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Chapter 1. Introduction
1.1. Introduction - What is Industrial Engineering
Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering that focuses on improvement of efficiency and productivity in engineering systems and processes. Narayana Rao defines it as system efficiency engineering.
Narayana Rao (2017)
Industrial engineering defined as system efficiency engineering has application in all branches of engineering. Productivity improvement is needed in engineering systems of all branches and therefore industrial engineering needs to be used in all branches of engineering. It needs to be taught in all engineering branches. (Principles of Industrial Engineering, Narayana Rao, K.V.S.S., 2017).
Engineering systems which are designed by engineers of various branches are first evaluated for the effectiveness. While efficiency criterion is given importance during the early rounds of the design, a special effort to evaluate it for efficiency criteria will identify opportunities to increase efficiency before finalizing the design. Industrial engineers who maintain a knowledge base of engineering alternatives and their productivity and economic efficiency will make significant contribution to the design. Processes specify the routines to be followed to produce the goods or services.
Industrial engineering emerged as a new branch in engineering due to the pioneering work done by F.W. Taylor. He was given credit for his contribution by honoring him as the father of industrial engineering. F.W. Taylor followed the thought of the First President of American Society of Mechanical Engineering in developing cost reduction methodology for engineering goods. The president in his inaugural speech mentioned that one of the tasks of engineers to develop methods to make production of engineering goods cheaper so that more people can afford them. In one direction, Taylor maintained records of expenses for belt systems and developed design rules for belt transmission system that give less cost for the production systems. In another direction, Taylor noticed that there are no guidelines for the speed of machine tools. He did number of experiments to develop formulae for the speed of machine tools.
Taylor also observed that machine operators as well as other workers are deliberately producing less output per day as they were apprehensive that producing more in a day would mean unemployment and lower incomes. On one side, Taylor tried to argue that as per economic theory, more output per day would mean lower prices and higher sales quantities. So employers can pay more for higher output in a day and also they can maintain employment. On the other side, Taylor advocated that by observing many operators doing the same element, ways of doing the element in less time can be identified. Taylor also did observation of work elements and developed science of work related to those elements. Thus Taylor developed more productive work elements for machines and men. Redesign of processes to increase productivity can be done by incorporating more productive work elements.
Observing the work of men, identifying the elements, recording the time and developing the science for elements of work was given the name of Time Study of Work Elements by F.W. Taylor. Thus industrial engineering initiated by Taylor is primarily engineering work involving machine tools. It also required study of human effort as the engineering systems are operated by workers. The productivity of the total engineering system requires the study of machines, material and men.
1.2. What is Productivity?
Productivity is defined as output/input. Higher productivity means more output from the same input. Productivity can be calculated for each type of input, For example, we can calculate productivity of each machine. We can calculate productivity for each type of material. There are productivity calculations for combination of inputs. For example we can calculate productivity of a system having one machine and one operator and also calculate the productivity of the same system when two operators are employed on the same machine. Similarly, we can calculate productivity of the systems for various periods of time. For instance, we can calculate the productivity of a machine for January and February separately.
Increase in productivity of the same set of inputs results in lower cost of unit output.
1.3 What is Efficiency?
Efficiency is related to productivity, but efficiency is a more broader concept. While cost of production is a measure of efficiency, dissatisfaction of employees is part of inefficiency and hence a measure of efficiency. Industrial engineers have to ensure that employees are not troubled by productivity increasing methods of working. Accidents, injuries and occupational diseases are part of inefficiency. Industrial engineers have to avoid them in the engineering systems and processes. (746 words.)
(C) Narayana Rao K.V.S.S. 2023
Modules
365+ Lessons and 75+ Case Studies
A to Z of Industrial Engineering.
https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2018/06/a-to-z-of-industrial-engineering.html
Proposed Chapters of the Book.
1. Introduction
2. Industrial Engineering of Engineering Elements - Source Material: https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2020/05/taylors-industrial-engineering-first.html
3. Industrial Engineering of Human Work Elements - Source Material: https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2012/07/paper-on-therbligs-by-gilbreth.html
4. Industrial Engineering of Operations - Source Material: https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2013/11/approach-to-operation-analysis-as-step.html
5. Industrial Engineering of Processes - Source Material: https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2020/06/process-charts-gilbreths-1921.html
6. Industrial Engineering of Facilities - Source Material: https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2020/05/facilities-industrial-engineering.html
7. Industrial Engineering Measurements - Source Material: https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2021/05/industrial-engineering-measurements.html
8. Industrial Engineering Economic Analysis - Source Material: https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2021/05/industrial-engineering-economic.html
9. Machine Effort Industrial Engineering - Source Material: http://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2021/10/process-machine-effort-industrial.html
10. Human Effort Industrial Engineering - Source Material: https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2020/12/process-human-effort-industrial_24.html
11. Industrial Engineering Operations Research (IEOR) - Source Material: https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2021/05/industrial-engineering-operations.html
12. Industrial Engineering Statistics - Source Material: https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2021/05/industrial-engineering-statistics-six.html
13. Managing Industrial Engineering Studies, Projects and Redesigns - Source Material: https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2012/02/management-and-industrial-engineer.html
14. Productivity Management - Source Material: https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2020/12/productivity-management-course-lessons.html
15. Industrial Engineering Strategy - Source Material: https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2014/11/industrial-engineering-strategy.html
16. Applied Industrial Engineering
Writing of the book can proceed at its own pace, as the basic content is already available as articles in the blog. That is why for each proposed chapter, source material is indicated.
Book writing started on 3rd April 2023.
A new writing project started today to reassemble the content in the blog into a book. This project can proceed even at a slow pace as most of the material is already available as articles for readers. What is now attempted in the book is different format of presentation.
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