Monday, July 31, 2017

THE TRAINING OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERS - Hollis Godfrey - 1913


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JOURNAL OF POLITICAL ECONOMY, 1913  - Paper

THE TRAINING OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERS 


Modified Excerpts from the paper

Little by little, as the engineering student goes forward in education and practice,  he begins to see that the possession of certain powers enables him to conquer hesitant men and recalcitrant machines,
and also problems which involve both men and machines simultaneously. And the powers which enable him to do these things are science and engineering (convertising science into useful devices and processes). His thinking helps him in this.

I assume that no course in the industrial engineering steam would be begun before the end of the Sophomore year in college. The man who reaches the Junior year of college or technical school
must have had some training in science and mathematics or he would not be eligible to enter the industrial engineering course. He must have acquired some common-sense and scientific attitude
on his way, and the knowledge of science and common-sense so gained should be sufficient to enable him to recognize that in electing scientific management he is deliberately electing to follow a long and arduous road. The problem before us, then, when we discuss the work of men electing industrial engineering courses, is taking men with some common-sense and some knowledge of science and raising what they have to the highest possible power.

How, then, can the industrial engineer become a scientist, attain the scientific attitude of mind ?

By welding the scientific work of the classroom with the shop-work of the factory; by making the laboratory hours, hours that are spent with wage-earners striving for their daily wage. Laboratory and classroom hours alike must be filled with reality rather than with pure theory or with theory quite unrelated to the practical world.

The student must first of all, get in touch with the shop. And I insist that he can do that nowhere save in actual operating shops among men who are working for their daily wage. No shop practice in the school will produce a like result. Shop-sense is one of the most valuable possessions of the industrial
engineer. That sense comes only through actual shop practice. Once possessed it means that the man has thereafter the freedom of the shop.

To attain the desirable ends of knowledge of science and posses-sion of common-sense I propose that any course in the science of management shall consist of classroom work as outlined below and
of laboratory work carried on in actual operating shops. That means that manufacturers who are broad-minded enough to be willing to assist the college, and instructors broad-minded enough
to recognize the limitations of industry must co-operate in giving the laboratory instruction in shop practice to the students. I believe both groups of men exist and I feel that through their combined efforts the student should have an opportunity to spend the summers of his Sophomore and Junior years in actual shop practice, while three afternoons a week during the scholastic year should see him working in the shop.

What underlying thought must be before the men who make the courses ?

The industrial engineer is dealing in all cases with both men and machines. He must study "man" in his relation to his industrial environ-ment — not any single class of men, but all the men engaged in
industry. He must study "machines," not alone in their relation to their product, but also in relation to the human beings who operate them. It is his task to bring the best that modern science has to the aid and well-being of man.

It is in the development of his pupil's studies of men that the wise teacher of scientific management will work most steadfastly in correlating the allied courses, mentioned later, in psychology
and physiology, in economics and sociology, with the courses in the science of management, and with the work of living men and whir-ring machines.

The industrial engineer must recognize the presence of many factors in a problem. He must solve equations of not only two unknown quantities, but of a dozen unknown quantities, so to speak. And
the correlation of his courses in class with each other and with life will do much in the way of enabling him to do so.



When should the work begin, and how much of the student's time should it occupy ?

Direct work in industrial engineering and scientific management should begin either at the
end of two years or of four years in college. The direct and allied special classroom courses should occupy one full year of collegiate training, divided between two years' work, making a half-year's
work in scientific management during both the Junior and Senior years. The shopwork should occupy two summer vacations and three afternoons a week during each of the two years.

What courses should be offered ?

A dominant course in the science of management running through two years, allied with courses in economics, sociology, psychology, physiology, hygiene and sanitation, theory and practice
of accounting. All these should be in addition to the student's more direct work in science, mathematics, engineering, English, and foreign languages, which occupy the time of three out of the four collegiate years — if the courses are made undergraduate ones.

What should be the content of the scientific management courses given during the four half-years that comprise the Junior and Senior years of most colleges and technical schools ?

The first half-year should be devoted to a general view of four picked industries — in order that the student may see industry more or less as a whole — and to the study of the principles of
scientific management. The laboratory work for this course should consist of the broad outlined study of four plants from the time of the receipt of the first inquiry from the prospective customer to the final entry of the payment for the bill and the calculation of the cost. The classroom work for this course should be devoted to a thorough grounding in the basic principles of organization,
and to study of the principles of scientific management.

It is most essential that the student should obtain at the very start a clear realization of the difference between system and science. It is most essential also that he should come to understand that,
while certain problems solved for one industry may be solved for all industry, such general solutions cannot be presumed upon. He should know that every new business will contain new problems,
which must be solved by the use of all the knowledge of the past plus all the imaginative genius he can hope to possess. That is to say, the student must learn that a mechanism used successfully
in one place cannot be bodily transported to another with hope of instant success. By the end of the first half-year each individual taking the course should have come to realize that he is studying
the principles of a science which are applicable to every case, not memorizing a set of rules or inheriting a stock of recipes. The study of four actual operating plants will aid him greatly in this
realization.

The second half-year should be devoted in the classroom to a detailed study of the planning-room and the processes involved in getting work into the shop, of stores, routing, specifications, etc. —
planning in general, in a word. The laboratory work should consist of actual planning-room experience in the shop.

It is entirely true that there is a question as to whether planning-room experience should follow or precede shop training. It may, therefore, be a question whether planning should be put in this
course. It is my own belief that the student will master his shop theory better the third half-year from the fact that he has discovered the basic reasons of the work in the planning-room. It should be
noted, moreover, in this connection that I have assumed that the student has had a summer's experience in actual shop practice as a prerequisite of the course, and that he has had a half year of
general preliminary study.

The third half-year should be devoted to a detailed study of work in the shop (especially of the teaching work of the functional foreman), of inspection, and of task work. All of this except the
study of task work should be done in actual plants. The task work should be done on fellow-students in the shops of the school. No untrained man should ever be put on actual task-setting.

The third half-year offers a great opportunity to impress upon the student the importance of the teaching function of his work. The whole theory of functional foremanship is a theory of educa-
tion and a great part of the time of an industrial engineer must be spent in teaching the men with whom he is working. Adequate powers of expression are by no means common among our recent
graduates. The teacher of scientific management can never forget that the work of his pupils must show in the life-work of the men with whom they are dealing. The bridge-builder leaves a physical
monument largely untouched by the later thought of men. The industrial builder must educate in such a way that his work will go progressively forward in the minds of men. That is true education,
and education is true only when it obtains adequate expression.

The fourth half-year should be devoted to studies in bringing all the best that science offers to the aid of industry — to work in costs, to work in the determining of policies by studies of sales,
purchasing, and the like, and to the co-ordination of the work of the three half-years already outlined.

The course of the fourth half-year should be broad enough to give the student some concept that great movements of trade exist and that they are factors which he must meet and use. The world
is fairly well provided with men who can look after a few details.

It is very poorly provided with men who can care for great constructive work. One of the greatest industrial leaders of our time said to me the other day: "The greater the affairs of a corporation, the
smaller the number of men who can deal with them. It seems to be a true inverse proportion. There are ten men who can think in a hundred thousand dollars, to one who can think in a million,
and ten who can think in a million to one who can think in ten millions."

I should hardly expect any course to give an undergraduate a great grasp of comprehensive plans. There is, however, no reason why we should hitch our wagon to the lowest of the stars when we
can find higher ones within our reach.

In the foregoing resume of a course in the science of management I have made no reference to many subjects I should have been glad to consider, to reports and theses, to methods and policies. Considerations of brevity forbade. I must turn again to my catechism and end with three brief questions and three brief answers.

What should the allied courses teach ?

The relation of man to industry and to his general environment.

What should the college courses in English teach ?

The power of expression.

What should the work in scientific management teach ?

That scientific management is a change of mental attitude (mental attitude, now, as always, the most powerful force among men) which makes employer and employee pull together instead of apart, which brings all that is best in science to the aid of every man in industry, and which, by its substitution of exact knowledge for the chaos of guess work and ignorance, makes progressively for
justice and for the coming of the "new industrial day."

Hollis Godfrey

West Medford, Mass.


I am happy I covered some these issues in my principles of industrial engineering.
Principles of Industrial Engineering

Video Presentation
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A SYMPOSIUM ON SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT AND EFFICIENCY IN COLLEGE


ADMINISTRATION

COMPRISING AMONG OTHERS

THE PAPERS PRESENTED AT THE EFFICIENCY SESSION

OF THE TWENTIETH ANNUAL CONVENTION OF THE

SOCIETY FOR THE PROMOTION OF ENGINEERING

EDUCATION, HELD AT BOSTON, MASS.,

JUNE 26-29, 1912


OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY ITHACA, N. Y.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.


INTRODUCTION. " Frank. B. Gilbreth


EDUCATIONAL DEMANDS OF MODERN PROGRESS. " Harrington Emerson. 



PRACTICE VERSUS THEORY IN THE SCIENCE OP MANAGEMENT. " F. A. Parklmrst


32 32 37

EDUCATION AND EFFICIENT LIVING. " Meyer Bloomfield

THE ENGINEER AS A MANAGER. " H. L. Gantt


THE MEN WHO SUCCEED IN SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. " H. K. Hathaway

THE PLACE OF THE COLLEGE IN COLLECTING AND CONSERVING THE DATA OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. " Wilfred Lewis

AN AUXILIARY TO COLLEGES IN THE TRAINING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGERS." E. T. Kent

TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING SCHOOLS." R. B. Wolf

THE TEACHING OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN ENGINEERING SCHOOLS." Hollis Godfrey 


TEACHING THE PRINCIPLES OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. " 

Walter Rautenstrauch

82 TEACHING SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN THE TECHNICAL SCHOOLS.

H. F. J. Porter 94

A BROADENED VIEW OF EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEERING INSTRUCTION.

L. J. Johnson 108

ABSENCES FROM CLASSES ONE MEASURE OF INEFFICIENCY."
F. P.McKibben

112 118

THE PROBLEM OF EFFICIENCY IN TEACHING. " W. A. Hillebrand ....


THE ADMINISTRATION OF COLLEGE SHOP LABORATORIES. " W. F. M. Goss

129 133 139 145

SETTING TASKS FOR COLLEGE MEN. " S. E. Thompson

DEPARTMENTAL ORGANIZATION AND EFFICIENCY. " Hugo Diemer

ACADEMIC EFFICIENCY." William Kent

OPERATING ENGINEERING SCHOOLS UNDER SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT. " H. Wade Hibbard

161 182

EFFICIENCY IN ENGINEERING EDUCATION. " G. H. Shepard

THE APPLICATION OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT TO THE OPERATION

OF COLLEGES. " S. E. Whitaker

205 217

SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT IN THE COLLEGES. " E. F. Palmer iii





http://www.forgottenbooks.com/readbook_text/A_Symposium_on_Scientific_Management_and_Efficiency_in_College_1000331586/1

updated  18 June 2017, 15 August 2015

Thursday, July 27, 2017

Prohibition Policy in Bihar


There is an editorial in today's Economic Times (27 July 2017)  http://blogs.economictimes.indiatimes.com/et-editorials/90300/

Editorial in 27 July 2017 TheEconomic Times

BJP the gainer, as Nitish Kumar recalibrates
July 26, 2017, 11:42 PM IST ET Edit in ET Editorials | India, politics | ET

The last sentence

In all this, Kumar has demonstrated that he is one of India’s most ruthless — and flexible — politicians. We would urge Kumar to show similar flexibility and scrap, or at the very least partially reverse, his prohibition policy, which can only be enforced by using the coercive power of the state and a concomitant violation of civil liberties.

Should Nitish Kumar scrap prohibition policy as suggested by the Editor of Economic Times?


After prohibition, Bihar aims for dowry-free villages

Political analysts believe that after successfully imposing prohibition on liquor in Bihar, chief minister Nitish Kumar is now raising the bar in an attempt to emerge as a social reformer.
Updated: Jul 16, 2017
Reena Sopam, Hindustan Times, Patna
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/after-prohibition-bihar-aims-to-have-dowry-free-villages-to-rope-in-mukhiyas-religious-leaders-in-campaign/story-StjGXRGNjrnGNsZ9c7KFuL.html



Prohibition in Bihar: Supreme Court extends deadline for liquor disposal till 31 July
29 May
http://www.firstpost.com/india/prohibition-in-bihar-supreme-court-extends-deadline-for-liquor-disposal-till-31-july-3493679.html


Why prohibition has worked in Bihar?

D. N. Sahaya | New Delhi
April 28, 2017
The writer is ex-Governor, Chattisgarh and Tripura and former chairman, A. N. Sinha Institute of Social Studies, Patna.
http://www.thestatesman.com/opinion/why-prohibition-has-worked-in-bihar-1493329920.html

Tough Implementation of Prohibition in Bihar

The Bihar model of prohibition seems to have taken off with a bang, with around 44,000 people put behind bars and over 10 lakh litres of liquor seized, during its one-year of enforcement since April 1, 2016.
1 April 2017
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report-bihar-walks-a-tough-line-in-first-year-of-total-prohibition-2377348

Somebody is unhappy that media is not writing against prohibition and its strict implementation.
Bihar’s liquor war: Prisoners of prohibition and the conspiracy of silence
By opinionbihar March 9, 2017
http://www.opindia.com/2017/03/bihars-liquor-war-prisoners-of-prohibition-and-the-conspiracy-of-silence/

PM asks people of Bihar to support the prohibition policy

PATNA, JANUARY 05, 2017
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/Modi-says-cheers-to-Nitish%E2%80%99s-liquor-ban/article16992313.ece

PM Modi praises Nitish Kumar for ‘remarkable ability’ over prohibition policy in Bihar
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday praised Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar over his controversial move to ban liquor in the state despite objections from all quarters, calling it a “courageous step”.
Jan 05, 2017
HT Correspondent
Hindustan Times, Patna
http://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/pm-narendra-modi-praises-nitish-kumar-for-his-prohibition-policy-in-bihar/story-2EFiHIYKYGCkXD8JW0rU0K.html


PM urged to put ban on sale of alcohol across the country.

Bihar CM, while addressing his recent anti-liquor campaigns in different states especially Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand, urged the PM to put ban on sale of alcohol across the country.
A former governor of Assam and Tamil Nadu, Bhishma Narain Singh, who hails from BJP-ruled Jharkhand, supported Nitish Kumar and requested the Prime Minister Narendra Modi to announce complete ban on alcohol and tobacco across the country on the occasion of International Yoga Day on June 21.
Jun 20, 2016
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Nitish-Kumar-asks-Narendra-Modi-to-ban-alcohol-across-country/articleshow/52838603.cms


The Bihar Prohibition And Excise Act, 2016
http://nyaaya.in/law/858/the-bihar-prohibition-and-excise-act-2016/


National consensus on prohibition sought
Dec 25, 2001
Chennai: Ambedkar People's Movement (APM) president and former Chennai mayor Vai Balasundaram on tuesday appealed to the centre and state governments to evolve a national consensus on implementation of prohibition in the country.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/National-consensus-on-prohibition-sought/articleshow/1035208499.cms?

Monday, July 24, 2017

The Complete Business Process Handbook - Book Information





The Complete Business Process Handbook: Body of Knowledge from Process Modeling to BPM, Volume 1


Mark von Rosing, Henrik von Scheel, August-Wilhelm Scheer
Morgan Kaufmann, 06-Dec-2014 - Business & Economics - 776 pages


The Complete Business Process Handbook is the most comprehensive body of knowledge on business processes with revealing new research. Written as a practical guide for Executives, Practitioners, Managers and Students by the authorities that have shaped the way we think and work with process today. It stands out as a masterpiece, being part of the BPM bachelor and master degree curriculum at universities around the world, with revealing academic research and insight from the leaders in the market.

This book provides everything you need to know about the processes and frameworks, methods, and approaches to implement BPM. Through real-world examples, best practices, LEADing practices and advice from experts, readers will understand how BPM works and how to best use it to their advantage. Cases from industry leaders and innovators show how early adopters of LEADing Practices improved their businesses by using BPM technology and methodology. As the first of three volumes, this book represents the most comprehensive body of knowledge published on business process. Following closely behind, the second volume uniquely bridges theory with how BPM is applied today with the most extensive information on extended BPM. The third volume will explore award winning real-life examples of leading business process practices and how it can be replaced to your advantage.

Learn what Business Process is and how to get started
Comprehensive historical process evolution
In-depth look at the Process Anatomy, Semantics and Ontology
Find out how to link Strategy to Operation with value driven BPM
Uncover how to establish a way of Thinking, Working, Modelling and Implementation
Explore comprehensive Frameworks, Methods and Approaches
How to build BPM competencies and establish a Center of Excellence
Discover how to apply Social BPM, Sustainable and Evidence based BPM
Learn how Value & Performance Measurement and Management
Learn how to roll-out and deploy process
Explore how to enable Process Owners, Roles and Knowledge Workers
Discover how to Process and Application Modelling
Uncover Process Lifecycle, Maturity, Alignment and Continuous Improvement
Practical continuous improvement with the way of Governance
Future BPM trends that will affect business
Explore the BPM Body of Knowledge


https://books.google.co.in/books?id=RT7LAwAAQBAJ

Design for Assembly (DFA)

2023 BEST E-Book on #IndustrialEngineering. 

INTRODUCTION TO MODERN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING.PRODUCT INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING - FACILITIES INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING - PROCESS INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING.  Free Download.

https://academia.edu/103626052/INTRODUCTION_TO_MODERN_INDUSTRIAL_ENGINEERING_Version_3_0 


Design for Manufacturing






Basic DFA Guidelines




Minimise part count by incorporating multiple functions into single parts
Modularise multiple parts into single subassemblies
Assemble in open space, not in confined spaces; never bury important components
Make parts such that it is easy to identify how they should be oriented for insertion
Prefer self-locating parts
Standardise to reduce part variety
Maximise part symmetry
Design in geometric or weight polar properties if nonsymmetric
Eliminate tangly parts
Color code parts that are different but shaped similarly
Prevent nesting of parts; prefer stacked assemblies
Provide orienting features on nonsymmetries
Design the mating features for easy insertion
Provide alignment features
Insert new parts into an assembly from above
Eliminate re-orientation of both parts and assemblies
Eliminate fasteners
Place fasteners away from obstructions; design in fastener access
Deep channels should be sufficiently wide to provide access to fastening tools; eliminate channels if possible
Provide flats for uniform fastening and fastening ease
Ensure sufficient space between fasteners and other features for a fastening tool
Prefer easily handled parts

http://deed.ryerson.ca/~fil/t/dfmdfa.html

http://homepages.cae.wisc.edu/~me349/lecture_notes/me349_dfa_lecture_notes.pdf




Case Studies

http://www.dfma.com/resources/studies.htm

Motorola University Teaches Smarter, Faster Product Designs - Laptop DFA
http://www.dfma.com/news/motorola.htm


Boothroyd and Dewhurst’s DFA Software Drives Cost Savings for Motorola's DS9208 Scanner
Presented by: Chris Foley
At the International Forum on Design For Manufacture and Assembly
June 13-15, 2011, Providence, Rhode Island, USA
http://www.dfma.com/resources/motorola.htm

Simplifying Veterinary Device Relieves Maturing Product Symptoms
DFMA guides IDEXX subassembly redesign, radically reducing parts, weight, assembly time, and cost
http://www.dfma.com/resources/idexx.htm


DESIGN FOR ASSEMBLY: A CRITICAL METHODOLOGY FOR PRODUCT
REENGINEERING AND NEW PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT
MOHAN V . TATIKONDA, CFPIM
Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599
PRODUCTION AND INVENTORY MANAGEMENT JOURNAL-First Quarter, 1994


http://nptel.ac.in/courses/112101005/20


Videos of Boothroyd Dewhurst Inc.

DFMA Q&A - Design for Assembly
____________________

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJz0HseRHVA
____________________

Assembly of IBM Proprinter, Design for Assembly
____________________

____________________
Boothroyd Dewhurst Inc.

Product Design Efficiency Engineering - Component of Industrial Engineering


Updated 25 July 2017,  13 August 2016, 27 June 2016

Friday, July 21, 2017

Value Engineering in Construction - Structures, Roads, Bridges



Value Engineering of Gachsaran Underpass Project in Iran
Paper of 2013
european-science.com/eojnss/article/download/1926/pdf




Value Engineering in EPA funded Projects - 1990 guideline

1990 Document link

Value Engineering in EPA funded Projects - Case Studies and Formats 1976

Link to the document in EPA site

_____________________________________________________________

Value Engineering in Buildings, Highways, Utility Plants
Laws and Regulations in USA
In 1970 the United States Congress recommended using VE on federal-aid highway projects. More recent federal regulations and technical advisories as well as Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) policy and guidance require and support VE, including:
  • The National Highway Systems (NHS) Act of 1995 included a VE mandate directing the U.S. Secretary of Transportation to develop a program requiring state departments of transportation to conduct a VE analysis for projects on the NHS costing $25 million or more.
  • In 1997, 23 CFR Part 627—Value Engineering introduced the requirement that VE be applied to all federal -aid highway projects on the NHS with a value of $25 million or more ($20 million on Major Bridge projects).
  • Title 23 USC § 106(e) and (g), as amended.
  • FHWA’s Federal-Aid Policy Guide September 8, 1998, Transmittal 24.
  • The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials’ (AASHTO’s) 2001 publication AASHTO Guidelines for Value Engineering, 2nd Edition.
_____________________________________________________________
Value Engineering Consultants
The design of tunnels and underground structures depends to a large extent on the type of ground conditions and construction methodology to be adopted. SMEC has experience in evaluating complex projects, and determine a cost effective method for the construction of the project. The methodology allows for temporary construction access and includes programming and relative costings.
Original knol - http://knol.google.com/k/narayana-rao/value-engineering-in-construction/ 2utb2lsm2k7a/ 1975


Updated  22 July 2017,  16 March 2012

30+ Ways for Better IE - 2. Maintain the Dignity of Persons in the Work Systems



There is an article in the January 99 issue of IIE Solutions "30 ways to be a better IE."

By: Gaboury, Jane; Cary, Cliff; Nolan, Richard J. IIE Solutions. Jan 99, Vol. 31 Issue 1, p28. 8p

So what IE's have done individually or professionally to implement the ideas discovered through a survey of 10,000 IIE members?


Maintain the Dignity of Persons in the Work Systems

The pioneers of industrial engineering were criticized for writing certain crude sentences regarding operators. Even though Taylor was very clear in his goal making every body develop himself to the highest potential level and earn good income, he is described as a person who depicted operators in a bad way.

Industrial engineers have to make special efforts to see that the dignity of any whose work they are analyzing from point of view productivity is not affected. They have to make the point an important part of the policy document that they carry to do productivity studies. 

Please write your opinions on this issue. Please read the original article.


Other suggestions for a better practice were using engineering knowledge to serve the community, deploying technology carefully, participating in the implementation of the plan, learning continuously, and becoming a good leader.


What is Industrial Engineering?

You can understand through its principles

Principles of Industrial Engineering - Taylor - Narayana Rao

________________


________________

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Process Industrial Engineering - Article Index



Process Industrial Engineering - Process Efficiency Improvement


Process Industrial Engineering - Introduction

First Week

1. The Function of Methods Efficiency Engineering
2. Approach to Operation Analysis as a Step in Methods Efficiency Engineering

3. Scope and Limitations of Methods Efficiency Engineering
    Operation Analysis Sheet

    Using the Operation Analysis Sheet
    Analysis of Purpose of Operation

    Analysis of All Operations of a Process as a Step of Each Operation Analysis
    Analysis of Tolerances and Inspection Standards

    Analysis of Material in Operation Analysis
    Tool Related Operation Analysis


Second Week

    Material Handling Analysis in Operations
    Operation Analysis of Setups

    Operation Analysis - Man and Machine Activity Charts
    Operation Analysis - Plant Layout Analysis

    Operation Analysis - Analysis of Working Conditions and Method
    Operation Analysis - Common Possibilities for Operation Improvement

    Operation Analysis - Check List
    Method Study

   Principles of Methods Efficiency Engineering
   Method Study - Information Collection and Recording - Chapter Contents


Third Week

Process Analysis - Questions/Check List
Installing Proposed Methods

Eliminate, Combine, Rearrange, Simplify - ECRS Method - Barnes
Inspection Methods Efficiency Engineering

Systems Installation - Installing Proposed Methods
Plant Layout Analysis

Industrial Engineering of Flow Production Lines - Thought Before Taiichi Ohno and Shigeo Shingo
Manufacturing System Losses Idenfied in TPM Literature

Fourth Week

Industrial Engineering - Foundation of Toyota Production System
Toyota Production System Industrial Engineering - Shigeo Shingo

Introducing and Implementing the Toyota Production System - Shiego Shingo



Front Line Kaizen for Product and Process Industrial Engineering


Research on Improvement of Plant Layout based on Process Analysis
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=o2YiBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA253#v=onepage&q&f=false










One Year Industrial Engineering Knowledge Revision Plan

January - February - March - April - May - June

July - August - September - October - November - December



Updated 19 July 2017, 10 April 2017

Sunday, July 16, 2017

21st Century Design of Work - Knowledge Work and Muscle Work - Brain and Bran



All people say 20th century work design was influenced and guided by F.W. Taylor. Taylor did not actually say and encourage division of work into extremely small elements. What Taylor advocated was estimation of time required to do work by first studying elements of work and then using those times to estimate the completion time of a piece. The division of work into extremely small elements and advocating to make work as simple as possible so that anybody can be trained to do work in 3 days was the work of Ford Assembly line designers. But the various persons who wanted to criticize Taylor ascribed to him whatever they wanted to highlight. Taylor died in 1915. There is no body to defend him and critics had a field day.

Now what are the scientific theories, engineering guidelines and management guidelines to support work design during this 21st Century. I want to spend some time, contact some persons and to compile this note in detail.

But today I came across an article in published in McKinsey Quarterly.

Preparing for a new era of work
By Susan Lund, James Manyika, and Sree Ramaswamy
McKinsey Quarterly
November 2012
http://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/organization/our-insights/preparing-for-a-new-era-of-work

The authors highlighted three issues.


1. Break jobs down

Nearly all high-skill interaction jobs include tasks that can be hived off to allow the best-paid workers to focus on the most value-creating activities. Even traditional corporate line positions are also splintering.

2. Go virtual

Employers first began ramping up their use of remote-work arrangements in the 1990s, in part to retain the services of mothers who preferred not to commute or who wanted to work part time.

3. Make work more flexible

By breaking some jobs into components and using technology to virtualize others, employers can engage labor far more efficiently. There is a spectrum of possible work arrangements. Ttraditional full-time workers in the office, part-time or temporary workers, and contingent, remote workers who can help meet spikes in demand, all options are available and companies can become flexible by making appropriate work design and human resource or services allocation or acquisition process designs.

Breaking managerial work is the recommendation and main point of Taylor.  So 21st Century trend noticed and advocated by McKinsey expert is to focus on knowledge work to divide it further into more skilled and less skilled jobs.

Making work virtual has progressed a lot and employees these days in USA are able to work from home whenever they want. Flexible work is also coming into place and many persons are writing about an economy where lot more services will be cloud based and more people are engaged to provide services that are virtual and flexible.

Thursday, July 13, 2017

Design for Productivity

Design for productivity is  a product design approach that applies market study, value analysis, industrial design, input substitution, product simplification and part count reduction in a rigorous, innovative and systematic way to improve the relationship between product cost and selling price.

Productivity Management Services has achieved extraordinary results through the application of this method - in some cases part counts have been reduced by as much as 70%, embedded labour time halved, production facilities simplified and expensive fixtures and assembly equipment eliminated.

The objective of the design for productivity process is to achieve a superior product, in aesthetic and technical terms, to improve market performance while simultaneously reducing the resources needed to produce them.

http://www.britishproductivity.co.uk/design-for-productivity.html


Smart Factory of Tata Motors in Gujarat - 2010



Tata's set up a $417 million "smart factory" in the state of Gujarat that uses intelligent-automation hardware, software and services supplied by Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation Inc.

According to Rockwell that plant in India is using the latest technology. It is  are high-tech facility  as high-tech as they are in the U.S.

Tata's technology goes beyond robotics, the craze of the 1980s. It manages every sensor, microchip and motor control. It predicts bottlenecks and breakdowns on the factory floor before they happen. It has the capacity to seamlessly order parts from its suppliers - such as seats for the Nano from the Indian subsidiary of Glendale-based Johnson Controls Inc. - the instant it receives a custom new car order from a dealer.

It is flexible, able to adjust on short notice to keep pace with consumer tastes.

The Tata plant also includes a "genealogy" feature that tracks every part in every car, allowing Tata to trace any vehicles that might carry a defective part. If there is  a recall, they'd know exactly which Nanos to recall, as opposed to the current practices of auto companies, which recall a million cars because they are unsure which cars to recall."

http://archive.jsonline.com/business/91306009.html

21st Century Theory for Productivity of Knowledge Workers



20th century saw the development of management theory for improving the productivity of factory workers, the 21st century will see the evolution of myriad better techniques for managing people who think for a living.


http://www.mckinsey.com/global-themes/employment-and-growth/the-productivity-imperative

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Harrington Emerson - The Twelve Principles of Efficiency - Part 2

Part 1 Principles

1. Clearly defined ideals.
2. Common sense
3. Competent counsel
4. Discipline
5. The fair deal
6. Reliable, immediate and adequate records
(Principles 1 to 6 covered in Part 1)



Part 2 Principles


7. Despatching
8. Standards and schedules
9. Standardized conditions
10. Standardized operations
11. Written standard-practice instructions
12. Efficiency-reward



THE SEVENTH PRINCIPLE: DESPATCHING



Despatching is used to denote shop planning by Harrington Emerson. Efficiency of the shop can be improved by shop planning by increasing on time deliveries and also reducing idle time of the equipment.

Emerson described a locomotives repair shop wherein he introduced despatching system. The first plan was to despatch the repairs as a whole, locomotives to be returned to service in 12 days, 18 days, 24 days, according to the class of repair. The second plan, worked in with this, was to despatch each separate item of work and to pick out those items which, taken at the proper time, in the proper order, and in the proper sequence, would result in completing a locomotive in the shortest time.

Marine-repair despatching was found to be superior over locomotive-repair despatching. A big vessel will be put in a dry dock, at $5,000 a day charge perhaps, and be completely scraped, repainted, new propeller and rudder fitted, new plates inserted, in perhaps three days. Complete circulating pumps, from drawing to installation, will be completed in three days. Emerson reasons that, it is hard to defend a longer time than 72 hours for most locomotive repairs.

It is also interesting to note that in the sister branch of railroad maintenance, namely, track repairs, stupendous tasks of snow and landslide removals, bridge rebuilding, etc., are commonly accomplished in hours rather than in days or weeks.


A new plan was gradually substituted for the old plan. In the railroad shop major schedules were worked out and put into effect by despatching; minor and subsidiary schedules were made out for each job, each man, and each machine, the lesser jobs fitting like parts of a puzzle into the larger schedules, and on the basis of schedules, however often they were changed, men, machines and jobs were despatched. All work, instead of passing directly from foreman to worker or to gang, passed through our despatch board. Practice was perfectly elastic, but procedure was not. Schedules could be changed on a moment's notice and also the sequence of despatching, but not the fact of despatching. The particular shape and size and location of despatch board is unimportant, the essential being that it is suited to the work. Whether the despatch board is covered with parti-colored strings, or made up of hooks, clips, or pockets to receive cards, is also unimportant in principle, but not in practice, since a method under which many of your despatching cards blow out of the window soon becomes inoperative.

The name despatching was adopted from train despatching, and train operation organization was adapted. The foreman corresponded to the engineer, a new official was created corresponding to the despatcher, a messenger and telephone service kept the despatcher's office in touch with the work. Despatching records, however, were adapted from bank practice. The receiving teller takes in money,
he enters the amount in the depositor's time book, he credits the bank's cash book with the amount received, but he also credits the ledger account of the depositor. When the depositor draws a check it is presented to the paying teller who hands out the cash, charges the cash account, charges the depositor's account. At the end of any day the total cash in hand must correspond with the sum of the balances in all the accounts. Similarly the despatching board, like the cash book, is filled with prospective work. As fast as any item is performed it is charged to the order. The operator is charged
with the pay he draws and credited with the work he performs.

There must be at the day's or week's or month's end a perfect balance between all work credited to operators and charged to orders, also a perfect balance between wages and other accounts charged and totals credited to work in progress and delivered since last balance. The records are immediate, absolutely accurate, and wholly adequate.

In practice it has proved more important to despatch unstandardized work than to standardize undespatched work, even as on railroads it is more important to despatch trains even if there is no adherence to schedule than it is to run trains on time without despatching.

Despatching, like other principles, is a subdivision of the science of management, a part of planning; but while visible to the eye as a distinct pattern, it ought, like inlaid work, to be intactile. If we are well nothing is more beautifully despatched than the food we eat, from plate to building up of depleted hidden tissue. We are conscious only of the pleasure of the first taste, not conscious of the admirably regular way by which each molecule is ultimately despatched to its destination.


THE EIGHTH PRINCIPLE: STANDARDS AND SCHEDULES - Harrington Emerson

Standards and Schedules ! These are of two kinds, the physical and chemical standards discovered and established in the last century, standards and schedules as exact as mathematics, and those other schedules resting on standards whose upper limit we do not yet know.

All around us, everywhere nature has been showing us that increased result comes from lessened effort, not from greater effort, but we have been too stupid to understand.

This law of the reduction of effort for greater results crops up in the most unexpected places, so that engineers have evolved the definite critical speed, the speed of maximum result for relatively least expenditure.

To establish rational work standards for men requires indeed motion and time studies of all operations, but it requires in addition all the skill of the planning manager, all the skill of the physician, of the humanitarian, of the physiologist, of the psychologist ; it requires infinite knowledge, directed, guided and restrained by hope, faith and compassion.

The promise already partly fulfilled and clearly held out as to the future is that greater and greater results shall follow constantly diminishing effort.

THE NINTH PRINCIPLE: STANDARDIZED CONDITIONS

Standardizing is used as planning the conditions by Emerson.

There are two distinct methods of standardizing conditions — to standardize ourselves so as to command the unalterable extraneous facts, earth, water, air, gravity, wave vibrations; to standardize the outside facts so that our personality becomes the pivot on which all else turns.

The easiest way for any individual to live his own life in fullest measure is either to standardize himself to suit the environment or to standardize the environment to suit himself.

Roads were built that a barefooted multitude might travel in slow comfort. Ater a standardized path had been created, a bright mind evolved the idea that a revolving wheel would be more adapted to the road than alternating footsteps, so we had the roller, the cart, the wheelbarrow, and at last the bicycle
was perfected.  In the bicycle man still used the alternating swing of the legs, but he propelled himself nearly seven times as fast, so that one travelled 323 miles in 16 hours and 45 minutes, at the rate of 19.8 miles an hour.

But why should a man use his own efforts ?  He had already used steam to propel locomotives on their more minutely standardized road, so he finally attached an explosive reciprocating engine to his road vehicle, an engine capable of making 1,200 strokes a minute for each of four, eight, fourteen, cylinders, as compared to the 140 strokes of each of two legs ; an engine capable of kicking 100 pounds per square inch for as many inches as the piston surface has area, as against the man's total power of push of less than 200 pounds. So that in his cushioned seat, with mere pressure of hand or foot, Gabriel, in the race from Paris to Madrid, made Bordeaux in 5 hours 13 minutes, or at the rate of 62.5 miles an hour.


The principles under which the methods and practices of efficiency are grouped have been compared to the skeleton framework of a dome. The ribs of the dome are the principles, but the first layer can be started with one part of each rib in place, and with filling of various devices to complete the circle. As layers are added the ribs rise until they come closer together and at last coalesce. Some ribs may be carried to the top, others may stop part way up, their burden carried by others. In this series of essays each of the earlier ribs has been separately carried to the top, so that now there is less space for the later principles, much of their duty having been transferred to the principles already in place. To maintain reliable, immediate and adequate records we must have standardized conditions; to put in schedules we must have standardized conditions; so the standardizing of conditions should precede schedules. But unless we have already adopted ideal schedules, how do we know what conditions, and the extent to which they must be standardized? Also, unless we have ideals as to standards, how can we create a high schedule?

It is perhaps because schedules (plans) and conditions (you can say organization of resources) react so on each other that progress is so disappointingly slow. We make a mean little schedule and meanly standardize conditions to suit.

Records are again broken by effort, far less at its maximum than on the old schedule, but nevertheless discountenanced by the conservatives, until conditions are again restandardized and effort is still further diminished. Who has the harder time, the runner who precedes the cavalcade of an Oriental magnate, or the engineer of our fastest trains ? Who puts forth the greater effort, the peon who twelve hours a day carries load after load of ore in sacks on his back up a notched pole out of a deep Mexican mine, or the fireman who for two hours and a half between New York and Albany, calling it a day's work, shovels coal for the fastest train ? In the locomotive runs across Arizona where oil burners are used, even the fireman's work, usually so hard, has been converted into watching the water glass, watching the smoke, and with his fingers turning on and off water and oil supply.

The grub acquiesces in the obvious ; and until the last century, all but very few men acquiesced in the obvious. By force of ancestral habit this acquiescence is still the curse of most of us. Our ideals, our schedules, have been and are too low instead of too high. The 18-hour trains between the two largest American cities are on the highest regular long-distance schedules thus far attained; but on an open speed-way not comparable to the steel track in smoothness, an automobile with its little engine, and one man guiding, ran faster and longer, so that in comparison 18 hours seems slow; and, quite surely somewhere, some time — perhaps in China or Africa — Brennan's gyroscope car on a monorail, indifferent to both grades and curves, shortening distances one-fifth, will do in 8 hours what now takes 18.

In planning for standardized conditions, it is difficult not to skip the present and plan for the future; but even in the greatest American plants, the conditions imposed by an ignorant and inefficient past are accepted, schedules are toned down, and painful effort crowds out intelligent control. In one large plant where the heaviest and slowest piece took only 40 days for completion, the managers acquiesced for many years in a 9-month schedule, and after much special work felt pride instead of humiliation in a 6-month schedule. A 15-day schedule for general repairs to a locomotive is considered fast time and the average is more nearly 30, but if the time for each item is separately entered in a summary, it is hard to discover why 3 days would not be enough.

The battleship "Kansas" of the American Navy under an eminent efficiency commander went into dry-dock, water was pumped out of the dock, hull cleaned, scraped, painted, rudder post repacked, and the vessel floated again in less than 24 hours. For a steamer immediate repairs are otherwise important than for an isolated locomotive. The railroads, on the other hand, show marvelous speed, generally of the main-strength order, in clearing away a wreck or an earth slide or opening a snow blockade.

Ideals of standardized conditions are not Utopian, but are immediately and intensely practical, but ideals must precede selective action.

The man who would bring about standardized conditions in production activities must have conceptions of time, of effort, of cost; he must instinctively recognize that for each operation there is one combination of these three that is best for the ideal result.The ideal result may be the destruction of an enemy's battleship, twelve million dollars sunk in five minutes, by guns loaded, accurately aimed, and fired so as to hit, at the rate of two salvos a minute. Time minimum at whatever cost and effort !

In our individual lives, in our shops, in our nation, what are we trying to accomplish ? Are we taking too much time, is it costing too much, are we squandering our strength? Are we standardizing conditions so that time will not be wasted, so that money will not be thrown away, so that effort will not be in vain?


THE TENTH PRINCIPLE: STANDARDIZED OPERATIONS

Commentary by KVSSNRao

Planning pays; the application of all the principles of efficiency pays; but standardized operation is the principle that most appeals to the individuality of the man, of the worker. Ideals are passive, common-sense is passive, planning in all its phases is passive, but standardized operation becomes an individual joy with its wealth of active manifestation.

 Nature has ultimate ideals, but nature's creatures are not habitually idealists, reverent, kindly, clean, chaste, or honest. Ideals are so obscure that most of us do not know what ideals we hold.

We begin indeed with ideals ; we expect end results; we leap over the intervening stations of the preceding nine principles, much as if we expected a train to run from New York to San Francisco with one helping of coal, water, lubrication, with one train crew. The rope is made of many minor strands ; these are twisted from the numerous threads, and these in turn have been spun from broken and carded fibres. The sheep's fleece is a unit, a matted mass that adheres and forms a whole, not because it is woven like a blanket, but because of its interwoven confusion and tangle. There is no popular English word for a single thread of wool. Pull one lock and the whole fleece comes, not because of orderly connection, but because of disorderly tangle.


Once a day should the 40,000 operations of the shop be straightened out in accordance with a general plan. Ladies take care of their 40,000 hairs every day with a comb with a general plan.

A comprehensive shop plan, graphically expressed, looks like a flattened tree. Each leaf, the separate operations, must be in order in its appointed place; each twig, with its own definite length, must reach in sequence into the main branches, these in turn being distributed at determined intervals along the main stem and trunk.

The trunk grows upwards and outwards, from the force implanted in the seed, the original ideal of the tree, but there is a reverse flow of imprisoned sunlight and captured carbon from the leaves back into the roots. The separate operations in a shop must flow into the final output ; but from the expected output backward, there must be a plan that reaches back to each detail of every operation.

It is one thing to build a battleship taking up details as they occur — the haphazard method; it is another thing to make the plan first, place all the details where they belong in time, space, relation and perfection, and have them drop into place with the accuracy of a watch movement — the difference, in fact, between the running of sand through an unstandardized aperture, and the precision of the chronometer. Good results are not achieved by chance.

I have before me one volume of the standard-practice instructions covering the manufacturing of the gasoline automobile truck car. It contains 278 isometric designs or illustrations, 314 pages of printed matter, and spaces for the times and rates of 1,231 distinct operations. Each one of these operations was preceded by many designs until one was accepted as approximately good. The design was split up into its component parts, investigation made as to material of each piece, how strong it should be, what heat treatment should be given, on what machines it should be shaped, in what sequence, by which worker. As to each piece and operation many time studies are made, and finally from the mass of accurately ascertained or available information, a carefully pre-studied work-instruction card is made out. All these items of planning must precede the time and cost ratings. Are you appalled at the mass of detail that precedes the making of a book? If we have but 100 copies to print it is cheaper,
quicker, and better than manuscript duplication; if we have 3 copies to make it is better to choose the typewriter and provide carbon manifolds than to write it out by hand. If we want only 300 screws and it takes 3 hours to set up the automatic machine and only 3 minutes to run out the screws, it is better to use the automatic. A modern activity, whether the operation of an industrial shop, or a railroad, or of the turrets and guns of a battleship, is part of a gigantic, automatic machine; and it pays to plan in advance, not to trust to the hap-hazard.

Probably the most marvelous and valuable example of standardized operations anywhere in the world is on our American fleets in battle practice.  A Dreadnaught makes all the navies of the world without Dreadnaughts obsolete, because such a battleship with its ten 12-inch guns, can fire a broadside from all of them at once while steaming at 21 knots. One modern Arkansas or Wyoming, with twelve 12-inch guns, firing four times as fast and hitting four times as often, will, for the time being at least, be sixteen times as effective. These big guns are loaded, aimed, and fired twice in a minute. The practice drill is only half this time, and this practice drill is of two kinds. There is the physical act of loading the heavy gun, there is the more important act of pointing it. Two opposing ships are 10,000 yards apart (about 6 miles) steaming at 18 knots in diverging directions.

Thus gradually, from all sides — from the watch and sewing-machine and typewriter factory, from the race-track, from the fire-fighters, from the manipulation of the big 12-inch guns, from schedules, despatching, standardized conditions and standardized operation in some shops — the methods of efficiency are spreading.

Planning pays; the application of all the principles of efficiency pays; but standardized operation is the principle that most appeals to the individuality of the man, of the worker. Ideals are passive, common-sense is passive, planning in all its phases is passive, but standardized operation becomes an individual joy with its wealth of active manifestation.

Let none hesitate because we cannot standardize each new operation. We cannot standardize every errand boy's every trip ; we cannot standardize every naval battle; but we can so inspire both errand boy and admiral that each will always do his best, we can give them training, knowledge, help, and incentive; and if we do this for them and for all other workers, even though we cannot drill and redrill as to the performance of the occasional operation, we can be absolutely sure that no savable time will be wasted nor effort lost in performing it.


THE ELEVENTH PRINCIPLE: WRITTEN STANDARD-PRACTICE INSTRUCTIONS


Pumpelly tells a story of a Japanese student of metallurgy, who about 1870 possessed an English work on blast furnaces, an English-Dutch dictionary, and a Dutch-Japanese dictionary, and with these as guides he constructed and operated a fairly successful blast furnace for smelting iron ore. This shows what can be done by Standard Permanent Written Instructions.

Maps and charts  are useful. A stranger on an unknown coast, in an unknown land, an unknown city,
knows more about it if he has a good chart or map than the native.


American law is in most States the out-growth of English common law, and in our Spanish and French States, of Roman law. The common law in England is the outcome of custom finally passed on by the courts or defined by acts of Parliament. In many of our State codes we have attempted to reduce the principles to statutes governing particular cases. This is often helpful and often not.

The Civil Code of France, developed by Bonaparte is an admirable example of Permanent Written Standard-Practice Instructions. It was, moreover, only one of seven great organizing acts which he made into specific standard-practice instructions, these instructions having persisted almost unchanged to the present time.

The standardizing operations is of very great importance.


The marvelous results due to standardization of gunnery practice in the American fleet have already been referred to. These results were achieved by the ratchet process, by holding onto every gain and by never allowing any slip back, these results being secured by a voluminous book of instructions and suggestions. In this book best ways as ascertained to date are specifically prescribed, by written, permanent standard-practice instructions, but these instructions are subject to a bombardment of suggestions and all these suggestions, however foolish, are tabulated, printed, and confidentially published.

It is not only in its charts, in its naval gunnery, in its agricultural department, that the United States Government has established permanent written instructions.

The specifications of the purchasing department of the navy are at once the most complete, the most modern, and the best I have ever seen. That the plans were evolved and perfected by graduates of Annapolis speaks highly for the practical value of the general education there imparted.

There are many hundred different specifications covering everything that the navy regularly uses; the specifications for eggs covered several pages; the specifications for potatoes are as follows:

When advances are not only definitely recorded but when the best practice is carefully and systematically reduced to writing, progress made is held and built upon in an industrial plant or any other undertaking. Every shop, every institution, has its great body of common-law practices that have gradually crept in, common law variously understood and variously interpreted by those most affected. Often the traditions of the past are treasured up in the brain of some old employee, who transmits them, much as the memories of old bards were formerly the only available history.

Each one of the ten preceding efficiency principles can and should be reduced to written, permanent standard-practice instructions so that each may understand the whole and also his own relation to it. In some plants the only rules obtainable or visible are certain subsidiary conduct rules, offensively expressed and ending with the threat of discharge.

 The ideals of a plan or undertaking can be expressed in a few words. One of the mottoes of American naval practice is: "Efficiency and Economy." This is amplified into special rules governing all kinds of activities. I have before me the following :

Discipline and the fair deal do not require voluminous initial instructions, although both discipline and the fair deal should curtail automatism.

Standard-Practice Instructions are the permanent laws and practices of a plant. What these laws, practices and customs are should first be carefully ascertained and be reduced to writing by a competent and high-class investigator, and it will be all the better if he has had legal training. It will take considerable work to find out what the practices are, as different officials from president down may have different opinions and theories and also the practice may vary from month to month. It is quite usual to find the actual practice quite different from what the general manager or president supposes it is. Men do what they can, not what they have been told. The purpose is to find out what current practice is, not what it
is supposed to be.

The next step in the work is to harmonize the discrepancies, to cut out what is useless or harmful, and to supplement the resultant body by needed additions.

When this constructive work has been performed there will be a preliminary code. In actual practice it will be found that it is still defective, incomplete or contradictory. It is. to be made workable not by throwing it to the winds and reverting to the previous state of semi-anarchy every time a difficulty arrives, but by carefully considered amendments. The code being made up of a number of different statements and enactments can be amended by sending out notice of withdrawal of any enactment, at the same time issuing the amended enactment, the substitution being effected as in the illustration that follows : —


 It is pathetically and ignorantly supposed that standard instructions destroy a man's initiative and make of him an automaton.

The fact is that the limitation of initiative professedly so dreaded is wholly imaginary. To follow the better and easier way is to lessen effort for the same result, to leave more opportunity for higher initiative to invent or evolve still better ways.

The aviator flying 72 miles an hour is the greatest initiator in the world today, yet to a degree never before experienced he is limited by his engine, and nothing would be so welcome as standard-practice instructions that would help keep his engine going, as automatic stability for his plane, gladly relinquishing his own initiative in favor of tested standard practice in both these respects.

Any undertaking run without written standard-practice instructions is incapable of progressive advance, but by means of written instructions advances far more rapid than those attained by insects and birds are possible. Wireless telegraphy is but suggested, experiments described, and inside of ten years our coast is fringed with the masts of rival systems and messages are transmitted across the ocean !

The first flights of aeroplanes were but eight  years ago, and today they are carrying twelve passengers or flying 72 miles an hour. Five years of planned, attained, and recorded progress will accomplish more than twenty years of rule of thumb tucked away under the hats of shifting employees.


Commentary by KVSSNRao

Any undertaking run without written standard-practice instructions is incapable of progressive advance, but by means of written instructions advances far more rapid than those attained by insects and birds are possible.

With the above statement, Emerson brings into picture knowledge management, a popular theme today.

THE TWELFTH PRINCIPLE : EFFICIENCY REWARD




The day-wage system, contrary as it is both to the underlying principle of efficiency reward and also to all principles of equity, since it lacks any intelligent relation between pay and performance, is doomed, in spite of hoary custom, current practice, in spite of combined (although opposed) efforts of unions and employers' associations. Compensation for work cannot remain an exception to the general law that there must be a definite equivalent, based on the two elements of quantity and quality; and our ability to measure accurately both quantity and quality, whether the weight in carats of the diamond and its blue-whiteness, whether the weight of coal and the heat units per pound, is one of the measures of civilization. 

Efficiency rewards hold good for nearly every worker in life except the day worker.

The hunter who starts early, who has practiced much, who works hard, brings home the game. The farmer who selects his seed carefully, tills and fertilizes his crops scientifically, secures twice the yield per acre ;  Everywhere— except for almost the largest class of all, the men who work with their hands — there is special and closely connected reward for individual efficiency. Are the toilers to have no efficiency reward?

Unions have accomplished much. Coming to the subject from a different point of view, I agree with them in their attitude toward piece rates, which are intended to stimulate strenuousness, often harmful strenuousness, the exact opposite of efficiency ; but as to a fixed rate of pay per hour or day without reference either to equivalent or to individuality, the whole teachings of the ages, the whole tendency of the time, are against it.

Efficiency reward cannot be equitably offered to the worker until equivalency is first conceded and established. The basis of equivalency is of little importance compared to the principle.

The trouble with piece rates was that they attempted to solve, by a crude application of the principle of strenuousness, not an efficiency principle, a number of problems that could be solved only by the application of many efficiency principles. Ideals were not clearly seen, common-sense was not invoked, competent counsel was not secured, discipline and the fair deal were equally neglected, as cases are known in which piece workers had to begin work at 5 a. m. in order to make a day's wage. Reliable records were lacking, there was no planning, no despatching, no standardized conditions and no standardized operations — only arbitrary piece-rate schedules, a day rate of average current wage to the phenomenal worker being the ultimate measure of the piece rate.

The first strike recorded in history was a strike against a cut in piece rates (by Jews in Egypt).

A profit-sharing plan is not an efficiency reward. Out of the eighteen items of operating costs or manufacturing costs, as distinguished from selling costs, only one is directly influenced by the worker, and that is the time-quality of his work. For the other seventeen items the management is partly responsible, but often many of them are beyond the control of either manager or worker — the prices of materials, for instance. These are often the largest part of the cost.

Equity demands direct connection between efficiency reward and efficiency quality. A distribution pro rata to wages at the end of the year, to bad and good alike, of a profit due always in largest part to causes over which the worker has no control, is illogical although it may be kind. What direct incentive is there to a good worker to put forth special effort when all the efforts of all the workers can be negatived by a slump in the market price? What direct incentive to put forth special effort when the laziest and the most wasteful will be given the same proportionate reward? An efficiency reward is one which the worker can see and grasp during the effort, one that is paid to him for his individual excellence in that for which he is individually responsible.  Profit sharing is not inequitable as are piece payments ; it is an amiable kindness on the part of the plant owners, but it is not efficiency
reward.

There are, however, forms of bonus above guaranteed wages that are free both from the inequities of piece rates and from the colorless amiability of profit sharing.

The worker sells two different possessions, both his own — his time and his skill. He should be robbed of neither. Time payments which make no allowance for skill are wrong; skill payments which make no provision for time are also wrong. It is easy to measure time. We can do it with the watch that made the dollar famous. In horse racing, time is used exclusively to measure skill. The horse that is able to clip a fifth of a second from a world's record, may by that act add $10,000 to his value. Skill may also be measured in time. In the battle practice of the American fleet it is more important to fire 120 rounds an hour and make 10 per cent of hits, than to fire 12 rounds an hour and make 50 per cent of hits.

Mr. F. A. Halsey, in his premium plan under which he guarantees compensation per hour irrespective of product, and in addition pays a premium of one-third pay for all time saved over previous records, laid the foundation for rational efficiency reward. As usually put into practice the plan is imperfect, because the dividing point between day wages and premium addition is carelessly accepted without scientific or reliable accuracy. 

F. W. Taylor's immense merit was that above everything else he insisted on the necessity and possibility of determining very closely the upper limit of high and rapid performance under normal conditions, a performance that could be kept up for years or for a working lifetime without detriment to the worker, yet that eliminated the flagrant or avoidable waste. Taylor thus laid the founations for equitable bonus for each operation to each individual.

Gantt was the first to evolve and use in the compensation of workers a plan that retained full pay by the hour (therefore pay for time quantity, a definite original recompense) and pay for time quality, for a specific task, for which a most carefully ascertained time had been determined. No reward was paid unless full time quality was realized. It was on the principle that a fisherman either caught his fish or he did not ; there were no half or quarter fish for near skill in angling.

Many of nature's efficiency rewards are of this character, and it is a strong, virile principle.

The author, owing to the nature of the work in the plants he was counseling, found it undesirable to make the line of demarcation so sharp between efficiency and inefficiency, and therefore followed nature's softer plan of efficiency reward. Every plant or animal must maintain a certain minimum of efficiency or it dies; atrophy results in extinction; but above this lower limit, reward is proportioned to efficiency - small reward to the less efficient, special honors to the most efficient.

The principle of the wage target with a small bull's eye is applied. Shots outside of the bull's eye but in the target also count.

In the original plan, while certain operations averaged four hours under the same workman working with the same diligence, on one occasion the time would be five hours and on another three hours, owing to conditions over which the worker had no control. It was highly desirable to maintain the interest of the operator in the discouraging jobs, so while a standard bonus of 20 per cent was paid for attaining standard time, while 10 per cent bonus was paid for attaining 90 per cent of standard time and 3.25 per cent bonus for 80 per cent of standard time, bonus stopped at 67 per cent of standard. If less time than standard was used, the worker was paid at his full hourly rate for all the time he saved, and. was paid in addition 20 per cent bonus for the time that he worked. A workman had to be very inferior who could not regularly earn some bonus. A further step to eliminate accidental and inevitable time variations was suggested and worked out by two advisers, Mr. Playfair and Mr. Whitef ord, who have both made for themselves names in efficiency work. Under the new plan the worker is charged with all the hours he works in any selected period, week, month, etc., and he is credited with and paid for all the standard hours of work which he turns out. The bonus, whether for job, for day, for month or longer period, is paid on the efficiency relation between actual and standard. If a worker is present 250 hours in a month and turns out 250 hours of work in 250 hours actual time, his efficiency is 100 per cent, and he earns 20 per cent bonus on wages; but if in the same time he turns out 300 hours of work, his efficiency 40 per cent on his wages.

The standard times are most carefully determined by time studies, by observations, by theoretical considerations, by demonstrations, using every available method to establish fair and correct standards. If the performance is walking on a good road and the time eight hours, we settle on 24 miles a day as an easier task than a quarter of a mile each quarter hour as in some of the monotonous beats of sentries or policemen. If the performance is to be 24 miles, we desire to take for it neither 16 hours a day nor yet 4 hours, but a time between 6 hours and 9, according to the preference of the worker; and it is further realized that the best standard of efficiency is not a maximum of muscular effort for a short time, nor a maximum of physical wear for a long time, but a combination of mental and physical exhilaration which leaves the worker in best condition at the end of the accomplishment,
whether the unit of time be a few seconds, a day, a month, a year, or a lifetime.

Therefore, in this particular very limited application of efficiency reward the ideals are : —

(1) A guaranteed hourly rate.

(2) A lower limit of efficiency, which, if not attained, indicates that the worker is a misfit and requires either special training or change of occupation.

(3) A progressive efficiency reward, beginning at a requirement so low that it is inexcusable not to average it.

(4) An efficiency standard established after careful and reliable investigations of many kinds, including time and motion studies.


(5) For work to be performed, a time standard that is joyful and exhilarating, therefore intermediate between depressing slowness and exhausting effort.

(6) A variation in standards for the same work for different machines, conditions and individuals, the schedules therefore being individual.

(7) The determination for each worker of an average efficiency for all jobs over a long period.

(8) A continuous correction of time standards and of wage rate to suit new conditions. This is essential and inevitable. Wage rate rises f under the new conditions more skill or greater effort is required. Time standards have nothing to do with wages. They are not changed to affect earnings either one way or the other, but to be accurate and just. The time standard for covering a mile for a man on foot is inevitably less for a man on a bicycle, inevitably less for a man on a motor cycle than for a man on a bicycle.

(9) The worker must have the personal option of working not to a standard time, but between limits on each side of standard time. If he does not consider standard time fair, he can take his assumed hourly rate and show lower efficiency, which greatly enhances the cost to the employer, whose self-interest has so to improve physical or psychical conditions as to induce the worker to attain standards.

Efficiency constitutes 9 out of the 18 elements of cost — efficiency of quality and quantity and overhead for materials, for labor and for fixed charges. It has been found exceedingly satisfactory and convenient to base efficiency rewards on the cost of efficiencies, the method being so flexible as to be applicable to an individual operation of a few minutes' duration, or to all the work of a man for a long period, or to all the work of department or plant.

Nevertheless, these various forms of bonus are but devices of great practical value, just as  foot rule or the multiplication table is of  practical value, but for importance they are not to be compared to the broad principle of efficiency reward which is far above any particular device. It is therefore absolutely impossible for any combination of workers to prevent the application of the principle of efficiency reward if any management chooses to adopt it.

Efficiency reward is not a money payment, this is only one of its myriad forms. Men have been willing to die for a smile. Hobson relates that one man offered to forfeit a year's pay if they would but allow him to be one of the crew to sink the "Merrimac" across the entrance to Santiago harbor. Garibaldi offered his hearers hunger, thirst, hardship, wounds, prison and death, and in a frenzy of eagerness they followed him.

Highest efficiency is easily stimulated, although there is often no more direct connection between act and reward than in profit sharing which does not stimulate. In Jack London's elemental tale of the miner of Forty Mile, the girl he fought for was the direct prize. He would have had to fight if there had been no girl and he would have lost, but in Victor Hugo's "Toilers of the Sea," the man single-handed saved the wrecked steamer, not that he might profit, but that he might win a girl's love. The bitter tragedy lies in the fact that he had striven for a reward, made its hope the inspiration of his work when he should have known that it could not be attained in that manner.

Twelve principles of efficiency! We began with ideals, we end with ideals. Men must have ideals or they cannot do good work ; there must be possibility of highest efficiency reward or neither senses, nor spirit, nor mind is stimulated.

He who would take ideals from the world's workers, he who would deprive them of the lure of individual reward for individual efficiency, would indeed make them brother to the ox.

He who believes the road behind humanity registers but a fraction of what is still to be attained, seizes on the principle of efficiency reward to bring to their highest development materials, muscle, mind, and above all, spirit


Commentary by KVSSNRao

Emerson quoted Taylor and Gantt in this chapter

Updated 11 July 2017, 13 July 2016