Lesson 30 of Industrial Engineering ONLINE Course - IE Concepts Module - Contribution of Taylor, Gilbreth, Emerson, Maynard, Barnes, Shigeo Shingo.
F.W. Taylor
Important Points of Prof. Diemer's Description of Taylor's Industrial Engineering
- Analyze each engineering process into its ultimate, simple elements, and develop ideal or perfect elements.
- Make all due allowances for rational and practical conditions and establish an attainable commercial unit time production standard for every step.
- The next step is attaining continuously the unit time production standard, involving both quality and quantity for each element.
- Process integration - Assembling the improved prime elements into a well-arranged, well-built, smooth-running engineering process (machine).
- The industrial engineer must be able to select mechanical devices, people and perfect the organization that suits present needs and secures prompt returns in profit.
- Engineering as applied to production means the planning in advance of production so as to secure certain results.
- 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. Industrial engineering (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 Industrial engineer (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.
Process/operation element analysis was described in detail by H.B. Maynard.
TAYLOR'S INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING - PROF. DIEMER
The first president of ASME in 1880 pointed out that engineers have to make efforts to reduce cost or products. Mr. Henry R. Towne laid the foundation for cost reduction by engineers (industrial engineering) through his paper "The Engineer as an Economist." Towne also described his conception of industrial engineering in a 1905 convocation address to Purdue Engineering Students. Prof. Diemer specially describes the concept of industrial engineering according to F.W. Taylor.
Mr. Taylor is the earliest and foremost advocate of engineering management and industrial engineering. Taylor's contribution to production management is well known though his works shop management and scientific management. His contribution to industrial engineering is not that direct through specific works. But he is credited as the father of industrial engineering as his ideas and works became industrial engineering in practice and theory. 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.
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.
Hugo Diemer defined or explained Industrial Engineering in chapter I in his book published in 1910.
FIRST EDITION
McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, NEW YORK
1910
https://archive.org/details/factoryorganiza00diemgoog
Above link was accessed by me on 8.10.2022. The book available is 3rd edition. See page 11. Point 15. It was mentioned that in the first edition of the book, the writer outlined the methods of industrial engineer. It was briefly given again this edition.
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 EngineerFIRST EDITION
McGRAW-HILL BOOK COMPANY, NEW YORK
1910
https://archive.org/details/factoryorganiza00diemgoog
Above link was accessed by me on 8.10.2022. The book available is 3rd edition. See page 11. Point 15. It was mentioned that in the first edition of the book, the writer outlined the methods of industrial engineer. It was briefly given again this edition.
The first edition of the book is available at
Hugo Diemer started industrial engineering with first teaching a subject, then starting a 2-year program and then a 4-year program.
1915
https://archive.org/stream/industrialorgan00diemgoog/industrialorgan00diemgoog_djvu.txt
It is desirable, although not absolutely essential, that the observer be trained in the trade under observation. College training in laboratory practice in which a man has become accustomed to taking accurate readings is good preparation for this work, provided it has been followed by some shop
training in the trade involved.
The workman on whom the time study is made should always be informed of its purpose, and his interest and co-operation secured. Time study for the purpose of getting the motion and time elements should always be made on first-class men, and such percentage of extra time added in establishing a time limit as will afford an incentive for the average man.
It is customary to pay an advance over a man's ordinary rate when he is acting as a subject for time
and motion studies. This extra pay is in no sense in the nature of a bribe, but it is in recognition of the fact that the man is being called upon to assist in a higher grade f work, since he and the time-study man are now doing team work of a research nature, which is a higher grade of work than ordinary production. The workman may be called upon by the time-study man to stop suddenly in the midst of a process, and to think about certain motion elements involved, and discuss whether these elements are ordinary practice, or whether a certain improvement, short cut, or device suggested by the time-study man is feasible or not, and many similar matters.
Preparation of the Instruction Card
An instruction card is the synthetic or constructive result of the analytic or observational operation known as the time study. It will be noticed that in the instruction card each element or sub-operation is distinctly listed and the standard time which has been agreed on is listed after each sub-operation.
After the time-study work has progressed to such an extent that a considerable variety of standard elemental operations and times have been listed and filed, the building-up of the instruction card for a new piece will consist very largely in assembling these standard elements, leaving only a few elements remaining, for which the time can frequently be figured from known data, so that the actual time-study work becomes less all the time, and the result of every additional time study becomes more and more extensive.
Doing the Work According to Instructions
Where the men have never worked under instruction cards, it will require patient and systematic training and an insistence on careful reading and following of the individual steps of the elemental operation instructions. At the beginning men who have been accustomed to looking at the time consumed on a job merely in the light of the total time are apt to consider impossible the time reductions indicated on most instruction cards.
The writer had experience of this sort in the assembling of automobiles and of engine-governors. After considerable preliminary work in planning and getting materials and tools ready, accompanied by careful time studies, it was decided to offer a bonus in the case of automobile-assembling, beginning at 100 total hours of assemblers' time. The best previous record had been 225 hours. With careful handling of the men the time was reduced at the first to 90 hours and ultimately it was a common occurrence for the total assembling time to take no longer than 65 or 70 hours. In the case of steam-engine governors a great deal of time had been lost by reason of poor fits and the necessity of having the assemblers do a great deal of filing. After the adoption of standard limits on the parts which were to be fitted together, the total time of assembling governors was reduced to about one-third of the former time.
A skilled demonstrator or leader needs to remain with the workers until they are able to do the tasks specified in the instruction cards, and within the time limits designated. When a job has reached the stage where it is continuously done in the time specified, it can be safely left alone. Frequently, however, after considerable savings have been made on work done by an experienced man or group of men, when a new man or group of men undertakes the same task, it takes a much longer time. Under these circumstances it is quite likely that the services of the demonstrator or leader will be again required.
Ud. 8.10.2022, 26.11.2021
Pub 17.6.2020
INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT
HUGO DIMER1915
https://archive.org/stream/industrialorgan00diemgoog/industrialorgan00diemgoog_djvu.txt
Qualifications of Time-Study Observer
(pp. 203 to 207)It is desirable, although not absolutely essential, that the observer be trained in the trade under observation. College training in laboratory practice in which a man has become accustomed to taking accurate readings is good preparation for this work, provided it has been followed by some shop
training in the trade involved.
The workman on whom the time study is made should always be informed of its purpose, and his interest and co-operation secured. Time study for the purpose of getting the motion and time elements should always be made on first-class men, and such percentage of extra time added in establishing a time limit as will afford an incentive for the average man.
It is customary to pay an advance over a man's ordinary rate when he is acting as a subject for time
and motion studies. This extra pay is in no sense in the nature of a bribe, but it is in recognition of the fact that the man is being called upon to assist in a higher grade f work, since he and the time-study man are now doing team work of a research nature, which is a higher grade of work than ordinary production. The workman may be called upon by the time-study man to stop suddenly in the midst of a process, and to think about certain motion elements involved, and discuss whether these elements are ordinary practice, or whether a certain improvement, short cut, or device suggested by the time-study man is feasible or not, and many similar matters.
Preparation of the Instruction Card
An instruction card is the synthetic or constructive result of the analytic or observational operation known as the time study. It will be noticed that in the instruction card each element or sub-operation is distinctly listed and the standard time which has been agreed on is listed after each sub-operation.
After the time-study work has progressed to such an extent that a considerable variety of standard elemental operations and times have been listed and filed, the building-up of the instruction card for a new piece will consist very largely in assembling these standard elements, leaving only a few elements remaining, for which the time can frequently be figured from known data, so that the actual time-study work becomes less all the time, and the result of every additional time study becomes more and more extensive.
Doing the Work According to Instructions
Where the men have never worked under instruction cards, it will require patient and systematic training and an insistence on careful reading and following of the individual steps of the elemental operation instructions. At the beginning men who have been accustomed to looking at the time consumed on a job merely in the light of the total time are apt to consider impossible the time reductions indicated on most instruction cards.
The writer had experience of this sort in the assembling of automobiles and of engine-governors. After considerable preliminary work in planning and getting materials and tools ready, accompanied by careful time studies, it was decided to offer a bonus in the case of automobile-assembling, beginning at 100 total hours of assemblers' time. The best previous record had been 225 hours. With careful handling of the men the time was reduced at the first to 90 hours and ultimately it was a common occurrence for the total assembling time to take no longer than 65 or 70 hours. In the case of steam-engine governors a great deal of time had been lost by reason of poor fits and the necessity of having the assemblers do a great deal of filing. After the adoption of standard limits on the parts which were to be fitted together, the total time of assembling governors was reduced to about one-third of the former time.
A skilled demonstrator or leader needs to remain with the workers until they are able to do the tasks specified in the instruction cards, and within the time limits designated. When a job has reached the stage where it is continuously done in the time specified, it can be safely left alone. Frequently, however, after considerable savings have been made on work done by an experienced man or group of men, when a new man or group of men undertakes the same task, it takes a much longer time. Under these circumstances it is quite likely that the services of the demonstrator or leader will be again required.
Ud. 8.10.2022, 26.11.2021
Pub 17.6.2020
Read on 30 June 2021.
ReplyDeleteUpdated with important points on 26.11.2021.
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