Going - Six Areas for Industrial Engineering - 1911

Essay by Narayana Rao K.V.S.S. based on the book by C.B. Going.

Going in his 1911 book on Industrial engineering indicated six cardinal areas for efficiency improvement, the objective of industrial engineering. Going, includes the current practices of his period and the issues that require further improvement. Going includes in his book, many ideas proposed by Taylor, Gilbreth and Emerson as implemented already in the manufacturing departments and advocates some more issues which were proposed by the pioneers of industrial engineering, but not yet widely adopted.

They are:

1. The form of management;
2. The determination and direction of operations, or manufacturing methods; 
3. The provision and custody of material; 
4. The handling and payment of labor or men; 
5. The care and maintenance of tools and machinery; 
6. The recording of expenditures and costs that is, of money. 

Ideals and principles are fundamental and fixed; methods and systems must vary with conditions. The systems that will succeed in any given case depend on the organization adopted in, and the circumstances surrounding, that case. Many misfits and troubles have resulted from attempts to force cut-and-dried systems that had succeeded under one set of conditions and in one environment, upon a plant differently organized and environed to which these systems were not adapted at all. There are, nevertheless, fixed principles that can be formulated and should be observed in any system we may adopt in any individual case.

Management,  is presently dominated too exclusively by ideals of "line" subdivision with insufficient " staff " co-ordination. There is  "three-column form" of organization; that is, the management is carried on by three co-ordinated departments financial, manufacturing, and commercial. The division is elementary and logical. First get your money, next turn it into manufactured wares, then sell the product.  All effective work in the improvement of efficiency requires "functional force" i.e, "co-ordinating line organization with  expert staff."

The direction of methods is in an  unsatisfactory condition. Both the machine related method and operator method are  left sometimes to the men running the machines, sometimes to their foreman, sometimes to the drafting room, and sometimes to the engineering department or mechanical department at large. The knowledge of the most efficient operation of machines is not there in any person in the current organizations. Taylor, recommended number of steps to be taken in the activity of  efficient operation of some machine tools. It has to be extended to more machine tools and other machines. Here is another broad field for the staff specialist involved in efficiency improvement.

Materials are generally supplied through a purchasing department, whose duty it is to provide all materials and supplies in the quantity and quality required by the production department, at the most advantageous price possible; and to verify its purchases to the auditing department for payment. Materials when received pass into the custody of the stores department, at the head of which is an official known as the storeskeeper or storekeeper. In a large plant there will probably be a general storeskeeper and a sufficient number of division or assistant storeskeepers and clerks to handle the work. The duty of the stores department is to keep materials in safe custody and orderly arrangement, to supply them to the departments of the factory on requisitions from proper authority, to account for their issue, to receive them again, in partly finished or finished condition, if the routine of the factory operation so requires, and to maintain an inventory of all material on hand. Sometimes finished product is delivered from stores on order of the sales department; sometimes the shipping department is distinct. Obviously both purchasing department and stores department must be in close touch with the needs of the production department, but the discretion given either of them to query or to anticipate production-department requisitions or wants varies greatly in different cases, and may be determined by the policy of the concern or the personality of the officials chiefly concerned. It is not uncommon, however, for the stores department to be charged with responsibility for maintaining at all times a sufficient stock not only of raw materials but of finished product. The manufacturing department then works always and only upon orders issued by the stores department.

The records of materials are usually kept by requisitions made out in multiple, separate copies going to the manufacturing and accounting officials immediately concerned, and by entering each addition or withdrawal in books or on cards accompanying each lot or kind of material carried in stock. The movement of material through the factory is usually directed and recorded by tags, accompanying each piece or lot, and distinguished by serial numbers connecting them with the order or job to which they apply. Multiple copies of these memoranda, sent ahead, serve to notify responsible officials further down the line what to look for, and act as detectors for any delay or discrepancy in arrival. This system is commonly called stock tracing.

Material in process of manufacture is commonly called either stock or stores. The terms are rather loosely used, but the best authority prescribes the use of the term " stores " for raw material and " stock " for finished product. This usage, however, is not universal, and very often " rough stores " or " raw stores " is used to designate unmanufactured material, and " finished stores," manufactured material. Material is an important area for industrial engineers to investigate various decisions and practices to increase efficiency.

Labor is very diversely managed. Some large concerns have a regular labor department or employment agency where applications are filed and examined, and by which men are engaged in such numbers and at such times as, the managing officials direct. In other cases the heads of departments make their own engagements and discharges. Usually the discipline and work assignments of each employee depend upon his immediate superior, who may be a very minor official, such as a gang boss or sub-foreman. Many disciplinarians consider that the power of promotion or discharge is necessary to the man in immediate command. There are, however, great dangers of injustice, and of the exercise of favoritism or spite disastrous to efficiency of the working force as a whole, if too much power is entrusted to petty officers. I think this is on the whole the safer view to adopt. The assignment of work, even, when not determined by general routine, is now sometimes advantageously directed from a central works office, where a work dispatcher has every machine in the shop displayed before him on a board, with its jobs in hand or accumulated systematically tabulated on slips, and he directs the next movement for each man and machine on the floor, as a train dispatcher moves the trains on a railroad.

The individual jobs are usually designated by numbers connecting them with the work to which they apply. The time each man works is usually recorded by a representative of the accounting or auditing or cost department, called a time clerk or a timekeeper. Very generally each workman registers his entrance and departure by punching a time clock or some similar automatic recording device, so that

the total time for which he is paid is indisputable. The division of his time among various jobs (if his work is of such character that it is divided among several jobs) is noted either by himself, by his foreman, or by the time clerk, who then makes frequent rounds of the shop and visits every man often enough to keep close track. These time records, like the material records, are usually kept on individual cards, which can be assembled afterwards for such tabulations and cost determinations as are desired and may be kept as long as deemed advisable for further reference. The system of payment is determined by the management in the light of such appreciation as the managers may have of the virtue and benefits of the several advanced wage systems, and under such limitations as the prejudices of the men or the effective restriction of the union may require. The ideas of Taylor and Gilbreth can be seen in Going's description of practices.

The fifth cardinal area for industrial engineering is  the care and maintenance of tools and machinery. The larger mechanical equipment, power transmission, etc., is too often left more or less vaguely to the engineering or mechanical department, from whom it devolves upon the foremen. There is, however, a generally recognized and almost universally established institution called the tool room (advocated by Taylor), which has two separate functions; one is the custody and issue of small tools, which are provided, ground, kept in order, and given out to the men as needed, account being kept by hanging a brass check representing the tool on a hook bearing the workman's number. The other and larger function 'of the tool room is the making of standard and special tools, jigs, fixtures, etc., and the repair of machines and machinery. The knowledge of the mechanical department given the responsibility of care and maintenance of machinery is not deep enough and also the principal causes of waste and loss of time are not investigated and science is developed.  Here is an opportunity for most profitable use of the industrial engineering specialist to increase efficiency of the organization.

The cost department receives  time and material cards which are verified by auditors as necessary.  They are sorted by numbers so that all cards belonging to any particular job, machine, or desired item of product fall together. From these the complete material and labor cost of any piece or product (or by proper prearrangement, of any part of a unit of product or of any operation upon any part) can be figured up and recorded. It is part of the function of the cost department  to connect expenditures with certain manufacturing accounts. It also determines by comparison whether the expenditure and the production value achieved are in fair proportion. The production value has to be higher than the expenditure incurred.   The cost department should compare each individual operator's time on each job with recorded times made by other men on the same jobs. If he has been soldiering (producing less by working deliberately slowly) and has done altogether in 60 hours only what the records show that other men have previously done in 25 hours, the facts are made clear and proper action can be taken. The cost department, properly conducted, may thus become a mine of valuable information for industrial engineering department to understand the cost incurred in each production step and the relation between engineering decisions and resultant cost. It provides estimate for the possible cost savings for the modifications proposed by industrial engineering department. It also supports shop superintendent to find the comparative worth of his men. It supports  the commercial or sales organization by showing  what margin of profit currently exists and affords a guide to possibilities of meeting competition. It also permits close estimates to be made on new work, by a comparison with similar jobs in the past. Industrial engineers have to take interest in cost recording and analysis as it provides them cost measurement or cost information to drive their cost reduction activity.

We have the basic books by Taylor, Gilbreth and Emerson by 1911. Hugo Dimer and C.B. Going wrote books on industrial engineering and factory administration by synthesizing the writings of pioneers. Dimer also gave his interpretation of industrial engineering as expressed by Taylor. Industrial engineering evolved over the last 100 years on these foundations.  Machine related work did not get the attention that is required in industrial engineering curriculum. It was pointed out by Walter Rautentraunch in 1908 itself. But the correction did not take place. Operations research groups became dominant to strengthen the weak industrial engineering discipline due to its exclusive focus on operators' activity. But the real reason for weakness of industrial engineering is neglect of engineering component of engineering systems for increasing efficiency. Japanese experts on scientific management and industrial engineering have made significant progress in the engineering improvement area. SMED, Pokayoke and TPM are all innovations in engineering areas. One can see TPM actually reflecting the ideas given by Going.

Machine work study is now proposed to create special focus on machine work in industrial engineering discipline.

Updated on 26 July 2019, 18 September 2013