The main benefit to engineering practice of using industrial mathematics is in the application of mathematical or statistical thinking to a problem. Industrial mathematics is the field that explores industrial processes and systems, seeks the mathematical or statistical components to explain the underlying structure of a process, and then works to improve or optimise the process under study.
Industrial mathematics, when combined with engineering expertise in a specific domain, deals with complicated or complex problems like optimising the calibration schedule of a nuclear reactor, or modelling and predicting the leakage of sequestered CO2 in an offshore gas field.
Industrial mathematics has been called a doubly invisible discipline: It is invisible to industry as companies often label the activity of mathematically trained staff as something else, such as modelling, analytics or simply “research”. It is invisible to the academy as university mathematicians do not widely teach industrial mathematics as a specific standalone discipline.