Professor Sung Joo Lee likens industrial engineering to the art of conducting an orchestra.
“A conductor’s role is to bring the distinct voices of instruments into harmony. It’s the same with industrial engineering. It brings together individual components, such as AI, data, people, and facilities, in an organic manner, yielding optimal outcomes. I constantly remind my students that although the extensive bodies of technologies and data are undeniably useful, it is up to us to decide what kind of future we want to build and why.”
“There are many ways to expand knowledge,
but our choices must be anchored in values
that benefit humanity. And in that process,
sharing and collaboration are indispensable.”
