Production Method - Technology Efficiency Engineering

Production technology or method has to be effective and efficient.
A technology is effective when it is able to produce a product with quality acceptable to the customer, that means it is as per the specification agreed to by the producer and customer.

A technology is efficient when it uses the lowest amount of resources to the produce the quality product. Efficiency can be measured only when the process produces acceptable quality products.

Production technology efficiency engineering is proposed by H.B. Maynard in Industrial Engineering discipline as Operation Analysis.

He gave nine areas of technology or production method for efficiency analysis.

They are:

1. Purpose of operation.

2. Complete survey of all operations performed on part.

3. Inspection requirements.

4. Material.

5. Material handling.

6. Setup and tool equipment.

7. Common possibilities for job improvement.

8. Working conditions.

9. Method.


As mentioned above the first focus of technology development is effectiveness or production of the item with acceptable quality. This effective method of production is normally composed of number of operations using different equipments.

The first question is whether each of the specified operations is rational?

The second analytical issue the sequence of operation. Is there any benefit by a combination of operations or rearrangement of operations.

The third area of analysis is the tolerances specified for each dimension that is inspected. Tighter tolerance result in higher costs.

The fourth aspect of analysis is material. In production method analysis, the examination of the material is done from the point of view manufacturing optimization. In value engineering or product design efficiency engineering, the material aspect is analysis must more rigorously with respect to alternative low cost materials.

The fifth aspect is material handling. How the material is moved between operations. To do this, the industrial engineer must have good knowledge of alternative material handling methods and their costs.

The sixth aspect is given as setup, tool and equipment. A radical redesign of the production method can call for replacement of the existing equipment or proposed equipment with more economically efficient equipment. Industrial engineer needs to have knowledge equipment alternatives and their costs in the area of technology being analysed. In number of cases, the efficiency analysis is more focused on using the existing equipment more efficiently. In this case, the industrial engineer must know the efficiency aspect of the existing machines in relation to various jobs being done in the organization.

Cutting tools, coolants, jigs and fixtures, chip removal methods are various aspects of the production method related to the equipment which need to be analyzed. The industrial engineer needs to have an updated knowledge about each of these aspects to do efficiency analysis and improvement of the production methods.