What is Industrial Engineering? C.E. Knoeppel 1920

An address delivered before Chicago Chapter of The Society of Industrial Engineers

The basis of industry has been and is Engineering Knowledge, but engineering knowledge has thought too much in terms of 2 plus 2 equals 4. It has given too much attention to matter—not enough to man. It has given too little attention to matching human variables against physical constants.

Engineering knowledge has built a wonderful structure in the shape of industry as we see it today but quicksand has been discovered and engineering knowledge must strengthen the structure, or, if necessary, rebuild it.

The next field for the Industrial Engineer is therefore that of industrial design, and on the shoulders of those representing engineering knowledge rests an enormous responsibility as builders of a new structure, which rising out of the ruins of the old will give the human the attention he deserves. Engineering knowledge must do this if our Twentieth Century civilization is not to be declared a sham; if we are to replace selfishness with service, and unhappiness with contentment. The Industrial Engineer of the future will there fore be an Industrial Architect.

We must take into consideration also that modern industry is a complex mechanism; that knowledge is so comprehensive and so vast as to make impossible for management to secure results unaided and unassisted. Therefore, the Industrial Engineer must step in as the staff organization of management to investigate, to devise, to formulate, to work up standard practice, to give counsel, and to assist management in the work of co-ordinating the money of capital and the work of labor. The Industrial Engineer of the future will .therefore be an Executive to Executives.

No attainment is ever greater or more efficient than the organization which makes it possible.

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