80 - 20 Rule in Industrial Engineering - 80% Engineering - 20% Human Motions and Movements

"Industrial Engineering is System Efficiency Engineering and Human Effort Engineering."  - Narayana Rao.

Actually system efficiency engineering is sufficient description for industrial engineering scope and activity. But human effort engineering is added to highlight the fact that all among all engineering branches industrial engineering has the maximum focus on human effort in engineering systems. The role of man in machine system is studied in detail and engineering of the effort is done so that it is effective as per the requirement of the machine operation and efficient and comfortable to the operator;. 

Industrial engineering is 80% Engineering - 20% Human Motions and Movements

Industrial engineering is 80% Engineering

Industrial engineering adds value in  organizations through engineering changes that it identifies, develops, and installs in engineering systems in products, components, materials, machines, methods (machine operation steps specifications), energy related aspects and information system.

We can say industrial engineering is done on Inputs - Process - Output.

Industrial engineering is intensive engineering.

Engineering changes identified by industrial engineers demand use of engineering intensively and creatively to develop the engineering solution and implement it. It is in areas of complete product design, component design, material specification, machine specification, machine accessories and tooling specification, machine work holding specification, machine operation specification, mechanical handling of the material, maintaining atmospheric conditions in the shop and work cells, energy input and utilization, information generation, processing, storage, communication and action etc.

The study of human motions and movements and the time taken to make those motions does occupy only around 20% or less of industrial engineers' effort. 80% of the activities are in the area of engineering.

Effective and successful Industrial engineering practice requires engineers of highest calibre as in the role of industrial engineering they have to use full engineering knowledge to locate engineering change opportunities that will enhance productivity in any element of the engineering system. In comparison, core engineers can specialize in design of specific machine components and work on the topic for many years in their service. Not so in industrial engineering. From day one, industrial engineer has to remember much bigger set of engineering knowledge, keep abreast of technical developments and make effort to absorb them into the technology as fast as possible. 

Industrial engineering is continuous engineering of products and processes.

Industrial engineers work on the shop floor along with operating engineers and do engineering changes on a continuous basis and improve the products and processes  so that they are more productive and less costly and thus make sure that market grows for the product on a continuous basis. They do take care of many complaints of operators regarding process difficulties and make sure that process improvement is continuous.

We can say: What is IE?

Industrial engineering is Gemba based (現場)  continuous engineering of products and processes to increase productivity/efficiency/cost reduction.

Industrial Engineering - Principles and Practice

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