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Scientific Management Treatise of F.W. Taylor is totally focused on human effort engineering only. Taylor developed this treatise to explain how waste of human effort can be minimized. He gave four principles of human effort management to increase productivity and reduce waste. Management involves managing physical and intangible assets or resources and human resources. Scientific management is applicable to all aspects of management. Taylor explained management in another treatise "Shop Management." So total management proposed by Taylor is combination of "Shop Management" and "Scientific Management." Management books are not covering shop management and only mentioning Principles of Scientific Management giving only a partial description.
It is through processes that goods and services are produced. Processes have machines/equipment and men working in combination to do the required work or put in effort. We covered the machine related industrial engineering in the process industrial engineering module. We will cover the process human industrial engineering in more detail in this module. In the process chart developed for industrial engineering analysis, five operations are recorded. In the operations, material processing, inspection, transport, and storage/warehousing, human effort is involved and it is physical effort predominantly. There is planning also in every process operation and its failures are recorded in the process chart as temporary delays. The main process chart is to be supported by more process charts, operation information sheets and data sheets. Human effort industrial engineering is to be carried out through motion study charts or process charts and associated data. For each operation in the main process chart, motion study charts are to be developed, analyzed and improved.
We already covered some content related to human effort industrial engineering in introduction and productivity science modules. Those lessons are:
Lesson 18 . Human Work Study - Productivity Improvement and Development of Science in Mechanic Arts - F.W. Taylor
Lesson 25. Gilbreth's Human Effort Industrial Engineering - Productivity Science of Human Motions (Motion Study) - Variables Affecting of Motion Time.
ACCELERATION - AUTOMATICITY - COMBINATION WITH OTHER MOTIONS, AND SEQUENCE - COST - DIRECTION AND USE OF GRAVITY - EFFECTIVENESS - FOOT-POUNDS OF WORK ACCOMPLISHED - INERTIA AND MOMENTUM OVERCOME - LENGTH
Lesson 28. First Evaluation of Scientific Management/Industrial Engineering by a Psychologist. Psychology Evaluation of Scientific Management by Lilian Gilbreth - 1914
Industrial engineering identified machine, man, material and method as important components of the engineering systems whose contribution to output can be improved by development of productivity science, productivity engineering and productivity management.
In this module of industrial engineering, the focus is on human effort in engineering processes. It is human effort that produces engineering devices and there is human effort in utilizing these engineering devices in engineering processes. There is human effort in maintenance of machines used in processes. In many situations, the human effort required to operate the machines or instruments created by engineering is decided by the machine considerations. But the interfaces between the machine and man through which man operates machines can be designed by taking into consideration the abilities and constraints of men. The designers of machines and machine interfaces have to train the operators initially so that operation of the machine takes place as expected and specified.
Process Human Effort Industrial Engineering - Design of Human Effort for Increasing Productivity of Man-Machine or Machine-Man Systems (Processes)
Taylor's Contribution in Process Human Effort Industrial Engineering
The following articles discuss some aspects of human effort IE.
Human Effort Industrial Engineering - Methods and Techniques
Principle of Daily Task and Bonus for Completing the Full Daily Task - Taylor
Feedback at smaller element level for time taken versus target time.
Design of tools that provide optimum work each time the tool is used.
In case of new improved high productive methods, objective demonstration of the method, its productivity benefits and no adverse effects on comfort, fatigue, safety and health.
Principles of Motion Economy Work Station Design Interface Device Design: Jigs and Fixtures Motion Design: Motion Study Posture Design Comfort Design: fatigue analysis Safety Design: Safety Aids Occupational Health & Hazard Analysis, Redesign & Certification Ergonomics Work Measurement Operator Training Productivity Communication Job Evaluation Incentive scheme design
Frank Gilbreth explained the focus of industrial engineering and scientific management on human effort along with machines and materials in his book on scientific management (This book is separate from Taylor's book). In the case of machines and materials he indicated that industrial engineering utilizes the methods and techniques developed by all others apart from developing new methods and techniques. In the case of human effort, he argued that only industrial engineering/scientific management has systematically studied and developed science, methods, techniques and tools.
Both Taylor and Gilbreth indicated that focus has to be on both machines and men for productivity improvement, cost reduction and waste elimination in their explanation of scientific management. In their activities, Taylor worked for many, many years in machine shops and hence made many productivity engineering improvements in machine working and then involved operators in learning the new techniques through training by functional foremen who were first trained by Taylor or other persons involved in elementary rate fixing. Gilbreth is more active in building construction, where manual activity is more dominant. Hence, Gilbreth's contribution is predominantly in human effort industrial engineering.
What is the meaning of "industry" relevant for explaining the discipline of industrial engineering?
In Oxford dictionary also, industry has the meaning diligence. The meaning of diligence is persistent work or effort.
Therefore industrial engineering can be understood as a discipline concerned with effort. It is concerned with both machine effort and human effort. The main objective of industrial engineering is to minimize the machine effort and human effort expended to produce a unit of any product. This is same as increasing the output for unit of machine effort or human effort.
F.W. Taylor is the first engineer, to conceptualize this activity in a formal systematic manner. His first essay, "Piece Rate System" contains the ideas regarding improving machine effort and man effort. His next book size essay, "Shop Management" contains the extended application of the method of reducing machine effort and man effort and increase production in some cases even by four times. Scientific management basically uses the same examples given in "Shop Management" but presents the principles of scientific management and gives the examples as illustrations in support of the principles of scientific management. Narayana Rao developed "Principles of Industrial Engineering" from the "Principles of Scientific management" and presented them in the 2017 Annual Conference of the IISE at Pittsburgh, USA.
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The full paper is in IISE 2017 Conference Proceedings.
Looked from the effort perspective, Industrial engineering has two components: Machine effort reduction and human effort reduction in production processes. We can call them machine effort industrial engineering and human effort industrial engineering. Industrial engineering has many developments during the last 110 years. Japanese scientific management and industrial engineering professional developed many innovations which are world class practices today.
We can list, Taylor's methodology, Gilbreth's motion study and principles of motion economy, Ergonomics or human factors engineering, Job evaluation, Wage incentive plans as important areas of Human Effort Industrial Engineering.
F.W. Taylor on Human Effort Industrial Engineering
The writer has already indicated that he thinks the first object in management is to unite high wages with a low labor cost. He believes that this object can be most easily attained by the application of the following principles:
(a) A LARGE DAILY TASK. --Each man in the establishment, high or low, should daily have a clearly defined task laid out before him. This task should not in the least degree be vague nor indefinite, but should be circumscribed carefully and completely, and should not be easy to
accomplish.
(b) STANDARD CONDITIONS. Each man's task should call for a full day's work, and at the same time the workman should be given such standardized (well planned) conditions and appliances as will enable him to accomplish his task with certainty. (See the Emersons' Efficiency Principle - STANDARDIZED CONDITIONS)
(c) HIGH PAY FOR SUCCESS. --He should be sure of large pay when he accomplishes his task.
(d) LOSS IN CASE OF FAILURE. --When he fails he should be sure that sooner or later he will be the loser by it.
When an establishment has reached an advanced state of organization, in many cases a fifth element should be added, namely: the task should be made so difficult that it can only be accomplished by a first-class man.
The Principles of Scientific Management - F.W. Taylor (in Scientific Management)
Under scientific management the "initiative" of the workmen (that is, their hard work, their good-will, and their ingenuity) is obtained with absolute uniformity and to a greater extent than is possible under the old system; and in addition to this improvement on the part of the men, the managers assume new burdens, new duties, and responsibilities never dreamed of in the past. The managers assume, for instance, the burden of gathering together all of the traditional knowledge which in the past has been possessed by the workmen and then of classifying, tabulating, and reducing this knowledge to rules, laws, and formulae which are immensely helpful to the workmen in doing their daily work. In addition to developing a science in this way, the management take on three other types of duties which involve new and heavy burdens for themselves.
These new duties are grouped under four heads:
First. They develop a science for each element of a man's work, which replaces the old rule-of.-thumb method.
Second. They scientifically select and then train, teach, and develop the workman, whereas in the past he chose his own work and trained himself as best he could.
Third. They heartily cooperate with the men so as to insure all of the work being done in accordance with the principles of the science which has been developed.
Fourth. There is an almost equal division of the work and the responsibility between the management and the workmen. The management take over all work for which they are better fitted than the workmen, while in the past almost all of the work and the greater part of the responsibility were thrown upon the men.
It is this combination of the initiative of the workmen, coupled with the new types of work done by the management, that makes scientific management so much more efficient than the old plan.
Three of these elements exist in many cases, under the management of "initiative and incentive," in a small and rudimentary way, but they are, under this management, of minor importance, whereas under scientific management they form the very essence of the whole system.
The fourth of these elements, "an almost equal division of the responsibility between the management and the workmen," requires further explanation. The philosophy of the management of initiative and incentive makes it necessary for each workman to bear almost the entire responsibility for the general plan as well as for each detail of his work, and in many cases for his implements as well. In addition to this he must do all of the actual physical labor. The development of a science, on the other hand, involves the establishment of many rules, laws, and formulae which replace the judgment of the individual workman and which can be effectively used only after having been systematically recorded, indexed, etc. The practical use of scientific data also calls for a room in which to keep the books, records*, etc., and a desk for the planner to work at.
It is important to read the following statements from the book "Applied Motion Study" by Frank Gilbreth published in 1917.
Scientific management is simply management that is based upon actual measurement. Its skillful application is an art that must be acquired, but its fundamental principles have the exactness of scientific laws which are open to study by every one. we have here a science that is the result of accurately recorded, exact investigation.
The greatest misunderstandings occur as to the aims of scientific management. Its fundamental aim is the elimination of waste, the attainment of worth-while desired results with the least necessary amount of time and effort. Scientific management may, and often does, result in expansion, but its primary aim is conservation and savings, making an adequate use of every ounce of energy of any type that is expended.
Every problem (in scientific management) presents two elements: the human element, and the materials element.
The opinion of many who know conditions in USA and Europe is that America is far behind European countries in conservation of the materials element, both natural and manufactured
resources.
It is equally true that up to recent times European countries have done comparatively little toward
conserving the human element.
The material problem is being attacked along different lines in a more or less systematic manner. We
all appreciate the benefits of scientific or intensive farming. Agricultural experience has taught the valuable lesson that it is possible to get great output, yet, at the same time, leave the producing force unimpaired, by a proper expenditure of money and brains.
It is the work of scientific management to insist on standardization in all fields, and to base such standardization upon accurate measurement (of productivity and work). Scientific management is not remote, or different from other fields of activity. For example, in the handling of the materials element, it does not attempt to discard the methods of attack of intensive agriculture or of the laboratory of the applied scientists; on the contrary, it uses the results of workers in such fields as these to as great an extent as possible.
In handling the materials element, then, scientific management analyses all successful existing practices in every line, and synthesizes such elements as accurate measurement proves to be valuable into standards. These standards are maintained until suggested improvements have passed the same rigid examination, and are in such form that they may be incorporated into new standards.
Turning now to the field of the human element by far the more important field we find that, while there is much talk of work in that field to-day, comparatively little has actually been accomplished.
One great work of scientific management has been to show the world how little actual knowledge it has possessed of the human element as engaged in the work in the industries. Through motion study and fatigue study and the accompanying time study, we have come to know the capabilities of the worker, the demands of the work, the fatigue that the worker suffers at the work, and the amount and nature of the rest required to overcome the fatigue. Scientific provision for such recovery in the industries, before the days of scientific management, was unknown.
It is even more surprising that only the pioneers in the work realize the application of any necessity for the laboratory method in the study of the human element as it appears in the industries. When making accurate measurements, the number of variables involved must be reduced to as great a degree as possible. Only in the laboratory can this be successfully done.
The various measurements taken by scientific management and the guiding laws under which these are grouped determine not only the nature of the human element, but the methods by which it is to be handled. Motion study, fatigue study, the measures supplied by psychology, these result in the working practice that fits the work to the worker, and produces more output with less effort, with its consequent greater pay for every ounce of effort expended.
We see very clearly the stress on development of science that is of use in waste elimination.
In human effort industrial engineering, we need to cover human productivity science, human productivity engineering and human productivity management.
Motion study and applications of ergonomic research and recommendations may become part of human productivity engineering.
Job evaluation and incentive schemes form part of human productivity management. Psychology of Management. published by Lilian Gilbreth can be taken as an earliest book supporting human productivity management.
Gilbreth - Productivity Science of Human Effort - Productivity Engineering of Human Effort - Motion Study
Frank Gilbreth developed the framework for development of productivity science related to human effort. He also developed the motion study procedure and gave principles of motion economy that are to be applied in motion study to reduce motions and time taken to complete a task, operation and process.
In the framework of variables that affect efficiency of motions, Gilbreth included number of psychological, sociological, physiological and anatomical variables. Taylor also indicated the role of motives of men in productivity improvement. Ergonomics developed as a discipline that studies the variable indicated by Gilbreth in Productivity Science of Human Effort. It became an important subject that has application in industrial engineering work.
Process Human Effort Industrial Engineering module sharing for the third year started on 22.10.2022
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