What is Industrial Engineering? F.W. Taylor - Hugo Diemer - First Professor of Industrial Engineering

What is Industrial Engineering? Hugo Diemer

The work of the industrial or efficiency engineer. 

The writer (Hugo Diemer), in his book on “Factory Organization and Administration,” has outlined in the following manner the work of the industrial engineer.  The definition is as follows:

“The industrial engineer considers a manufacturing establishment just as one would an intricate machine. He analyzes each process into its ultimate, simple elements, and compares each of these simplest steps or processes with an ideal or perfect condition. He then makes all due allowances for rational and practical conditions and establishes an attainable commercial standard for every step. The next process is that of attaining continuously this standard, involving both quality and quantity, and the interlocking or assembling of all of these prime elements into a well-arranged, well-built, smooth-running machine. It is quite evident that work of this character involves technical knowledge and ability in science and pure engineering, which do not enter into the field of the accountant. Yet the industrial engineer must have the accountant’s keen perception of money values. His work will not be good engineering unless he uses good business judgment. He must be able to select those mechanical devices and perfect such organization as will best suit present needs and secure prompt returns in profit. He must have sufficiently good business sense to appreciate the ratio between investment and in come. He must be in close enough touch with the financial management to be able to impress upon them the necessity of providing sinking funds to provide for the more perfect installations and organizations which future demands of a more educated and enlightened public will

necessitate.

“The industrial engineer today must be as competent to give good business advice to his corporation as is the skilled corporation attorney. Upon his sound judgment and good advice depend very frequently the making or losing of large fortunes.”

Source: The Manufacturing Organization by Hugo Diemer
Lecture Material
LaSalle Extension University, 1922
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=osu.32435055077507;view=1up;seq=3



Hugo Diemer defined or explained Industrial Engineering in chapter I in his book published in 1910.



FACTORY ORGANIZATION AND ADMINISTRATION
BY
HUGO DIEMER, M.E.
Professor of Industrial Engineering, Pennsylvania State
College; Consulting Industrial Engineer
FIRST EDITION
McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY
239 WEST 39TH STREET, NEW YORK
6 BOUVERIE STREET, LONDON, E.G.
1910

THIS book is intended to be of service to officers of manufacturing corporations, works managers, superintendents, accountants, and the heads of such departments as purchasing, stores, cost,
and production, and in fact to all employees of manufacturing corporations who desire to acquire a comprehensive grasp of the problems treated.

The work has gradually acquired its present form as the result of lecture courses delivered for a number of years to senior students in engineering colleges, and it is believed that while primarily
intended for the actual practitioner in manufacturing work, it will be of value to engineering students.
HUGO DIEMER.
STATE COLLEGE, PA., July 1, 1910.
254501


CHAPTER I
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

IT is now some twenty years since Mr. Henry R. Towne presented to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers a paper on "Gain Sharing/' in which he assumed that everything connected with successful factory management constituted a part of the work of the engineer.

F.W. Taylor and Industrial Engineering

Mr. Taylor stands to-day as the earliest and foremost advocate of modern business or industrial engineering. As early as 1889, Mr. Taylor earnestly pleaded that shop statistics and cost data should be more than mere records, and that they in themselves constituted but a small portion of the field of investigation to be covered by the industrial engineer. While he did not so express himself, the gist of his treatment of factory management is this:

He considers a manufacturing establishment just as one would an intricate machine. He analyzes each process into its ultimate, simple elements, and compares each of these simplest steps or processes with an ideal or perfect condition. He then makes all due allowances for rational and practical conditions and establishes an attainable commercial standard for every step. The next process is that of attaining continuously this standard, involving both quality and quantity, and the interlocking or assembling of all of these prime elements into a well-arranged, well-built, smooth-running machine. It is quite evident that work of this character involves technical knowledge and ability in science and pure engineering, which do not enter into the field of the accountant. Yet the industrial  engineer must have the accountant's keen perception of money values. His work will not be good engineering unless he uses good business judgment. He must be able to select those mechanical devices and perfect such organization as will best suit present needs and secure prompt returns in profit. He must have sufficiently good business sense to appreciate the ratio between investment and income. He must be in close enough touch with the financial management to be able to impress upon them the necessity of providing sinking funds to provide for the more perfect installations and organizations which future demands of a more educated and enlightened public will necessitate.

The industrial engineer to-day must be as competent to give good business advice to his corporation as is the skilled corporation attorney. Upon his sound judgment and good advice depend very frequently the making or losing of large fortunes. Mr. James Newton Gunn is responsible for the use of the term " production engineer" or "industrial engineer" in speaking of the engineer who has to do with plant efficiency.

The word "production" indicates the making or manufacturing of commodities. Engineering as applied to production means the planning in advance of production so as to secure certain results. A man may be a good mechanic but no engineer. The distinction between the mechanic and the engineer is that the mechanic cuts and tries, and works by formulae based on empiricism. The engineer calculates and plans with absolute certainty of the accomplishment of the final results in accordance with his plans, which are based ultimately on fundamental truths of natural science.

The mechanical engineer has to do with the design, construction, testing, and operating of machines. The mechanical engineer designs with certainty of correct operation and adequate strength. Production engineering has to do with the output of men and machines. It requires a knowledge of both. The product involved may be anything that is made by or with the aid of machinery.

It is the business of the production engineer to know every single item that constitutes his finished product, and every step involved in the handling of every piece. He must know what is the most advantageous manufacturing quantity of every single item so as to secure uniformity of flow as well as economy of manufacture. He must know how long each step ought to take under the best attainable working conditions. He must be able to tell at any time the exact condition as regards quantity and state of finishedness of every part involved in his manufacturing process.

The engineer must be able not only to design, but to execute. A draftsman may be able to design, but unless he is able to execute his designs to successful operation he cannot be classed as an engineer. The production engineer must be able to execute his work as he has planned it. This requires two qualifications in addition to technical engineering ability: He must know men, and he must have creative ability in applying good statistical, accounting, and "system" methods to any particular production work he may undertake.

With regard to men, he must know how to stimulate ambition, how to exercise discipline with firmness, and at the same time with sufficient kindness to insure the good-will and cooperation of all. The more thoroughly he is versed in questions of economics and sociology, the better prepared will he be to meet the problems that will daily confront him. As economic production depends not only on equipment and plant, but on the psychological effect of wage systems, he must be able to discriminate in regard to which wage system is best applicable to certain classes of product.

For many years the orthodox courses in mechanical engineering as taught in our leading technical universities have elaborated and specialized on applied mechanics and thermodynamics. It has been only within recent years that problems of practical machine design, combining a rational teaching of the subject based upon fundamental laws of stresses and factors of safety rather than empirical rules, have been introduced. Within the past few years a number of leading universities have endeavored to meet the demand for young men with some preparation to fit them for beginners in fields which would lead to industrial management, by introducing so-called courses in commerce and business in its higher relations. The work of these courses has been directed almost exclusively towards distributional and financial rather than the productive side of business enterprises. A great demand at the present time is for young men specially prepared, capable, and willing to enter the productive departments of manufacturing establishments. In order that America may assume her natural leadership in export trade, we need not only experts in financing and distribution, but experts in production.

It is a noticeable characteristic of the manufacturing establishments of this country that turn out an engineering product of high excellency, that their technical staff includes not only designers but company officers, and heads of productive departments as well.

I do not wish to be misunderstood as claiming that we can by any system of education prepare young men so that immediately after graduation from some kind of a college or university course they can be full-fledged managers or production engineers. The work of industrial management is of such nature that it requires not only thorough preparation, but the stability of age and practical experience which should cover not only a period of at least ten years, but varied fields of work. The school can, however, develop an aptitude as well as a desire to fill certain minor staff positions in the management of industrial enterprises, so that a technical graduate may, after serving his apprenticeship of several years, be able and willing to assume the duties of foreman or head of some shop department, or some department such as Production, Tracing, Stores, Cost, Employment, or Purchasing. I do not wish to advocate the supplanting of  the shop foreman who has advanced from the ranks of the craftsmen by college-trained young men who have completed their apprenticeship, nor will we ever have such a condition. But I claim that we should have (and I believe that we are bound to have) an increasing number of technical college graduates filling positions in practically all of the departments of manufacturing corporations, instead of in only the designing, drafting, and testing departments.

Industrial Engineering is System Efficiency Engineering and Human Effort Engineering

 - Narayana Rao

IE is System Efficiency Engineering and Human Effort Engineering - Citations
https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2015/06/ie-is-system-efficiency-engineering-and.html


Industrial Engineering - The Concept - Developed by Going in 1911
https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2016/07/industrial-engineering-concept.html

Evolution of Industrial Engineering
https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2019/01/evolution-of-industrial-engineering.html

Updated on 8 November 2019, 3 March 2019