Industrial Engineering - Some Historical Incidents
Authors
Industrial Engineering and ASME
The concern for management and productivity issues occupied the attention of the first ASME president. Thus ASME's attention to the topic is there right from its founding . In fact, R.H. Thurston the first ASME president, in his inaugural address (1880), included productivity improvement and economy among the objects of the society in his inaugural address.
"We are now called upon to do our part in the work so well begun by our predecessors, and so splendidly carried on by our older colleagues during the past generation. We have for our work the cheapening and improvement of all textile fabrics, the perfecting of metallurgical processes, the introduction of the electric light, the increase of facilities for rapid and cheap transportation, the invention of new and more efficient forms of steam and gas engines, of means for relieving woman from drudgery, and for shortening the hours of labor for hard-working men, the increase in the productive power of all mechanical devices, aiding in the great task of recording and disseminating useful knowledge; and ours is the duty to discover facts and to deduce laws bearing upon every application of mechanical science and art in field, workshop, school, or household." - Thuston [2]
R. H. Thurston. President's inaugural address. Transactions ASME, 1, 1880, pp. 14-29.
H.R. Towne, in his" The Engineer as Economist, [2] included "shop management" as a field of interest, but, in an ASME session, substituting for President Coleman Sellars, [3] he suggested "industrial or economic questions" because ASME had, among its membership, "more than the Civil Engineers or the Mining Engineers men who are managers of labor, who are either owners or representatives of owners, and who, therefore, control capital."
In 1920, the ASME council approved and adopted the First Report of the Committee of Aims and Organizations with L.C. Marburg as Chairman, which included the statement: …that Industrial Engineering is a major subject for consideration by the Society and shall be placed on par with all major subjects[3].
In his Cost and Production Handbook, L.P. Alford [4], included under the term Industrial Engineering, the "laws" of Taylor and Fayol, as well as that of himself.
ASME in 1955, as an outgrowth of its Management Division's Work Standardization Committee (1948), sponsored an IE Terminology [5]. ASME never established an IE division. IE partisans were active in its Management Division.
Some ASME members joined with some non-ASME members to form a group-at first informal, but later formally known as the Society to Promote the Science of Management, which, after Taylor's death in 1915, became known as the Taylor Society. This society, in 1936, merged with the Society of Industrial Engineers, a group which, in 1917 was formed from the Western Efficiency Society (1910) to establish the Society for (the) Advancement of Management (SAM). SAM attracted a wide spectrum of members, some with ASME's Management Division, some with the National Association of Cost Accountants, some with the National Personnel Association, some unattached, to form an overall umbrella for most of the management practitioners.
In 1948, the American Institute of Industrial Engineers (AIIE) was established: its objectives were many, but the most important was the professional recognition of IE. AIIE published a terminology in 1965 to document terms in common usage [6]. This organization is now known as the Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) [7].
Hugo Diemer
Hugo Diemer (1870-1939) was an American engineer, academic and author who in the opening years of the 20th century first used the term Industrial Engineering (IE) to describe a fusion of engineering and business disciplines. In 1909 he set up the first university IE department[8]. In 1901 the term "industrial engineering" was first used in The Engineering Magazine. James Gunn (Diemer) wrote article in the Engineering Magazine.
Industrial Engineering and S.P.E.E. and A.S.E.E.
A.S.E.E. is the American Society for Engineering Education. Society for Promotion of Engineering Education (S.P.E.E.) is the forerunner of A.S.E.E.
A paper with the title “Education for Factory Management” was presented by Hugo Diemer at S.P.E.E.in 1903. Frank B. Gilbreth joined S.P.E.E. in 1911 and he held a Symposium on Scientific Management in 1912. The first official mention of Industrial Engineering in S.P.E.E. was in 1912 when an Industrial and Efficiency Engineering Committee was established. There were 3 teachers and 8 practitioners, including Frank B. Gilbreth, listed for this group. In 1913 there were 12 teachers and 13 practitioners comprising this Committee. The Industrial Engineering (I.E.) Committee reappeared in 1917 (after some gap) with 4 members, Hugo Diemer, J. O. Keller, D. S. Kimball and C. C. Myers (7). It continued to be re-approved until it became the Industrial Engineering Division at the Annual Meeting, June, 24-28, 1940, on the University of California-Berkeley campus. Thus the earliest use of the term Industrial and Efficiency Engineering occurred in 1912 but the continuous use of the Industrial Engineering title for a Committee began during 1917[9].
References
1. R. H. Thurston. President's inaugural address. Transactions ASME, 1, 1880, pp. 14-29.
2. H. R. Towne. The engineer as economist. Transactions ASME, VII, 1886, pp. 428-432.
3. W. J. Jaffe, L. P. Alford. The Evolution of Modern Industrial Management. New York University Press, 1957, pp. 29- 34.
4. L. P. Alford (editor). Cost and Production Handbook. New York: Ronald, 1934.
5. Industrial Engineering Terminology, ASME Standard 106, 1955.
6. R. L. Williams, et al. Industrial engineering terminology manual, Journal of Industrial Engineering, AIIE, XVI, No. 6, Nov-Dec 1965.
9. GERALD J. THUESEN, AC 2007-308: HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGINEERING ECONOMIC REPRESENTATION WITHIN ASEE, link,
10.
Updated on 2 January 2022, 3 July 2019, 2 July 2012
Updated on 2 January 2022, 3 July 2019, 2 July 2012
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