Industrial Engineering is System Efficiency Engineering. It is Machine Effort and Human Effort IE. 4 Million Page View Blog. 200,000+ visitors. (36,000+ pv, 25,500+ visitors in 2025.)------------------
Blog Provides Industrial Engineering Knowledge: Articles, Books, Case Studies, Course Pages and Materials, Lecture Notes, Project Reviews, Research Papers Study Materials, and Video Lectures. 2025 - New Project - Effective Industrial Engineering and Productivity Management.
Online Education/Training Session on "Effective Industrial Engineering and Productivity Management."
I developed an online education/training session on "Effective Industrial Engineering and Productivity Management." I can present the session in one hour, one and half hour or two-hour long sessions. The sessions will be valuable when company industrial engineers and other engineers and managers attend as a group. Industrial engineers require active cooperation and participation of other engineers and managers in their studies and projects. Hence a common presentation and discussion on effectiveness will be very useful.
Supporting Information.
Effective Industrial Engineering - Some Thoughts by Narayana Rao K.V.S.S.
Effective industrial engineering has to satisfy management about the contribution it made to the organization year after year.
The prime contribution of IE has to be cost reduction through productivity improvement.
Industrial Engineering Case Studies and Information
Case Studies in Product Industrial Engineering - Value Engineering - Process Industrial Engineering - Material Processing Improvement - Inspection Improvement - Mechanical Handling & Transport Improvement - Warehousing & Storage Improvement - Elimination of Delays and Wastes
Case Studies in Automation and Mechanization to increase productivity - New Machines - Sensors - Data Analysis
Case Studies Human Effort Engineering - Method (Work Station Layout Improvement) - Motion Study - Ergonomic Evaluation and Improvement
Industrial Engineering - Productivity Improvement - Cost Reduction - LIST OF CASE STUDIES
1. Industrial engineers (IE) are employed and productivity improvement and cost reduction are practiced in many companies using IE philosophy, principles, methods, techniques and tools. Apple Inc. - Industrial Engineering Activities and Jobs
At this year's intersolar North America show, M+W's Ankush Halbe, Technology Director Renewable Energy, presented the latest PV capacity drivers as well as successfully proven fab design concepts opportunities complying with the environmental and security requirements.
Applied Industrial Engineering - Industrial Engineering - Application Examples and Case Studies in Various Engineering Branches, Technologies and Industries
Industrial and systems engineering (ISE) is concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of people, materials, information, equipment and energy. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skill in the mathematical, physical, and social sciences together with the principles and methods of engineering analysis and design, to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems.
Industrial and systems engineering (ISE) is concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems ... to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems.
It is result orientation. Primarily productivity orientation.
Simple Explanation by Narayana Rao K.V.S.S.
Industrial engineering is system efficiency engineering. Its main components are productivity science, productivity engineering and productivity management.
Supply chain is a system. There is supply chain IE.
Similarly every management area has associated industrial engineering.
Supply chain management area has supply chain industrial engineering function to be fulfilled by supply chain managers in association with industrial engineers.
Supply Chain Industrial Engineering - Concept
SCM
Supply chain (SC) extends from suppliers to the ultimate customer. Supply chain fulfills the order given by the customer. So we can visualize marketing activity and sales activity that gets the customer order. Once the order is received by the organization, supply chain management (SCM) activity takes over and fulfills the order, that is delivers the product or the service and collects the payment. If a return is there, SCM has to take care of that also.
In practice, the supply chain, that is focus of a company starts from the level of suppliers the company would like to include. Some company may include tier 2 suppliers, suppliers supplying to immediate suppliers or tier 1 suppliers. The ultimate customer who buys for personal use is included in the supply chain by definition.
What are the tasks of supply chain management. Production, inspection, transport, storage, after sales service, maintenance of equipment and facilities, production planning and control, production design, process design etc. fall under supply chain management. In a way, supply chain management is extension of works management, the earlier concept that used to include supply side management also.
SCIE
Industrial engineering is an engineering based discipline to take care of efficiency of systems. When efficiency increases, increased production of specified effectiveness or quality or customer satisfaction takes place. Hence when system efficiency increases, total effectiveness of the system goes up. Supply chain management offers scope to industrial engineers to go to supplier plants and offer IE expertise and support in the supplier development task. The two important performance dimensions of supply chain are responsiveness and efficiency. Industrial engineers focus on efficiency. As supply chain designers change engineering configurations to increase responsiveness, industrial engineers follow them to incrementally modify the configuration to increase efficiency while maintaining responsiveness for each unit supplied.
The follow three activities are relevant to include in this context.
Product Design, Process Design & Reengineering
Process design is the original design. Supply chain has original design to provide required responsiveness and attainable efficiency. Reengineering is the fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of processes to improve performance dramatically in terms of cost, quality, service, and speed based on developments in science, technology or process management. Process reengineering is about engineering redesign and is done undertaken as a major project. It would normally involve substantial capital investment as number of new facilities including machines and equipment are acquired. It is normally undertaken by the facilities engineering and process engineering (process planning) department.
Product designs are also modified by industrial engineers to reduce cost and increase productivity.
Process Analysis
Process analysis leads to process improvement. To analyze the process, documentation of the process needs to be done of the working of the existing process as taking place in the shop now. This activity of recording and analyzing existing processes is the main task undertaken by industrial engineers. It is incremental improvement of the process at planned periods to capture new developments in engineering and creative ideas to apply the existing knowledge to processes inside the company. In this exercise effort is made to involve many in the company by circulating existing process charts. Examining the strategic issues also can help identify opportunities for improvement apart from operational issues. A gap analysis can be done between a process’s competitive priorities and its current competitive capability requirements.
In engineering and manufacturing process, industrial engineers carry out process improvement to improve productivity. Process improvement is based on the systematic study of the activities and flows of each process to improve it. Productivity science, engineering and management activities are involved in process productivity improvement. Supply chain industrial engineering is process study and analysis in the area of supply chain management.
Process Improvement Based on Operator/Supervisor/Engineer Suggestions and Shop-floor Based Improvements
Process improvement is based on the understanding of the process, and digging out the details. Hence frontline operators have significant ideas to contribute to process improvement. Through seeking their suggestions, process improvement is made a continuous process and incremental improvements at small and micro level keep taking place. In Toyota Motors, Ohno gave responsibility to shop floor personnel also for process improvement apart from process planning and industrial engineering.
Productivity and Efficiency Improvement in Supply Chain Partner activities is practiced by Toyota Motors.
Toyota Style Industrial Engineering - Waste Elimination - Ohno
"We have eliminated waste by examining available resources, rearranging machines, improving machining processes, installing autonomous systems, improving tools, analyzing transportation methods and optimizing the materials at hand for manufacturing. High production efficiency has also been maintained by preventing the recurrence of defective products, operational mistakes, and accidents, and by incorporating workers' ideas." Taiichi Ohno (P. 21)
Japanese businesses carefully studied industrial engineering (IE), a company-wide manufacturing technology directly tied to management that was developed and applied in the United States.
(Note the point - Industrial engineering (IE) is , a company-wide manufacturing technology directly tied to management (scientific management) that was developed and applied in the United States.)
For detailed treatment of process industrial engineering applicable to internal manufacturing facilities and supply chain partners' manufacturing facilities go through lessons of:
Process Industrial Engineering FREE ONLINE Course.
John Wiley & Sons, 22-Jun-2021 - Business & Economics - 272 pages
A “how-to” guide for supply chain professionals who need accurate cost information for end-to-end processes
With the increasing pace of globalization, supply chain professionals find that they have less and less margin for error in their decisions making. Competition is getting more intense, and, unfortunately, CFOs and accountants do not currently provide supply chain managers with the information required to make better decisions. Supply Chain Costing and Performance Management, 2nd Edition, will show you (and the executives you report to) how to understand and apply various enterprise and corporate performance management (EPM/CPM) methods related to costs and profit margins and performance measurements.
This book is a “how-to” guide to assist supply chain managers and employee teams to obtain interenterprise cost information on supply chain processes. It provides techniques for obtaining accurate cost and performance information on the activities performed within your firm and on activities performed by trading partners. The techniques and approaches in this book were developed from supply chain costing practices implemented by leading-edge firms. You will learn how you can gain access to reasonably accurate costs and profit margins involved with suppliers, products, stock keeping units (SKUs), service-lines, channels, and customers. In addition, you will gain insight into the activity costs in end-to-end business processes, including the “drivers” for each type of cost.
Learn how to access accurate cost and pricing information related to both your company and your trading partners.
Overcome siloed information by creating your own costing practices using proven methods drawn from leading firms.
Understand what drives activity costs for each step in end-to-end business processes
Assess the performance of your costing activities with step-by-step measurement guidelines
Make better decisions and improve performance and profitability with clearer, more transparent cost and price data
The information in this book will empower supply chain managers with the ability to make better decisions and improve their organizations’ performance and profitability.
These organizations prioritize their value chains, ensuring that the supply chain and its related functions are fully integrated with organizational strategy.
A focus on the customer
Visibility through networks of suppliers and partners
Presentation made in a seminar "Recent Trends in Industrial Engineering" organized by National Institute of Technology, Surat and IIIE Chapter Surat on 6 April 2013.
Part 2
Supply Chain Industrial Engineering
7 Apr 2013
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Part 1
Supply Chain - Industrial Engineering Tools and Techniques
7 Apr 2013
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D. Giglio and R. Minciardi, “Modelling and Optimization of Multi-Site Production Systems in Supply Chain Networks,” Proceedings of the 2003 IEEE International Conference
Y. S. Li, F. F. Ye, Z. M. Fang, and J. G. Yang, “Flexible Supply Chain Optimization and Its SRT Analysis,” Industrial Engineering and Management, vol. 10, no. 1, February 2005, Springer-Verlag, China, pp. 89-93.
Planing Supply Chain - System Design and Operations Planning
Measurements Provided by Industrial Engineering Discipline/Departments
Controlling Supply Chain
Measurements Provided by IED and Actions Initiated by IED
Scott Stephens, Craig Gustin, and Jim Ayers, "Reengineering the Supply Chain
- The Next Hurdle," Information Strategy: The Executive's Journal, Fall 1997, pp. 13-18
The authors said improvements have to be extended to the supply partners. It is not any more sufficient to improve internal operations of a company.
Seven Steps to Building a Lean Supply Chain
Mandyam M. Srinivasan
Mandyam M. Srinivasan is The Ball Corporation Distinguished Professor of Business at the University of Tennessee. He is the author of the book, Streamlined: 14 Principles for Building and Managing the Lean Supply Chain. http://www.industryweek.com/planning-amp-forecasting/goal-lean-supply-chain
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Updated on 16.10.2025, 18.9.2024, 29.7.2024, 6.5.2022, 12.1.2022, 21.12.2021, 10 July 2020, 28 June 2020, 16 February 2020
First posted on 25 September 2012
