Preface by Shigeyasu Sakamoto
I’ve been concerned about the practice of industrial engineering for 4 decades. It’s not easy to find useful books introducing the effectiveness of industrial engineering (IE) practice as it relates to the fundamental background of the field, its techniques, and in-depth theory. At one time, there was an abundance of useful books on motion and time study; however, the shelves display limited titles today.
One reason that industrial engineering is in the shadows is that it is not known for contributions to management requirements. It may not get the trust by management due to its humble contribution, considering the many and hard requirements of true management. (Actually industrial engineering departments of companies are not reporting their achievements and value added to the company performance internally and externally).
Industrial engineering tools are effective enough to support management with these goals in mind.
Industrial engineering staffs should be cherished by management, given reasonable demands of improvement and receive them warmly. The result is that industrial engineers gain confidence and are motivated to develop higher standards of meeting staff services.
Industrial engineering technologies are not hackneyed. Effective results come when industrial engineers know how to use the technologies and demonstrate their abilities. This includes going back to the basics.
I am a management consultant with 40 years of experience in Europe, Asia, and
Japan. This means that all the contents of this book are practiced with industrial
engineering theory as the foundation.
Chapter 1
Having less than 5% of (productivity) improvement demonstrates a poor level of change; 10%
is an acceptable lower level of change, and 15% is expected to be a leading company concerning productivity improvement. One of the best productivity improvements from a company was roughly 25% for several years.
I don’t mean to undermine the efforts of workers’ independent improvement, but it is important to develop the right method from the productivity viewpoint in advance for the workers to practice company wide. Then you will see a good balance between the effects of industrial engineering and improvement based on the individual worker’s talent and drive.
1.3 Potential for Major Profitability Increases
Companies have different competitive strengths. The strength may be productivity, product innovation, business modeling, and business strategy. This effectiveness can be classified into four categories:
• business model and/or area competitiveness;
• technological advancement competitiveness;
• low-cost ability competitiveness;
• active price setting competitiveness.
Note that the first two areas of competitiveness are usually handled by corporate strategists.
Low-cost tasks and active price setting are within the skill set of industrial engineers. Note that company performance does not just depend on industrial engineering even though their abilities
and experiences prove fruitful in nearly every industry.
1.4.3.
A more valuable way to motivate employees is through engineering competitiveness, or business areas’ competitiveness. Japanese manufacturers come up against very tough competition with Chinese manufacturers today due to the enormous gap in wage standards. But it is entirely possible for Japanese manufacturers to succeed if they can enforce products and/or process design competitiveness. (The author says do not compete on the ability of labor to produce more alone. Focus on process design that has basic work time lower. The next step is effectiveness and efficiency of the labor)
A company that’s eager for cost competitiveness or price competitiveness does not accept even a small amount of waste, so a tough target of productivity is set for competitive domination.
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=_U1OyLvUn9kC
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