Sunday, September 24, 2023

F.W. Taylor - Biography - Some Important Events and Opinions by Others

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20 March 1856 - Birthday of  F.W. Taylor (Father of Industrial Engineering and Industrial Management)

F.W. Taylor - Biography - Book - Some Important Events and Opinions by Others


FREDERICK V. TAYLOR: FATHER OF SCIENTIFIC MANAGEMENT
BY  FRANK BARKLEY COPLEY
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME I
HARPER AND BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS, NEW YORK AND LONDON, MCMXXIII
COPYRIGHT, 1923, BY HARPER & BROTHERS
THE PLIMPTON PRESS • NORWOOD • MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


CONTENTS
VOLUME ONE
BOOK I — ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD

CHAPTER

I. The Taylor and Winslow Families 23
II. Frederick Taylor's Parents 43
III. The Boy Fred 55
IV. How he did not Become a Lawyer 69
V. He Enters Industry 77
VI. His Call to go on in Industry 86

BOOK II — HIS GENERAL WORK AT MIDVALE

I. The Industrial World in 1878 97
II. Far-Advanced Midvale 106
III. Taylor's Rise at Midvale 116
IV. His Success as a Subordinate 125
V= His Success as a Subordinate (Concluded) 138
VI. His Executive Temperament 148
VII. His Fight with his Men 157
VIII. His Hold upon his Men 165
IX. His Hold upon his Men {Concluded) 178
X. His Work as a Mechanical Engineer 190

BOOK III — DEVELOPING HIS SYSTEM AT MIDVALE

I. The " Systematic Soldiering " he had to Overcome . . . 205
II. First Steps in Applying Science to Management 216
III. Origin and Nature of Time Study 223
IV. Beginning his Metal-Cutting Investigation 237
V. Limit of Metal-Cutting Progress at Midvale 246
VI. From Experimentation to Standardization 253
Vll. Leading Features of his Svstemization 263
VIII. Organization Previous to Taylor 274
IX. Taylor's Functional Organization 284
X. The Functional Principle and the General Manager. . 294
XI. Taylor's Wage Principles and Methods 304
XII. Towards Industrial Democracy 314
XIII. Good-bye to Midvale 332

BOOK IV — THE CONSULTING ENGINEER IN
MANAGEMENT

I. The Genius of Taylor's System 345
II. Analysis and Classification as a Basis for Control 351
III. Accounting made Contributory to Control 363
IV. With Mr. Whitney's Company 372
V. He Starts a New Profession 386
VI. His First Statement of his System 397
VII. The Thorny Path of the Reformer 416
VIII. At Cramp's Shipyards 429
IX. Various Work for Various Clients 445
X. In the Simonds Shop 456





R.L. Barnes, in his book Motion and Time Study, in the chapter 3 History of Motion and Time Study had written that it is generally agreed that Time Study had its beginning in the machine shop of the Midvale Steel Company in 1881 originated by F.W. Taylor. That led me to search the internet for this fact and made me come across some interesting articles about Taylor.

Taylor described his time study experience in Piece Rate Paper.

Frederick Taylor, late in the year of 1874, when he was eighteen, seized upon the chance to learn, in the shop of a small Philadelphia pump-manufacturing company whose proprietors were acquainted with his family, the trades of the pattern-maker and the machinist.

This Philadelphia concern in whose employ Fred Taylor learned his trades was known as the Enterprise Hydraulic Works, and the firm that owned it while he was there was first Ferrell & Jones and then Ferrell & Muckle. The works were situated in Race Street, down near the Schuylkill River.

In 1881, when the Navy's Ordnance Bureau invited fifteen American steel manufacturers to submit proposals for forgings for six-inch all-steel guns, Midvale was the only plant that could undertake the work for it alone had developed a complete system of experimentation and of records.

To Brinley must be awarded the main credit, not only for these triumphs in the technic of steel making, but also for the organization of the working force. By 1882, when he left Midvale, and was succeeded as superintendent by Davenport, he had put practically every operation in the works, down to the handling of coal, upon a piece-work basis.

In speaking of Taylor's work at Midvale, Carl Barth says: " He constantly investigated tools and other small appliances that gave minor trouble or fell short of giving entire satisfaction, and in discovering the cause of their shortcomings, was able to effect highly-desirable improvements. Many of these improvements probably could easily have been made by anyone else who had taken the trouble Taylor did to investigate. The basis of it lay in the fact that it was Taylor's genius to recognize the importance of trifles."

He exerted himself on these trips pretty strenuously also. "As we travelled almost every day," Taylor wrote in 1910, " we were obliged to carry very heavy loads in pack baskets on our backs. My load averaged over eighty pounds, and in some cases was as high as 125 pounds and I many times carried this load more than eight miles per day over the rough trails in the woods." This despite the fact that he " weighed then only 145 pounds."

Taylor is a Great Engineer - Father of Industrial Engineering


The engineering type of man [says J. E. Otterson ] works for the solution of a single technical or engineering problem and is concerned with the determination of the solution rather than the application of that solution to practical activities. The true type has the capacity to concentrate continuously on a single problem until the solution has been reached. He is interested in the determination of cause and effect and of the laws that govern phenomena. He is disposed to be logical, analytical, studious, synthetical and to have an investigating turn of mind. The predominating characteristic that distinguishes him from the executive is his ability to concentrate on one problem to the exclusion of others for a protracted period, to become absorbed in that problem and to free his mind of the cares of other problems. He does not submit readily to the routine performance of a given amount of work. He deals with laws and abstract facts. He works from text books and original sources of information. Such men are Edison, Steinmetz, the Wright Brothers, Curtiss, Bell, Pupine, Fessenden, Browning. These men are the extreme of the engineering type; they have enormous imagination, initiative, constructive powers. [Mr. Taylor was in reality an engineer rather than an executive.] Taylor is also a great engineer. He applied his wonderful inventive genius to many small engineering issues that could reduce the cost of operations and converted the solutions into productivity increasing engineering changes. He applied the same approach to the invention of management methods.

Taylor is Simulatneously a Great Executive - Father of Industrial Management and Productivity Management


Taylor's writings, Piece Rate System, Shop Management and Scientific Managemet are considered as the core of Industrial Management in 1912. There were other authors, who wrote on the same lines as author and or have taken different approach, but the committee on management that reported on the status of industrial management knowledge in 1912, categorically named Taylor as the prime thinker in Industrial Management.

The executive type takes the conclusions of the engineer and the laws developed by the engineer and applies them to the multitude of practical problems that come before him. His chief characteristic is that he works with a multitude of constantly changing problems at one time. He concentrates on one problem after another in rapid succession. In many instances he has not the time to obtain all of the facts and he must arrive at a conclusion or make a decision based upon partial knowledge. He must rapidly assimilate available facts and fill in what is lacking from the ripeness of his own experience, frequently calling on his powers of judgment, and even of intuition. He is a man of action, boldness, ingenuity, force, determination, aggressiveness, courage, decision; he is possessed with the desire to get things done, impatient of delay. He works from a handbook, a newspaper, or nothing at all. Such men are Schwab, Goethals, Pershing, Farrell, Hindenburg, Hoover.

Even to this day many engineers consider their work done when they have designed and built and demonstrated the possibilities of a piece of apparatus. They seem to feel that the efficient operation of it is not in their province. Mr. Taylor felt otherwise. To him, perfection in design was worthless without efficiency in operation, and at an early date he turned his attention to the efficient utilization of human effort.


BOOK III

DEVELOPING HIS SYSTEM AT MIDVALE

http://archive.org/stream/frederickwtaylor01copl/frederickwtaylor01copl_djvu.txt


 Taylor was a man of intellect. His purpose to get output had its roots in his desire to make the most economical use of his shop's facilities. From the start he was a true engineer in that he was a true
economist, with all the economist's hatred of waste and his instinct for conservation.

He himself came to define the problem of the machine shop as that of "removing metal from forgings and castings in the quickest time."  It sounds like the simplest of propositions that herein is involved the whole economy of such a shop.

He found that his master task or problem of getting metal out in the quickest time naturally divided itself into two principal sets of detail problems,  the one having to do with the mechanics of the shop's equipment, and the other with the workers' operation of that equipment.

Right at the outset of his career as an industrial economist he was confronted by the deeply significant fact (which his fellow engineers as a class and industrial folk in general were very slow in getting a grip on) that as there is no machinery so automatic that it does not have to be cared for and have its work supplied to it by human beings, all other industrial problems are swallowed up in the problem of human relations.

Taylor set out accurately to determine on a basis of fact what his men ought to be able to do with their equipment and materials. Based on his successful experience, he prescribed a responsibility for factory management and described as  "gathering ... all the great mass of traditional knowledge which in the past has been in the heads of the workmen and in the physical skill and knack of the workman, and recording it, tabulating it, and, in many cases, finally reducing it to laws, rules, and even to mathematical formulae." This is the responsibility of factory manager. Earlier when the workman worked for himself, he had done it as best as he could. Now that he joins a factory to share in the benefits that factory system will bring to leverage his skill and provide more income, managers have the responsibility to develop science of each task done in the factory. Just like scientists who work on physical problems collect data, managers in their role as management scientists (a role assigned to them by Taylor) have to gather data by studying the tasks being done by workmen. The name given to this by Taylor is "Time Study." Time study gathers all data on tasks done workers and records the time taken for each element of the task. From the data that is collected, the relation between the engineering components of the elements of task and the time taken for completing the elements is developed. This understanding has to be used to reduce the time taken for improving engineering components to increase productivity and reduce cost.

Here, then, aside from his action in clearly defining his  master problem as foreman, was his beginning with the scientific method in connection with management — the beginning which, because it was the logical one and his qualities were what they were, made it inevitable that he should extend the scientific method to all of the elements of management and so bring into existence all of the phenomena of Scientific Management or of that coherent and logical whole destined to become known as the Taylor System.

Taylor's Industrial Engineering - Improvement of Machine Tools and Cutting Tools


Taylor, started in the 1880's, led the work of scientifically studying the speeds at which the machines should be run in the shop, thereby bringing about, as one feature of his work — and it was a feature that deeply wounded the pride of the English — the development of excellence, as by shaping and heat treatment, in metal-cutting tools themselves.

Mention has been made of the fact that Sellers as early as 1876 attempted to have the cutting tools used in his plant issued to the workmen ready ground to shapes and angles adopted as standard after some investigating. This may be taken as illustrating that all along Taylor had contemporaries who approached and grappled with problems of management in a truly scientific spirit. However, it also illustrates that the work of these other men was unsystematic and confined to a single element or only a few of the elements of management so that, as Taylor came to express it, there was "great unevenness or lack of uniformity shown, even in our best run works, in the development of the several elements which together constitute what is called the management."

Taylor was the only one who started at the beginning both in his thinking and in his action  which is to say that he was the only one who, seeing that it is the task of management to bring about the most economical use of labor and equipment entering into production, and seeing also that to fulfill this task the management must determine what the output of the labor aided by the equipment should be, resolutely set out to do this and stuck to it.

This man for two years and a half, I think, spent his entire time in analyzing the motions of the workmen in the machine shop in relation to all the machine work going on in the shop — all the operations, for example, which were performed while putting work into and taking work out from the machines were analyzed and timed. I refer to the details of all such motions as are repeated over and
over again in machine shops. I dare say you gentlemen realize that while the actual work done in the machine shops of this country is infinite in its variety, and that while there are millions and millions of different operations that take place, yet these millions of complicated or composite operations can be analyzed intelligently and readily resolved into a comparatively small number of simple elementary operations, each of which is repeated over and over again in every machine shop. As a sample of these elementary operations which occur in all machine shops, I would cite picking up a bolt and clamp and putting the bolt head into the slot of a machine, then placing a distance piece under the back end of the clamp and tightening down the bolt. Now, this is one of the series of simple operations that take place in every machine shop hundreds of times a day. It is clear that a series of motions such as this can be analyzed, and the best method of making each of these motions can be found out, and then a time ... the exact time which a man should take for each job when he does his work right, without any hurry and yet  does not waste time can be determined and specified. This was the general line of one of the investigations which we started at that time.

Time study was begun in the machine shop of the Midvale Steel Company in 1881, and was used during the next two years sufficiently to prove its success. In 1883, Mr. Emlen Hare Miller was employed to devote his whole time to " time study," and he worked steadily at this job for two years.  He was the first man to make " time study " his profession.

The Midvale Steel Works started the " profession of time study."

Time study "consists of two broad divisions, first, analytical work, and second, constructive work.

The analytical work of time study is as follows:

a. Divide the work of a man performing any job into simple elementary movements.
b. Study the movements and pick out all useless movements and discard them.
c. Study, one after another, just how each of several skilled workmen makes each elementary movement, and with the aid of a stop watch select the quickest and best method of making each elementary movement known in the trade.
d. Describe, record and index each elementary movement, with its proper time, so that it can be quickly found.
e. Study and record the percentage which must be added to the actual working time of a good workman to cover unavoidable delays, interruptions, and minor accidents, etc.
f. Study and record the percentage which must be added to cover the newness of a good workmen to a job, the first few times that he does it. (This percentage is quite large on jobs made up of a large number of different elements composing a long sequence infrequently repeated. This factor grows smaller, however, as the work consists of a smaller number of different elements in a sequence that is more frequently repeated.)
g. Study and record the percentage of time that must be allowed for rest, and the intervals at which the rest must be taken, in order to offset physical fatigue.

The constructive work of time study is as follows:

h. Add together into various groups such combinations of elementary movements as are frequently used in the same sequence in the trade, and record and index these groups so that they can be readily found.
i. From these several records, it is comparatively easy to select the proper series of motions which should be used by a workman in making any particular article, and by summing the times of these movements, and adding proper percentage allowances, to find the proper time for doing almost any class of work.

Important Constructive Work of Engineering


j. The analysis of a piece of work into its elements and the time taken for doing it almost always reveals the fact that many of the working conditions and the machines and tools accompanying the work are defective. For instance, tools being used and the machines used need perfecting. The sanitary conditions may be bad. The knowledge so obtained leads frequently to the constructive work of a high order, to the standardization (improvement) of tools and conditions, to the invention of superior methods and machines.

He established what one of his associates calls the " unalterable rule that all time study for rate setting must be done not merely with the knowledge but with the co-operation of the worker." Productivity improvement has to happen in factories. It is the joint responsibility of managers and workers.

Somewhere along about 1881 it clearly was presented to him that his problem of getting metal cut in the quickest time involved studying both what his men could do (man work study) and what the machines could do (machine work study). Hence his two types of experiments and it is highly probable, by the way, that his machine experiments, or those which constituted a " study of the art of cutting metals," were to a large extent inspired by what he observed while developing " accurate motion and time study of men."

The most important discovery of immediate value that Taylor made in the early stage of his experiments on cutting metals  was that " a heavy stream of water poured directly upon the chip at the
point where it is being removed from the steel forging by the tool would permit an increase in cutting speed, and therefore in the amount of work done, of from thirty to forty per cent."

The discovery of Taylor was used by Midvale in a new shop,  which was opened in 1884. In this new shop, each machine was " set in a wrought iron pan in which was collected the water (supersaturated with carbonate of soda to prevent rusting) which was thrown in a heavy stream upon the tool for the purpose of cooling it. The water from each of these pans was carried through suitable drain pipes beneath the floor to a central well from which it was pumped to an overhead tank from which a system of supply pipes led to each machine." And Taylor added : " Up to that time, so far as the writer knows, the use of water for cooling tools was confined to small cans or tanks from which only a minute stream was allowed to trickle upon the tool and the work, more for the purpose of obtaining a water finish on the work than with the object of cooling the tool and, in fact, these small streams of water are utterly inadequate for the latter purpose."

It interesting to note this comment of Taylor. In spite of the fact that the shops of the Midvale Steel Works until recently [1906] have been open to the public since 1884, no other shop was similarly fitted up [with water supply for the machines] until that of the Bethlehem Steel Company in 1899, with the exception of a small steel works which was an off-shoot in personnel from the Midvale Steel Company.

One of the other great opportunities which the building of the new shop gave him was that of beginning the experiments with belting that, extending over a period of nine years, furnished him with material for a paper which, presented to the A.S.M.E. in 1893, drew from Henry R. Towne, who himself had experimented with belting, this comment: The present paper is modestly entitled " Notes on Belting," but could be more fittingly described as a treatise on the practical use of belts. Its thirty-four pages contain more new and useful information than is found in any other paper that has come to my knowledge.

In his paper On the Art of Cutting Metals (page 32), Taylor listed his variables as follows: "
(a) the quality of the metal which is to be cut
(b) the diameter of the work
(c) the depth of the cut;
(d) the thickness of the shaving;
(e) the elasticity of the work and of the tool;
(f) the shape or contour of the cutting edge of the tool, together with its clearance and lip angles;
(g) the chemical composition of the steel from which the tool is made, and the heat treatment of the tool;
(h) whether a copious stream of water or other cooling medium is used on the tool;
(j) the duration of the cut, i.e., the time which a tool must last under pressure of the shaving without
being reground;
(k) the pressure of the chip or shaving upon the tool;
(1) the changes of speed and feed possible in the lathe;
(m) the pulling and feeding power of the lathe."

Barth, who completed these metal-cutting experiments, has made an improved statement of the variables.

Taylor pursued his metal-cutting investigation long after he left Midvale over a period of a quarter of a century. Not until 1906 did he publish anything about it. However, his high-speed steel, which was one of the by-products of this investigation, was exhibited at the Paris Exposition of 1900.

I am well within the limit, gentlemen, in saying [he testified in 1912] that not one machine in twenty in the average shop in this country is properly speeded.

Our experiments have been of two kinds: first, the reduction of the control and operation of machines from rule of thumb to science, and, second, the examination and standardization of human actions
and work with relation both to maximum efficiency and maximum speed.

Next study all the elements as they effect the speed and output, whether they are connected with the machine alone or with the man and the machine combined; then find the one or more elements which
limit the speed of output; centre on the most important, and correct them one after another. This generally involves a combination of study of the man with the machine and involves in many cases minute time observations with the stop watch.


His time study and his metal-cutting investigation were indeed closely connected and interwoven  having for their common purpose the cutting down of time to the minimum consistent with the doing of good work. In like manner his belting experiments, which were an offshoot of his metal-cutting investigation, had mainly for their purpose the saving of time through the avoidance of delays and interruptions.

Incidentally we can see this purpose as the general cause of the outpouring of his ingenuity in mechanical invention. His great steam-hammer was designed to work faster than any other thing of its kind. He built a new chimney on top of an old one to save " a loss of at least one or two months in
time." And here is the machine-tool table he invented early at Midvale, the table being the part of the machine on which work is place to be operated on. It usually takes much time to set the work on the table and secure it by clamping, and Taylor just could not stand the spectacle of the machine standing
idle while this was being done. So what he invented was a "false" table, or one that was separable from the machine  this, of course, permitting new work to be made entirely or nearly ready on a table while the machine continued busy. Then his study of cutting tools led him to invent a new tool holder further to expedite the work. This, roughly described, enabled a tool to be held in various positions to correspond to various surfaces, and thus made it possible for one tool to take the place of several of different shapes.

He hastened the establishment among tools of a beautiful order. Not only a place for everything and everything in its place, but also everything in proper variety, sufficient quantity, and the pink o£ condition. And with a beautiful economy of storage space and facility of finding just what was wanted.

Another high development Taylor brought about at Midvale was his system of oiling machines. This device for maintaining things in standard condition created no end of amusement among Taylor's fellow officers, and the wonder of it still is talked about. All we can do here is to indicate its general nature.

To begin with, he had a man go over every machine and the moving parts connected with it and chalk every oil hole and every surface that required oiling. Then he had another man cover the same ground to make sure that nothing had escaped the first. This done, he had a high-grade mechanic study the best order in which holes and surfaces should be oiled, and these places then were consecutively numbered by stamping.

For the oil holes he had made two sets of wooden plugs, one set with round heads and the other with square, and each set was numbered to correspond to the numbers of the oil holes. While one set was in the oil holes, the other set was kept in a box bored with holes to correspond to the oil holes. In like manner he had made for the surfaces to be oiled two sets of small hooks, one with round and the other with square tags.

Taylor's Poka-Yoke (much before Shigeo Shingo)


In the morning, the operator of a machine found the oil holes fitted with square-headed plugs, and at the surfaces to be oiled hung the hooks with the square tags. Before starting his machine he was required to replace the " square " objects with the " round " ones, and as he did this to oil the hole or surface and at noon, when another oiling was called for, he was required to replace the " round " plugs and hooks with the " square." The object, of course, was to make him give attention to each and every hole and surface, and do this in the proper order  and at any time it could be seen whether all his " square " or " round " plugs and hooks were in place as might be called for. Incidentally the plugs, which were cylindrical and made a neat fit in the holes, kept dust from getting in and cutting the bearings.

Lists were made out of all the oil holes and surfaces to be oiled, these stating to what parts of the machines the holes conducted the oil, and the kind of oil to be used in each case. Duplicates of these lists were filed in the office and here we can see an early development of the principle of reducing all recurrent procedure to standard practice and recording it. The ordinary way is to leave such procedure entirely to some individual, who in the course of time may work out for it a pretty good method. All of this knowledge, however, he carries in his head so that if he falls ill, the procedure suffers, and if he quits the business, some one else must work it out all over again. Taylor not only required the management to determine right at the start the best method, but by his records he made the business independent of the comings and goings of individuals, and his records served as insurance against mistakes, failures of memory, and human fallibility in general.

 Looking at it from this angle, we see that Taylor assumes the aspect simply of a manager of such thoroughness and force that he leaped from a quarter to a half century ahead of the crowd of managers, and did more than any other one individual to wake management up and blaze a trail for it to follow.

The term general manager indeed implies one having an outlook upon all the steps in the accomplishment of an organization's task.

The shop, and indeed the whole works, should be managed, not by the manager, superintendent, or foreman, but by the planning department. The daily routine of running the entire works should be carried on by the various functional elements of this department, so that, in theory at least, the works could run smoothly even if the manager, superintendent and their assistants outside the planning room were all to be away for a month at a time.

Proper extra pay for the extra effort called for by a scientifically set task will induce the worker to make the extra effort continuously.

It undoubtedly was because of this as well as of the high wages he paid that Taylor never again had any trouble with working people after his early experience at Midvale.

Says H. L. Gantt in Industrial Leadership : "The authority to issue an order involves the responsibility to see that it is properly executed. The system of management which we advocate is based on this principle, which eliminates bluff as a feature of management, for a man can only assume the responsibility for doing a thing properly when he not only knows how to do it, but can also teach somebody else to do it." It should not be difficult for anyone to understand why working people, apart from any question of wages, found it a satisfaction to work for men who could show them as well as tell them, and who incidentally assumed the responsibility for the implements and all the conditions upon which the fulfillment of the tasks depended.

There also was the fact that through his development of standard practice for the care of machinery
and belting and his instruction-card and tickler system, he had cut down the repair force of the works about a third.

Three years later, when he became a consulting engineer, he apparently foresaw that unless he had an impartial critic of the efficiency of his methods in the form of a proper cost-keeping system, he would be at a disadvantage in dealing with the opposition that his experience had taught him would be sure to arise wherever he tried to introduce his methods. Thus his approach to the scientific study of accounting was mainly from the particular angle of cost accounting. And to say that when he turned his attention to this subject there was no general recognition of the importance of accurately determining, on a basis of ascertained and recorded fact, the group and unit costs of products is to put it mildly — how mildly will be appreciated when it is pointed out that as late as the year 1921 the Federal Trade Commission reported that about ninety per cent of industrial and commercial firms did not know what their costs were.

Mr. Towne said among other things:
To ensure the best resuhs, the organization of productive labor must be directed and controlled by persons having not only good executive ability, and possessing the practical familiarity of a mechanic or engineer with the goods produced and the processes employed, but having also, and equally, a practical knowledge of how to observe, record, analyze, and compare essential facts in relation to wages, supplies, expense accounts, and all else that enters into or affects the economy of production and the cost of the product.

The fact that Taylor called his paper of 1895 simply A Piece-Rate System, with the cautious subtitle A Step Toward Partial Solution of the Labor Problem, signifies that he  was conscious that his work was only beginning in the development of a comprehensive system. He was also promoting among engineers the need to study in the " labor end" along with machine end.

Taylor said in the address he made in Cleveland just before his death:

I have before me something which has been gathering in for about fourteen years, the time or motion study of the machine shop. It will take probably four or five years more before the first book will be ready to publish on that subject. There is a collection of sixty or seventy thousand elements affecting machine shop work. After a few years — say three, four or five years more — some one will be ready to publish the first book giving the laws of the movements of men in the machine shop — all the laws, not only a few of them. Let me predict, gentlemen, just as sure as the sun shines that is going to come in every trade. Why? Because it pays, and for no other reason. Any device which results in an increased output is bound to come in spite of all opposition; whether we want it or not, it comes automatically.

In Taylor's lifetime these studies resulted in the publication of two books: Concrete Plain and Reinforced (1905), and Concrete Costs (1912).

Related Articles

Taylor's Industrial Engineering in Taylor's Papers

Notes on Belting, Piece Rate System, Shop Management, Art of Metal Cutting, Scientific Management
https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2019/06/taylors-industrial-engineering.html

Taylor's Industrial Engineering in New Framework - Narayana Rao

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2019/07/taylors-industrial-engineering-in-new.html

Principles of Scientific Management of F.W. Taylor and Practice Implications
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5jru9fo94q4

20th March - Date of Birth:  Frederick Winslow Taylor

Celebrate the birthday by reading his works and reflecting on them.

Updated  24.9.2023, 20 March 2020 - Birthday of Taylor (Taylor Birth Year 1856)

20 March 2017 - Birthday of Taylor (Taylor Birth Year 1856)

First published on 20 June 2015

Saturday, September 23, 2023

Industrial Engineering in Companies and Practice - History

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Popular E-Book on IE,

Introduction to Modern Industrial Engineering.  #FREE #Download.

In 0.1% on Academia.edu. 3600+ Downloads so far.

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Companies associated with Taylor

Midvale Steel

Bethleham Steel

Johnson  - Johnstown

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3113574

https://www.jstor.org/stable/3113574 



1912

Finally, on December 6, 1912, at the annual meeting of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME), in New York City, it was officially labeled industrial engineering as a new field of engineering as an answer to the necessity of a professional group of people dedicated to solving problems related to management and manufacturing (Martin-Vega 1.7).

Martin-Vega, Louis A. "The Purpose and Evolution of Industrial Engineering." Maynard´s Industrial Engineering Handbook. Ed. Kjell B. Zandin. 5th ed. New York. McGraw-Hill, 2004. 1.4-13.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/inside-look-industrial-engineering-mary-eugenia-mora/



1920

Navy Yard Administration as a Problem in Industrial Engineering

By Commander James Reed (C. C.), U. S. Navy

April 1920 Proceedings Vol. 46/4/206

https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1920/april/navy-yard-administration-problem-industrial-engineering

1925

RM. Barnes worked as IE in Gleason Works (1925-26)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gleason_Corporation


1945

Boeing started IE department from existing Fac tory Cost Accounting Department

https://www.jstor.org/stable/23785965

Thursday, September 21, 2023

Prof. Diemer's 1908 Proposal - 4-Year Industrial Engineering Course


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ENGINEERING MAGAZINE 

VoL, XXXV. JUNE, 1908. No. 3. 

Vol. 35, No.3

https://archive.org/stream/sim_industrial-management-1916_engineering-magazine_1908-06_35_3/sim_industrial-management-1916_engineering-magazine_1908-06_35_3_djvu.txt


VoL. XXXIV. FEBRUARY, 1908.  No. 5.

https://archive.org/stream/sim_industrial-management-1916_engineering-magazine_1908-02_34_5/sim_industrial-management-1916_engineering-magazine_1908-02_34_5_djvu.txt

349 -  362

A FOUR-YEARS COURSE IN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING. 

By Hugo Diemer. 



Tue ENGINEERING Magaztne has long urged that modern conditions of engineering employment demanded modifications in the scheme of engineering education. In the words of a writer reviewed in our March issue, many of the subjects included in the standard courses have not been taught as they must be practiced, and the entire scheme needs to be brought closer to life. Especially has provision been lacking for the large proportion of engineering graduates whose future work lies in the intelligent, efficient direction of manufacturing operations, 


It is most gratifying to find that two of the great American Universities—Columbia and Harvard—are undertaking to solve the problem, one from the engineering and the other from the economic side. This notable movement, and the present season of special interest in the college year, make this article by Professor Diemer, of the Pennsylvania State Col- lege, peculiarly timely. It is a concrete presentation of a proposal for a course preparing the student for industrial work, and merits the attention due to pioneer effort. Next month Professor Rautenstrauch, of Columbia, will discuss the plan here outlined and will give the added interest of another advanced viewpoint.—Tne Eprrors. 


SINCE the introduction of manual training into public schools there has been considerable argument whether a school educa- tion is to prepare the student to make a living, or whether it is to prepare him for life. Evidently he must be prepared for both. 


It is becoming more and more generally recognized that manual training may well be given a place for its cultural value and that for this reason it may with advantage be given to all classes of pupils in the elementary schools. It is also becoming just as generally recog- nized that manual training as taught in the general cultural school cannot take the place of vocational industrial education. 


The low efficiency of the craftsmen in various trades in America is becoming a cause of concern not only to employers and owners of industries, but to the leaders of organized labor as well. The tend- ency toward specialization makes it well-nigh impossible for appren- tices to get a good general knowledge of their trade such as was in former years quite possible. In his striving for variety of experi- ence, the young tradesman is perforce compelled to adopt a nomadic life, changing jobs and places of residence,—a process that not many can follow advantageously. 


It has been noted and commented on that tradesmen coming to the United States from Germany are better all-around workers in their craft than the average of Americans in the same occupation. 

The German “continuation” schools, or trades schools, are largely responsible for this superiority, The Germans compel all children to attend the general-culture schools until they reach the age of four- teen years. In the general-culture schools they also receive manual- training exercises intended for general education. In the “continua- tion” schools the instruction is by skilled tradesmen, and in them one may learn to be a brick-layer, a plasterer, a carpenter, a lock-smith, a painter, a motor-man, and so on, receiving a thorough two-years trade-school training by experts in the trade. 


We need a similar system of vocational schools in America in which we may prepare our young workingmen to be better workers, to be more skilful and less wasteful. The protestations of Mr, Crane of Chicago are not without reason, in that he like many others sees disadvantages in too great expenditure on higher technical education with no corresponding outlay in trade training for those who cannot attend the public schools longer than their fourteenth year. 


Hand-in-hand with the secondary school system we need a further more advanced class of vocational schools for such students as have completed their general-culture high-school course at the age of eigh- teen and wish to spend not over two years in becoming proficient in one of the more advanced trades. In this second class of trade schools there could be taught such occupations as lithography, print- ing and other crafts of higher order, Such vocational training would not need to interfere with the sort of manual training which is now given in high schools and which should be continued as general cul- tural education. Such manual training should be given students in all courses so that they may have trained eyes and hands and may know the elements of wood and metal working, of domestic science, and of the arts and crafts in general. 


Having thus provided for those students who cannot go to school beyond the periods of primary or secondary education respectively, by giving them an opportunity in separate schools, to gain vocational training also, we can keep our general primary and secondary school curricula free from vocational studies and can devote them wholly to the work that will best prepare for citizenship and for life in its broadest sense, and can retain still a section in our secondary schools for such preparatory studies as are needed by those students propos- ing to take a college course. 


At first sight it would appear that we might continue this simple system into the realm of higher education, offering a four-years course in arts to those who could continue their general cultural edu- cation to the age of twenty-two, and then offering a vocational tech- nical course to the graduate from the school of arts, or “college.” 


There are relatively few students who take first a course in arts and then follow it by a technical course, and the larger proportion of these few are those who take up the study of law or medicine. In en-gineering it is important that a continuous line of training be un- broken, and the consequence has been that we have tried to establish in our engineering courses a certain degree of general cultural train- ing. Yet the more specialized technical portions of the engineering courses demand practically all the student’s time, so that he cannot spend much effort on general culture, and the result is that after four- years time almost all the emphasis has been on technical specialization, and little if any time has been devoted towards training for life and citizenship. 


To be sure, the greatest demand made on engineering schools thus far by students, their parents, and their employers, has been for tech-nical specialists, and the need will always exist for four-year courses which are extremely specialized technically and which prepare the graduates to become chief chemists, head electricians, chief drafts- men, and designers. But there is also a need for men so trained that they can be developed to fill positions in industrial management in such a manner that they are serving the interests of all concerned, namely the purchasers, the men employed in the industry, and the small as well as the large stockholders. 

America was never more in need of men trained for industrial leadership than she is today. Her industries are suffering on account of the lack of such men—men who are not only thoroughly familar with productive processes, but who have broad human interests and are at the same time thorough business men. 


Hitherto courses for educating mechanical engineers have con- cerned themselves primarily with the processes of designing and test- ing. The existing courses are admirably adapted to fit men for these processes. The manufacturing industries, however, are in need of men who know how to produce more economically. As America’s natural resources diminish and approach more nearly these of foreign competitors, she is compelled to be less wasteful in manufacturing processes. Moreover, she must look for foreign trade to a much greater extent than hitherto. 


In the past so large a proportion of the technical graduates have found employment in the large electrical and engineering corporations that the smaller industries of America have not availed themselves of the services of technically trained men to any considerable extent. Yet the most wasteful power plants, the most inefficient manufac- turing processes, the most uneconomical building arrangements, and poorest organization methods, are found in the smaller industries, The opportunity for much greater profit and greater comfort to employees as well as greater peace of mind to the owners exists here. The owners of the smaller industries should appreciate the fact that tech- nically trained men can be employed in many cases at not much higher wages than must be paid for men without such special training, who cannot develop with a growing business as well as the technically trained young man can, 


A young graduate, no matter what his course of study has been, will of course not be able to revolutionize matters shortly after his employment in such an industry. Yet he should be able to save his wages many times over from the very beginning if he has been prop- erly educated. On the other hand, the young technical graduates should be more willing to put up with the greater disadvantages they would at first encounter in entering the employ of smaller industries instead of the larger corporations. Life during the first few years of one’s experience as an employee of the large corporation is apt to be more pleasant on account of social contact with other young college graduates, than would be his experience as an employee of a small industrial establishment, but in the long run his chances for independ- ence and leadership are greater in the smaller establishment. Yet the possibility of leadership has been overlooked in the strictly tech- nical curricula. The true function of the technical school of college grade should be to develop not only technical specialists, but superin- tendents, managers, and leaders in general. 


The relative proportion of technical-college graduates to the num- ber of graduates from secondary and primary schools is so small that we can legitimately adapt our technical-college courses to prepare their graduates to fill the higher places. If we adopt this policy for the higher schools, then we must provide for vocational technical schools for the graduates from primary and secondary general-cul- ture schools. When we have once provided these vocational schools, the place and aim of the college technical school will be unquestioned. 

It must train for leadership. 


Now that all America is pausing and trying to find the causes of the sudden financial and industrial depression, we are beginning to realize that we have been wasteful and inefficient in our manufactur- ing and construction processes, and that too often endeavor has been made to conceal this wastefulness by skilfully complex business state- ments, and to cover it up by sales of new stock, bonds, and other se- curities. We are beginning to realize that we must become more economical and more efficient in our manufacturing processes and business methods, and that we must know enough about accountants’ and auditors’ statements to know exactly what they do mean. One of the natural results of this present depression will be a demand for men who can make industrial enterprises really pay—not only on paper, but actually and permanently. We need to educate men to meet this demand. 


The men we must provide must be trained in three distinct lines. 

They must be thoroughly grounded in engineering. 

They must have creative ability in applying good statistical, accounting, and “system” methods to production; and, 

finally, they must know something about men, so that they may develop in themselves the ability to stimulate ambition, and know how to exercise discipline with firmness and at the same time with sufficient kindness to insure the good-will and co-operation of all. 

The more thoroughly the graduate of a course intended for leadership is versed in questions of practical economics and sociology, the better prepared will he be to meet the problems that will daily confront him.


In such a course, education in commerce, statistics, and economics and sociology should go hand-in-hand with engineering education, As at present constituted, our college courses permit such training only for the students taking a college course in arts first and an engineer- ing course afterwards, or vice versa—a procedure which very few fol- low. It is possible, however, to co-ordinate the essentials, as above enumerated, in a special four-years course. 


By comparing the courses in mechanical engineering as now given in a number of representative American engineering schools, it will be seen that the amount of time devoted to any one branch and to groups of allied branches differs widely, so that if one will take the average time devoted to engineering fundamentals in these schools, and then note the minimum time devoted to these same fundamentals by certain successful institutions, it appears that without even con- fining one’s self to the minimum times, a schedule of fundamentals in engineering could be laid out that would still leave available a con- siderable part of the four-years course for those branches which would train the graduate for industrial management. 


The chart on pages 354-355 shows the relative times devoted to various branches by twelve representative American schools in. their course in mechanical engineering. 


The unit of time devoted to any one subject or group of subjects is the “semester-hour” or “semester-period,” being the equivalent of one hour of recitation work per week for one semester or half-year. Thus, in a class which meets three times a week for recitations in a branch which continues for one semester, the credit would be three periods, The column headed Recitation—Practicum, Relative Value, refers to the relative value assigned by the different schools to one hour of recitation as compared to one hour of practicum—viz., labora- tory or drafting room or shop. Thus 1/3 would indicate that three hours of practicum work are required for a unit credit. | 


In the case of Worcester Polytechnic Institute the upper series of figures express the units as used at that institution, which differ from the notation just indicated in that they give the unit of value to one hour per week for one semester of practicum work, and each hour of recitation or lecture attendance is considered as requiring two addi- tional hours of outside work, and the latter are thus given a credit of three units. The lower set of figures opposite Worcester are however reduced to percentage of total credit. 


The system at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is simi- lar, but there the total hours which a man spends in class, shop, and preparation are counted. Thus a recitation coming one hour per week for a semester of, say, sixteen weeks, would receive a credit of the recitation hours plus the preparation hours multiplied by the num- ber of weeks, or one hour recitation plus two hours preparation (viz., three hours) multiplied by sixteen, or forty-eight units credit. The upper figures opposite “M. I. T.” are expressed in the units used at that institution. The lower figures are reduced to percentage of total credit. 


As the Ohio State University has three semesters or terms per annum, the credits must be multiplied by 2/3 to give their equivalent value. 


There is room for some difference of opinion as to the title of the group heading under which certain branches are listed in the classi- fication. Thus under “Civil Engineering” are listed the branches of Hydraulics, Hydraulic Machinery, Masonry, Graphical Statics, Sur- veying, and Structures. This group is intended to cover the branches taught students in a mechanical-engineering course by instructors generally designated as instructors in “Civil Engineering.” Continu- ing this particular group as an illustration, it will be noticed that the average number of semester hours of these various branches in the civil-engineering group taught to students taking a mechanical-engi- neering course is 4.2; the highest is 7.3 and the lowest 1.4. 


The writer is indebted to Mr. E. B. Norris, secretary of the schedule committee at Pennsylvania State College, for assistance in preparing this tabulation. 


From time to time speakers at educational conventions have advo- cated the giving of instruction in branches that would train a tech- nical graduate for management. These speakers have always been met by the argument that the engineering courses are already over- crowded. An investigation of the subjects taught at these ten repre- sentative institutions reveals the fact however that there is wide varia- tion in the time devoted to any one subject. Evidently, a course in which the minimum time given by any representative school to a given purely engineering essential was used as the basis would be too light. However, a course can be prepared in which the essentials, such as mathematics, mechanics, and other fundamentals, are fully as strong in time as the average, and in which are omitted such courses as are not common to all. This would leave opportunity for insertion of the cultural studies. Such a four-years course is presented below. 


4-Year Industrial Engineering Course - Proposal by Diemer


It will be noted that at the very beginning branches are inserted which awaken the student’s realization of the fact that human affairs constitute a most important part of life’s work. Beginning with his- tory in the freshman year, elements of political economy follow in the sophomore year, and more advanced courses in modern economics follow in each semester throughout the course. Accounting and business law and allied courses begin in the sophomore year, and accompany the work in economics in each semester following. 


The regular mathematics of the engineering courses predominate, and are followed by kinematics, mechanics, and theory of structures. The fundamentals in judging materials are furnished in chemistry, qualitative and quantitative, engineering materials, metallurgy, and physics. Thus the student gets the really fundamental studies in engineering, omitting the descriptive and specialized technical branches. 


In order that well-designed, safe, livable and attractive buildings shall appeal to the graduate, and that he may realize the effects of good buildings on economical production, he is taught graphics of structures, heating and ventilating, architectural drawing, and history of architecture. 


The regular shop-work of the engineering courses is given, not quite so much time being devoted to this as in the mechanical-engineering courses. Sufficient steam- and electrical-laboratory work is given to familiarize the graduate with the elements of power-plant work. Such a course is believed to be far superior to the so-called business or commercial courses offered by a few of our larger universities at present, since the latter courses are deficient in omitting mathematics and engineering, thus only partially equipping the graduate and being themselves open to the same criticism as to one-sidedness that can be made of purely engineering courses. 



COURSE IN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING. 

FRESHMAN YEAR. First SEMESTER. 


(Table needs rearrangement and editing)

Actual Hours. Credit Hours. 



Mathematics (Trigonometry) .............0e00- 5 5 

Drawing, Freehand and Geometric.............. 4 2 24 214 


SECOND SEMESTER. 

Mathematics (Amialytical) 5 5 25 

SopHomore YEAR. First SEMESTER. 

; Actual Hours. Credit Hours. 

Elements of Political Economy.................. 4 4 gebra 3 

French or German Conversation..............005 2 I 26 

Seconp SEMESTER. 

French or German 2 26 21% 



Junior Year. SEMESTER. 




Theory and History of Moncy..............000- 

Steam Engines and Boilers. 





Seconp SEMESTER. 



History of Development of Industrial Society... 

Manufactures of United States................. 

Chemistry, Qualitative 





SENIOR YEAR. First SEMESTER. 


Industrial and Social History of the United States 3 3 

Gas Engines, Refrigeration and Turbines........ 5 5 

Qualitative Chemical Analysis..............se0e- 4 2  25 21 

SECOND SEMESTER. 

Factory Organization and Administration........ 3 3 

Engineering Specifications ....... iaveasescaurucs 2 I 

Fleating atid 2 2 

Quantitative Chemical Analysis...............56 6 3 

Engineering Materials 

Metallurgy of Engineering Materials (2-0) f**** 3 3 29 20 


Summarizing the proposed course by groups of studies, we have: 



Group of SUBJECTS. Actual Semester Hours. 

Economics, Accounting, and Jurisprudence....... 43 

Machine Drawing and Kinematics............... 6 

Mechanical Engineering, including Steam and  210 



Credit Hours. 

10 

12 

43 



Expressing this in the nearest even percentage, omitting fractions, for comparison with the courses already established, we find the following results: 



Group oF SUBJECTS. 12 REPRESENTA TIVE COURSES. 

English and Modern Languages............. 9 

History, Political Science, Jurisprudence, and 

Mechanical Engineering 17 

Miscellaneous, including General Elective, Engineering Electives, Metallurgy, and Gym- 



PRoposED 

Course. 

13 



30 

12 



Cer 



100 



The foregoing comparison of the proposed course in industrial engineering with the average of twelve representative courses in mechanical engineering, brings out the following contrasts: 


1.—In English and modern languages the proposed course provides for 13 per cent of credits against an average of 9 per cent. Most observers will admit that the engineer who is to become a manager must have a better command of language than has hitherto been the rule with technical graduates. 

2.—The group of History, Political Science, Jurisprudence and Accounting, is raised to 30 per cent in the proposed course from an average of 3 per cent in present mechanical-engineering courses. It is believed this heavy increase is justifiable and necessary in order to produce men who can become practical, successful business men, and to reduce the number of business failures, without any weakening of the fundamentals in engineering. 


3.—The Mathematics of the proposed course aggregate 12 per cent, identical with the existing average. 


4.—The Physics of the proposed course has been reduced to 4 per cent from an average of 7 per cent in existing courses. It is believed that the higher mathematical physics of wave- motion may be omitted in this course. 


5.—The Chemistry percentage in the proposed course is 7, as against an average of 6 per cent. The coming business man needs to know more about the composition of the materials with which he is dealing than has hitherto been the case, and chemistry stopping short of quantitative analysis is not sufficient. 


6.—-Drawing, including projection, mechanical drawing and descriptive geometry, has been reduced from 5 to 4 per cent. The student, however, has occasion to use his drawing instruments in his subsequent courses in structures and architectural drawing and in kinematics. 


7.—The percentage of shop work is reduced to 4 per cent in the proposed course, from an average of 9 per cent. The reason for this is that the institution undertaking to teach engineering should not be a manual-training school. The kind of instruction in shop work that will be of real value to the industrial engineer is of a totally different character from that which has been heretofore given, and it will not require so much time. 

I wish to quote briefly from the outline of the course in Principles of Machine Manufacture as scheduled by Columbia University for the coming year. 

“The Economic Elements of Shop Processes. Time and power per unit of  surface finished or cut, and per unit of metal removed, with the conditions for most economic production. Processes in the shop. Functional operation of engine lathes, turret lathes, and automatic machinery, and limits of economic production by each process. Times of setting, handling, forming and finishing of parts for job and repetitive work in quantity. Limits of time, power, and cost for finishing surfaces per square inch and removing per cubic inch and per pound by hand and machine operations. Machines for performing specific operations, their functional operation, capacities, adaptability and rate of production. * * * * Value of limit gauges, standard and special; measuring devices and methods of inspection. Selection of economic cutting conditions, and analysis of recent experiments on relations between rate of feed, depth of cut, heat treatment, form of tool, quality of the metal being cut, diameter of work, elasticity of work and tool ; time of cut and cooling during cutting on the maximum allowable cutting speed. Adaptation of economic cutting speeds to machine tools as affected by the pulley and feeding power of the machine. Labor saving devices in the pattern shop. Tools and appliances used, capacity and adaptability, * * * * etc.” 

8.—Mechanics in the proposed course occupies 7 per cent, the same as the average. 

9.—Civil-Engineering branches in the proposed course occupy 5 per cent, as against an average of 4 per cent, the increase being due to emphasis being laid on the graphics of structures in the proposed course. 

10.—Architecture occupies 3 per cent in the proposed course, as against an imperceptible percentage in the average, The industrial engineer needs to use better judgment in erecting new plants and plant extensions than has been the rule in the past, and elementary architecture is desirable among the branches to be taught him. 

11.—Machine Design in the proposed course has been reduced to 2 per cent from an average of 14 per cent. This is the heaviest cut, and is made for the reason that almost all competent machine designers unite in stating that if a technical graduate is thoroughly grounded in mechanics, kinematics, and strength of materials, and knows how to handle his instruments, his training is sufficient. When the technical graduate goes to work in a drafting room he must learn the special conditions there existing, and a thorough knowledge of the above fundamentals is more essential than much time spent in detailing in his educational course. 

12.—Electrical Engineering has 1 per cent in the proposed course, as against an average of 4 per cent. The industrial engineer needs more to know about the selection of the right kind of apparatus and the essentials of direct-current and three-phase alternating-current installations than about the mathematics of alternating currents. 

13.—“Mechanical Engineering” in the proposed course fills 8 per cent as against an average of 17 per cent, due to the omission of technical thermodynamics and analytical heat-engine tests, 



 



Prof. Walter Rautenstrauch - Columbia University

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Systems Engineering and Management - Smith and Rowland


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Book Information, Review and Summary
It has to be appreciated that the design of a large physical system is a massive undertaking. The problem is undoubtedly beyond the capabilities of any one engineer and will require for its solution the skills and capabilities of many different people drawn from many different fields.

Book



Systems Engineering and Management

Authors
David B. Smith and George Rowland
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Ltd.
Reading, Massachusetts.
1974
153 pages



Contents


Chapter 1 General System Concepts

Chapter 2 The Chronological View of Systems Engineering

Chapter 3 The Process of Systems Engineering

Chapter 4 Human Factors Aspects of Systems Development

Chapter 5 Systems Management

Epilogue

References




General Systems Concepts - Some Important Points



Definition of a System

A regularly interacting or interdependent group of items forming a unified whole.


A definition given by Hall and Fagen (1956)

" A system is a set of objects together with the relationship between the objects and between their attributes. "

Definition of David B. Smith

" A system is a collection of functional units which may include both man and machines, which interact with each other and with the environment to perform purposeful behavior."



Systems Engineering - Views

In this book the following aspects of systems engineering are explored.

1. The chronological phases of systems design
2. The logical steps of systems design.
3. The man-machine interface of systems design.
4. The management of systems design.

The authors have explicitly stated they have not covered the mathematical tools of systems design.

It has to be appreciated that the design of a large physical system is a massive undertaking. The problem is undoubtedly beyond the capabilities of any one engineer and will require for its solution the skills and capabilities of many different people drawn from many different fields.

The Compleat Systems Engineer

He requires technical skills. He must have the capability of assimilating ideas and concepts in one field and translating them to another. He must also be familiar with administrative and marketing matters. He must be a persuasive advocate. Most systems involve large financial costs and require agreement of many decision makers. He must be able to communicate with them in the language they understand.

The systems engineers cannot be expected to be familiar with all fields. But they should be able to communicate with the experts and to make informed decisions based on their inputs to them.




The Chronological View of Systems Engineering

This chapter examines how complex engineering systems come into being.

1. Useful output from scientific research.
2. "Needs" research
3. Exploratory studies that establish the feasibility of developing a system
4. Definition of system
5. Engineering Design
6. Personnel subsystem design
7. System integration plan
8. System integration design
9. Equipment evaluation and test
10. Prototype system, test and evaluation
11. Hardware acquisition
12. Final test and evaluation



The Process of Systems Engineering


1. Problem definition
2. Environmental constraints
    Physical environment
    Science and technology environment
    Economic environment
    Legal, social and political environment
    Contiguous systems environment
    Ambient and transitional environment
3. Selection criteria

Primary
    Utility
    Cost
    Timeliness
    Competitive factors

Secondary
    Quality
    Reliability
    Compatibility
    Adaptability
    Permanence
    Simplicity
    Safety
4. Synthesis stage
5. System analysis stage
6. Evaluation



Human Factors Aspects of Systems Development

1. Comprehensive job and task descriptions of personal requirements
2. Equipment redesign or confirmation
3. Job and task redesign or confirmation
4. Training redesign or confirmation
5. Personal training support

Redesign or confirmation is an interesting usage of the terms. It identifies that the designer at the previous stage has done the design related to human factor also to a large extent. Hence the specialist human factors or human effort man is to first evaluate it. If he feels design is adequate he can confirm the design that was given to him. Only if need is there, he has to redesign.



The Management of Systems Design

The managerial process involves:

Establish objectives
Allocate resources
Communicate plans and programs
Monitor results


Managerial Control Systems - PERT and CPM

If the system design process has number of activities and hence events or milestones, PERT and CPM techniques can be used for planning and controlling system design process. The data required has to be estimated for each of the activities of events by the persons associated with those activities. These individual activity estimates can be coordindated at the systems management office to come out with time lines for integrating various activities.



Related Knols








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Pub. 13.4.2012

Histories of Industrial Engineering Departments and Institutes - USA

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Penn State Univerisity
Industrial Engineering Department History



1908 – The industrial engineering program at Penn State is founded by Hugo Diemer, a pioneer in the field. Diemer is named the first head of the department.

Prof. Diemer's 1908 Proposal - 4-Year Industrial Engineering Course

Gunn  coined the term “industrial engineering” in 1900 to describe the fusion of engineering and cost analysis of engineering decisions  disciplines. 

1909 – The Department of Industrial Engineering is officially established.

1910 – The department graduates its first two industrial engineering students.

1919 – Edward Kunze becomes head of the department.

1921 – J. Orvise Keller is named head of the department.

1926 – Charles William Beeese is named head of the department.

1930 – Clarence E. Bullinger is named head of the department.

1937 – The department receives the first ever accreditation for industrial engineering education by The Engineers’ Council for Professional Development.

1955 – Benjamin Niebel is appointed department head. Neibel is honored by the then-Institute of Industrial Engineers (IIE) with the prestigious Frank and Lillian Gilbreth Award, the highest honor from IIE that recognizes individuals for their contributions to the welfare of mankind in the field of industrial engineering.

1963 – Professor Inyong Ham returns to Penn State from Korea and becomes a pioneer in group technology. During his 37-year career with the department, he received international and national acclaim for his discoveries.

1967 – The doctoral program is permanently established in the department.

1973 – The department is renamed the Department of Industrial and Management Systems Engineering to reflect the increased offerings in management science and operations research.

1979 – William Biles is named head of the department.

1981 – Alan Soyster is named head of the department.

1986 – Penn State is the first and only industrial engineering department in the United States to install a full-scale automated Flexible Manufacturing System.

1992 – Funding from the Ben Franklin Partnership leads to the development of the Metal Casting Center of Excellence. Directed by Professor Robert Voigt, the center was a multi-year collaboration between the IME department, the civil engineering department, and forty-five Pennsylvania foundries.

1997 – A. Ravi Ravindran is named the department head.

2000 – Leading machine tool builder, Haas Automation, partners with the department to establish the largest Haas technical center in existence. Located in the Factory for Advanced Manufacturing Education Lab, the Haas technical center contains eleven CNC machining centers and turning centers for teaching and research.

2001 – Richard Koubek is named head of the deparment.

2007 – The Center for Service Enterprise Engineering is created due in part from a $1 million gift from Harold and Inge Marcus. The center, directed by Professor Terry Friesz, is the first U.S. academic center devoted solely to the study and practice of service engineering.

2009 – The department celebrates its centennial and 100 years of continuing innovation in industrial engineering.

2009 – Paul Griffin is named the Peter and Angela Dal Pezzo Chair and Head of the Department.

2009 – The Center for Integrated Healthcare Delivery Systems is created. Director Harriet Black Nembhard establishes Penn State’s first collaborative center focused on solving the problems of access and quality in healthcare.

2010 – The Global Learning Lab is established though a generous gift from Peter and Angela Dal Pezzo. The lab is a modern 1,000-square-foot facility that allows Penn State students and faculty to have access to colleagues, partners and corporate sponsors worldwide through the use of advanced video and teleconferencing technology.

2015 – Janis Terpenny is appointed the Peter and Angela Dal Pezzo Chair and Head of the department.

http://www.ime.psu.edu/department/history.aspx

Columbia University

Industrial Engineering Department History


1922—The Industrial Engineering program was started by Walter Rautenstrauch, previously a member of the Mechanical Engineering department.
http://engineering.columbia.edu/note-1d-engineering-curriculum


History of the IEOR Department

The Department was first established in year 1919, when Industrial Engineering programs started at Columbia; the first class graduated in 1922. Operations Research courses have been offered at Columbia since 1952. Today, the Department is the home to four disciplines including Engineering Management Systems, Financial Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and Operations Research.

Vision of the IEOR Department

Our vision is that the Industrial Engineering and Operations Research Department (IEOR) of Columbia University is to become a world class organization of prominent research, education, and collaboration that produces, attracts and retains industry leaders, decision makers, and researchers in the fields of Engineering Management, Financial Engineering, Industrial Engineering, and Operations Research.
http://ieor.columbia.edu/mission-history-and-vision

Georgia Tech. Industrial Engineering Department History


1924: Industrial Engineering first appears as the "Industrial Option" in the mechanical engineering curriculum.
1945: Georgia Tech President Blake Van Leer oversees creation of a Department of Industrial Engineering housing 15 students and three professors working in two borrowed rooms in the Swann Building. Frank Groseclose, who will later become known as the “father of industrial engineering” at Georgia Tech, becomes the first professor.
1946: Groseclose becomes the first director of the Department. The Department awards its first Bachelors of Industrial Engineering.
1947: The department begins its graduate program offering a Master in Industrial Engineering.

1949
November 22, 1949
F. F. Groseclose, Director
School of Industrial Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Georgia

The successfully Industrial Engineer must possess special interests and abilities in the analysis of the human, technical, and cost problems of modern manufacturing.

The Aims and Objectives of the Curriculum in Industrial Engineering

The aims and objectives of the curriculum in Industrial Engineering are to furnish young men  prepared for the field and/or job as outlined below:

The increasing magnitude and complexity of modern industrial plants has demanded the development of a branch of engineering widely recognized as Industrial Engineering.

The field of the Industrial Engineer is that of the process and production expert engaged in planning, organizing, improving, managing, and operating various processes for production manufactured products of all kinds and varieties.

New problems have arisen and new techniques have been developed during recent years which are peculiar to and characteristic of Industrial Engineering. These include the analysis of a proposed product with regard to the possible steps and sequences of operations involved in its manufacture, a selection of the most efficient machines to perform these operations, the layout of the plant and shops to provide for the flow of the product from one machine to another, organization of the material supply, avoidance or elimination of bottlenecks, together with the related problems of quality and cost control, testing, inspection, and personnel relations.

Industrial Engineering coordinates men, materials, machines, and methods so as to solve problems met in the conversion, transformation, and fabrication of raw materials into the products of industry. The successfully Industrial Engineer must possess special interests and abilities in the analysis of the human, technical, and cost problems of modern manufacturing. In addition, he must possess the personality and attributes of character which will enable him to work with and direct others in the planning and operation of manufacturing enterprises.

The Job of the Industrial Engineer

What Do Industrial Engineers Do? The Industrial (also called management of administrative) Engineer makes surveys of how industrial plants or businesses are organized and operated, and on the basis of such studies, he prepares recommendations to executives for changes in the way things are made or in the set-up of money in the conduct of business.

To carry out this work, he makes use of his knowledge of the principles of business organization and administration, engineering, economics, industrial psychology, statistics, accounting, and marketing. He may examine and observe new equipment and how men work, make time and motion studies, study production records and products, or talk with management and production personnel. He tries to obtain a comprehensive view of any plant or business activity such as: planning and scheduling of production; production methods, standards equipment, cost records, and control; how materials and goods are received, packed, and shipped; the hiring, training, and management of personnel; wage payment system, relation of unions to management; the system for purchasing materials and supplies; the advertising and distribution of products; and the manner in which the business is to be established. Many Industrial Engineers, especially consultants with long training and experience, are qualified to survey and advise on all phases of a business or industrial organization. Most of them work in a particular industry, such as an electric utility or a chemical process industry, and deal with a particular broad phase of industrial engineering work, for example, plant design and construction, plant production, sales and marketing, purchasing, personnel and labor relations, wage systems, finances, or traffic management.

Who Should or Should Not Take Up Industrial Engineering? The Industrial Engineer combines the aptitudes of a mechanical engineer, accountant, and business executive. He should have an aptitude for studying such college subjects as engineering, calculus, statistics, economics, and business administration. He should have an interest in all kinds of jobs and in the machines and men who manufacture goods; he should have the ability to spot a problem in getting something made, gather all the related facts about processes and costs, stick to the facts in working out a solution, and present his conclusions or ideas in clear, concise English to business executives. He should be able to visualize in three dimensions in order to develop plans for the layout of equipment or for the successive steps in getting work done.

F. F. Groseclose, Director
School of Industrial Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology
Atlanta, Georgia
November 22, 1949


https://www.isye.gatech.edu/about/school/history



Updated on  21.9.2023,  5 December 2018,
Earlier update  20 March 2017