Industrial Engineering Knowledge Center

Industrial Engineering is System Efficiency Engineering. It is Machine Effort and Human Effort IE. 4 Million Page View Blog. 200,000+ visitors. (36,000+ pv, 25,500+ visitors in 2025.)------------------ Blog Provides Industrial Engineering Knowledge: Articles, Books, Case Studies, Course Pages and Materials, Lecture Notes, Project Reviews, Research Papers Study Materials, and Video Lectures. 2025 - New Project - Effective Industrial Engineering and Productivity Management.

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Monday, June 1, 2026

Industrial Engineering - History

Lesson 1: Industrial Engineering ONLINE Course - Introduction to Industrial Engineering Module

Industrial engineers (IE) are employed and productivity improvement and cost reduction are practiced in many companies using IE philosophy, principles, methods, techniques and tools.

Apple Inc. - Industrial Engineering Activities and Jobs

Lesson 2. Industrial Engineering - Definition and Explanation

New.

Popular E-Book on IE,

Introduction to Modern Industrial Engineering. #FREE #Download.

In 2% on Academia.edu. 12,375+ Downloads so far.

https://academia.edu/103626052/INTRODUCTION_TO_MODERN_INDUSTRIAL_ENGINEERING_Version_3_0

Online Education/Training Session on "Effective Industrial Engineering and Productivity Management."

I developed an online education/training session on "Effective Industrial Engineering and Productivity Management." I can present the session in one hour, one and half hour or two-hour long sessions. The sessions will be valuable when company industrial engineers and other engineers and managers attend as a group. Industrial engineers require active cooperation and participation of other engineers and managers in their studies and projects. Hence a common presentation and discussion on effectiveness will be very useful.

Supporting Information.

Effective Industrial Engineering - Some Thoughts by Narayana Rao K.V.S.S.

Effective industrial engineering has to satisfy management about the contribution it made to the organization year after year.

The prime contribution of IE has to be cost reduction through productivity improvement.

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2025/07/effective-industrial-engineering-some.html

https://www.linkedin.com/in/narayana-rao-kvss-b608007/

What is industrial engineering?

Industrial Engineering - Result oriented engineering. Productivity orientation. Engineering to enhance results of systems.

Engineering analysis and design, to specify, predict, and evaluate the results to be obtained from engineering systems.

Industrial Engineering - IISE Definition - Components of Industrial Engineering.

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2022/03/industrial-engineering-iise-definition.html

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7mtfiNQBUc

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Was Industrial Engineering Department started by F.W. Taylor - The Father of Industrial Engineering?

Yes. It was started by him in 1885.

Frederick Taylor's Industrial Engineering Department for Process Improvement for Productivity Increase - 1885.

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2021/11/frederick-taylors-industrial.html

Frederick Taylor established the first department in factory doing industrial engineering work of process improvement for increase in productivity and cost reduction. The name he gave it to the department is "Elementary Rate Fixing." Its function is to breakdown the process into elements and find the best way of doing each by observing number of persons doing the same element and finding the best way through time study. The next step is to find science behind the way of doing the elements. Then from the best ways of doing each element, a new process is developed and the operators are trained in it. The final step of rate fixing refers to specifying the time required to do each element and the piece rate for it. The Piece rate of a component is fixed by first developing the detail at element level. The operators are provided the instruction sheet at the element level so that they know the time specified for each element and make effort to do it in that time. Taylor stated that operators are motivated to do well when they know the goal clearly and receive feedback quickly. The elementary rate fixing department has the responsibility to develop productivity science, do productivity engineering and do productivity management.

Based on the statements of Taylor, we can say elementary rate fixing department was established in 1885 by Taylor.

The Call for Cost Reduction by Engineers - ASME President - 1880

The first president of ASME in his presidential address in 1880 exhorted mechanical engineers to understand the relation between elements of engineering design and production and elements of cost accounting that determine the production cost as well as the life cycle cost of engineering items. Even though attention to cost was given by civil engineers earlier, the call by ASME president led to the emergence of a branch/discipline of engineering termed "Industrial Engineering."

The concern for management and productivity issues occupied the attention of the first ASME president. Thus ASME's attention to the topic is there right from its founding . In fact, R.H. Thurston the first ASME president, in his inaugural address (1880), included productivity improvement and economy among the objects of the society in his inaugural address.

"We are now called upon to do our part in the work so well begun by our predecessors, and so splendidly carried on by our older colleagues during the past generation. We have for our work the cheapening and improvement of all textile fabrics, the perfecting of metallurgical processes, the introduction of the electric light, the increase of facilities for rapid and cheap transportation, the invention of new and more efficient forms of steam and gas engines, of means for relieving woman from drudgery, and for shortening the hours of labor for hard-working men, the increase in the productive power of all mechanical devices, aiding in the great task of recording and disseminating useful knowledge; and ours is the duty to discover facts and to deduce laws bearing upon every application of mechanical science and art in ﬁeld, workshop, school, or household." - Thuston.

R. H. Thurston. President's inaugural address. Transactions ASME, 1, 1880, pp. 14-29.

Pennsylvania State College, USA introduced the first industrial engineering major in 1907. Hugo Diemer was the faculty who introduced it. He authored a book in 1911 which he explained the role of industrial engineering. Principles of Industrial Engineering, a book in industrial engineering by Charles B. Going was published in 1911. Charles taught industrial engineering subject in a module on works management organized at Columbia University by Prof. Walter Rautentruanch.

James Gunn is given the credit for using the term "industrial engineer" first in an article in 1901. He wanted a new engineer to emerge "production" or "industrial". The "industrial" or "production" engineer of Gunn understands the cost accounting and cost analysis in relation to engineering activities. The term industrial engineer appealed to some. Subsequently the course in industrial engineering was also started. Even production engineering emerged as a separate branch that focused much more on the technical function of creating process plans, instructing and training operators. The focus of industrial engineering became productivity, efficiency and cost reduction.

INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING PHILOSOPHY

I would like to state the philosophy of industrial engineering as "engineering systems can be redesigned or improved and installed periodically for productivity increase or improvement." The primary drivers of productivity improvement are developments in basic engineering disciplines and developments in industrial engineering (developments in productivity science, productivity engineering and productivity management). The additional drivers are developments in related disciplines, for example, economics, mathematics, statistics, optimization techniques, ergonomics, psychology and sociology etc. - Narayana Rao, 1 April 2021.

Evolution of Industrial Engineering - James Gunn, Towne, Taylor, Diemer, Going, Barnes

Background for Development of Industrial Engineering

The late-nineteenth-century factory initially was a collection of skilled machinists and mechanical artisans working in a big work areas based on their skills. The management of production activity was basically done a first-line supervisor, the foreman. He organized materials and labor, directed machine operations, recorded costs, hired and fired employees, and basically the principal production management. The manager or general manager above him looked after external issues related to supplies of goods and services.

In the 1870s and 1880s, critics began to attack the model of the factory wherein each operator worked according his personal methods and mostly worked under a piece rate system. Their critique became the basis for the best-known effort to encourage coordination within the firm during the first half of the twentieth century under production manager. Shop Management theory and practice was proposed by F.W. Taylor. The changes in management that occurred during period were known under various labels - systematic management, scientific management, efficiency engineering. As stated above, in 1901, the term "industrial engineering" was proposed and in 1908, it became a course, and a branch of engineering. Shop Management and subsequent books fostered greater sensitivity to the manager’s role in production and led to greater diversity in industrial practice also as managers selectively implemented ideas and techniques.

The attack on traditional factory management originated in two late-nineteenth-century developments. The first was the maturation of the engineering profession, based on formal education and mutually accepted standards of behavior and formally educated engineers embraced scientific experimentation and analysis in place of sporadic developments based on experience. The second development was the rise of systematic management, an effort among engineers and sympathizers to substitute system for the informal methods that had evolved with the factory system. The factories replaced traditional managers who focused less on production methods with engineers and managerial systems replaced guesswork and ad hoc evaluations. By the late 1880s, cost accounting systems, methods for planning and scheduling production and organizing materials, and incentive wage plans were developed. Their objective was an unimpeded flow of materials and information. Systematic management sought to extract the efficiency benefit required to run a factory by developing science for each work element. It also developed planning systems that helped in realizing the organization's goals through work of managers and operators. It promoted decisions based on performance by giving wages based on merit rating and incentives based on quantity of output rather than on personal qualities and relationships.

Contribution of F.W. Taylor

In the 1890s, Frederick Winslow Taylor, became the most vigorous and successful proponent of systematic management. As an executive in production engineering and management, he introduced factory accounting (cost accounting) systems and based on those records made engineering changes in systems that gave lower cost of operation and production. Taylor explained his systems through papers and discussions in meetings of American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The systems and practices developed by Taylor permitted engineers and managers to use operating records to guide their engineering and production management actions. Taylor focused on reducing metal cutting times through various engineering improvements to increase productivity of machines. The improvements include use of cutting fluids, higher power in the machines for increasing feed, development of high speed steel, development of tool life equation and many more improvements. Taylor estimated the time required for taking each cut and reduced the time taken by improvement in cutting speed, feed and depth of cut.

Taylor also advocated production control systems that allowed managers to know more precisely what was happening on the shop floor, piece-rate systems that encouraged workers to follow orders and instructions, and various related measures. Taylor developed time study of elements to measure time taken by machines and men to perform various tasks done by operators. Data collected from multiple machines and multiple operators were used to identify ways of working that gave minimum times.

Frederick Taylor established the first department in factory doing industrial engineering work of process improvement for increase in productivity and cost reduction in 1885. The name he gave it to the department is "Elementary Rate Fixing." Its function is to breakdown the process into elements and find the best way of doing each by observing number of persons doing the same element and finding the best way through time study. The next step is to find science behind the way of doing the elements. The science gives determinants of productivity of elements. It means it gives a relation between the variables of the process and time taken to complete the element. Therefore this science of productivity gives ideas to reduce time for doing the element further. Thus from the best ways of doing each element, and productivity science developed, a new process is developed which takes minimum time to complete a part and the operators are trained in it. The final step of rate fixing refers to specifying the time required to do each element and the piece rate for it. The Piece rate of a component is fixed by first developing the detail at element level. The operators are provided the instruction sheet at the element level so that they know the time specified for each element and make effort to do it in that time. Taylor stated that operators are motivated to do well when they know the goal clearly and receive feedback quickly. The elementary rate fixing department has the responsibility to develop productivity science, do productivity engineering and do productivity management.

Based on the statements of Taylor, we can say elementary rate fixing department was established in 1885 by Taylor (https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2021/11/frederick-taylors-industrial.html).

In 1895, he employed a colleague, Sanford E. Thompson, to help him determine the optimum time to perform industrial tasks; their goal was to compute, by rigorous study of the worker’s movements and the timing of those movements with stopwatches, standards for skilled occupations that could be published and sold to employers.

Between 1898 and 1901, as a consultant to the Bethlehem Iron Company, Taylor introduced all of his systems and vigorously pursued his research on the operations of metal-cutting tools. Taylor’s discovery of high-speed steel in 1900, which improved the performance of metal-cutting tools, assured his fame as an inventor. In his effort to introduce systematic methods in many areas of the company’s operations, Taylor developed an integrated view of managerial innovation and a broader conception of the shop/production manager’s role. In 1901, when he left Bethlehem, Taylor resolved to devote his time and ample fortune to promoting his new conception of industrial management. In the paper, Shop Management ( 1903), he portrayed an integrated complex of systematic management methods and also productivity improvement of machine shops.

In the following years, he began to rely more heavily on anecdotes from his career to emphasize the links between improved management and greater productivity. Second, Taylor tried to generalize his management principles to more areas of work. Between 1907 and 1909, with the aid of a close associate, Morris L. Cooke, he wrote a sequel to Shop Management that became The Principles of Scientific Management (1911). Taylor came out with four principles and relied on colorful stories from his experience and language to illuminate “principles” of management. To suggest the integrated character and broad applicability of scientific management, he equated it to a “complete mental revolution.”

Taylor had fashioned scientific management from systematic management. The two approaches were intimately related. Systematic and scientific management had common roots, attracted the same kinds of people, and had the same business objectives. Yet in retrospect the differences stand out. Systematic management was diffuse and utilitarian, a series of isolated measures that did not add up to a larger whole or have recognizable implications beyond day-to-day industrial operations. Scientific management added significant detail and a larger view.

The Principles extended the potential of scientific management to nonbusiness endeavors and made Taylor a central figure in the efficiency movement of the 1910s. To engineers and nonengineers alike, he created order from the diverse prescriptions of a generation of technical writers. By the mid-l910s, he had achieved wide recognition in American engineering circles and had attracted a devoted following in France, Germany, Russia, and Japan. Pennsylvania State College introduced the first industrial engineering major in 1907 and promoted the thinking of Taylor.

Taylor's insistence that the proper introduction of management methods required the services of an expert intermediary helped in the emergence of industrial engineering independent consultants and accelerated the rise of a new profession.

Initially, the spread of systematic management occurred largely through the work of independent consultants, a few of whom, such as the accountant J. Newton Gunn, achieved prominence by the end of the nineteenth century. By 1900, Taylor overshadowed the others; by 1910, he had devised a promotional strategy that relied on a close-knit corps of consultants to install his techniques, train the client’s employees, and instill a new outlook and spirit of cooperation. The expert was to ensure that the spirit and mechanism of scientific management went hand in hand. This activity of Taylor produced a number of successful consulting firms and the largest single cluster of professional consultants devoted to industrial management.

Between 1901 and 1915, Taylor’s immediate associates introduced scientific management in nearly two hundred American businesses, 80 percent of which were factories Some of the plants were large and modern, like the Pullman and Remington Typewriter works. Approximately one-third of the total were large-volume producers for mass markets. A majority fell into one of two broad categories. First were those whose activities required the movement of large quantities of materials between numerous workstations (textile mills, railroad repair shops, automobile plants). Their managers sought to reduce delays and bottlenecks and increase throughput.

The records available suggest that the consultants provided valuable services to many managers. They typically devoted most of their time to machine operations, tools and materials, production schedules, routing plans, and cost and other record systems. Apart from installing features of systematic management, their most notable activity was to introduce elaborate production-control mechanisms (bulletin boards and graphs, for example) that permitted managers to monitor operations

Between 1910 and 1920, industrial engineering spread rapidly. Large firms introduced staff departments devoted to production planning, time study, and other industrial-engineering activities and consulting firms also developed further. By 1915, the year of Taylor’s death, professional organization, the Taylor Society founded in 1910 was active. Western Efficiency Society was founded in 1912. The Society of Industrial Engineers was founded in 1917. These societies provided forums for the discussion of techniques and the development of personal contacts. Financial success and professional recognition increasingly depended on entrepreneurial and communications skills rather than technical expertise alone. A new generation of practitioners, including many university professors developed successful consulting practices.

Contributions of Gilbreth, Emerson and Bedaux

Competition for clients and recognition, especially after the recession of 1920-21 made executives more cost-conscious-produced other changes. Some industrial engineering consultants began to seek clients outside manufacturing. Spurred by the growing corps of academicians who argued that the principles of factory management applied to all businesses, they reorganized offices, stores, banks, and other service organizations. A Society of Industrial Engineers survey of leading consulting firms in 1925 reported that many confined their work to plant design, accounting systems, machinery, or marketing . A third trend was an increasing preoccupation with labor issues and time study. This emphasis reflected several postwar developments, most notably and ominously the increasing popularity of consultants who devoted their attention to cost cutting through the aggressive use of time study.

By the early 1920s, industrial engineers had divided into two separate and increasingly antagonistic camps. One influential group of industrial engineers, centered in the Taylor Society, embraced personnel management and combined it with orthodox industrial engineering to form a revised and updated version of scientific management. A handful of Taylor Society activists, Richard Feiss of Joseph & Feiss, Henry S. Dennison of Dennison Manufacturing, Morris E. Leeds of Leeds & Northrup, and a few others, mostly owner-managers, implemented the new synthesis. They introduced personnel management and more controversial measures such as profit sharing, company unionism, and unemployment insurance that attacked customary distinctions between white- and blue-collar employees and enlisted the latter, however modestly, in the management of the firm.

A larger group emphasized the potential of incentive plans based on time and motion study and disregarded or deemphasized the technical improvement. Their more limited approach reflected the competition for clients, the trend toward specialization, and the continuing attraction of rate cutting. Indicative of this tendency was the work of two of the most successful consultants of the post- 1915 years, Harrington Emerson and Charles E. Bedaux. This led to the development of a major weakness in Industrial Engineering. Industrial engineers got the description of "Time Study Men."

Harrington Emerson

Emerson (1853-1931) was a creative personality. Attracted to Taylor at the turn of the century, he briefly worked as an orthodox practitioner and played an influential role in Taylor’s promotional work. He soon became a respected accounting theorist and a successful reorganizer of railroad repair facilities. As his reputation grew, however, he broke with Taylor and set up a competing business with a large staff of engineers and consultants. Between 1907 and 1925, he had over two hundred clients He also published best-selling books and promoted a mail-order personal efficiency course. He was probably the best-known industrial engineer of the late 1910s and early 1920s.’ Emerson’s entrepreneurial instincts defined his career. An able technician, he was capable of overseeing the changes associated with orthodox scientific management. He also recruited competent assistants, such as Frederick Parkhurst and C. E. Knoeppel, who later had distinguished consulting careers, and E. K. Wunnerlund, who became the head of industrial engineering at General Motors. But Emerson always viewed his work as a business and.tailored his services to this customer’s interests. In practice, this meant that his employees spent most of their time conducting time studies and installing incentive wage systems. By the mid-1920s, General Motors, Westinghouse, the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Aluminum Company of America, American Radiator, and many other large and medium-sized industrial firms had introduced the Emerson system and in many cases an industrial engineering department staffed by former Emerson employees.

Bedaux (1886-1944) was a French immigrant who was a clerk at a St. Louis chemical company. In 1910 when an expert arrived to conduct time studies, Bedaux quickly grasped the essentials of time study and replaced the outsider. Then he found other clients. The turning point in his career came in 1912, when he accompanied several Emerson engineers to France as an interpreter. In Paris he struck out on his own, reorganized several factories, and studied the writings of Taylor and Emerson. Returning to the United States during World War I, he launched the Bedaux Company and began to cultivate clients. He relied on a simple, compelling promise: he would save more money than he charged. Although Bedaux employed able engineers and usually made some effort to reorganize the plant, his specialty was the incentive wage. His men worked quickly, used time studies to identify bottlenecks and set production standards, installed a wage system similar to Emerson’s. Bedaux’s clients included General Electric, B. F. Goodrich, Standard Oil of New Jersey, Dow Chemical, Eastman Kodak, and more than two hundred other American firms by the mid-1930s. His European offices were even more successful.

Whereas Taylor and his followers opposed wage cutting and “speed-up” efforts, Emerson was more flexible, and Bedaux made a career of forcing workers to do more for less. One notable result was a resurgence of strikes and union protests. By the 1930s, Bedaux had become infamous on both sides of the Atlantic. In response to his notoriety, he revised his incentive plan to increase the worker’s share and dropped much of his colorful terminology, including the famous B unit. Bedaux’s business survived, though neither he nor his firm regained the position they had enjoyed in the late 1920s and early 1930s.

Bedaux’s legacy was a substantial burden for other industrial engineers. The growth of labor unrest in the 1930s and the frequent appearance of the “Be-do” plan on grievance lists revived the association of industrial engineering with labor turmoil. Regardless of their association with Bedaux and his tactics, industrial engineers became the targets of union leaders and their allies. In industries such as autos and tires, worker protests paralyzed the operations of industrial engineering departments and led to the curtailment or abandonment of many activities.

Diffusion of Industrial Engineering

There are at least three partial measures of the diffusion of industrial engineering. First, the many references to cost accounting, centralized production planning and scheduling, systematic maintenance procedures, time study, and employment management in the trade press and in the records of industrial corporations indicate that these activities were no longer novel or unfamiliar to executives. The promotional work of the consultants, the “efficiency craze,” and the growth of management education in universities had made the rudiments of industrial engineering widely available; only the oldest or most isolated executives were unaware of them. The critical issue was no longer the desirability of the new management; it was the particular combination of techniques suitable for a given firm or plant, the role of the outside consultant, if any, and the authority of the staff experts.

Second, the information on industrial wage systems that the National Industrial Conference Board assiduously collected in the 1920s and 1930s documents widespread acceptance of incentive wage plans, particularly among large corporations. In 1928, for example, 6 percent of the smallest companies (1-50 employees) had incentive wage plans, while 56 percent of the largest firms (more than 3,500 employees) had such plans. In earlier years, small firms devoted to industrial reform had been among the most vigorous proponents of industrial engineering. But their ranks did not grow, and they were soon overshadowed by large corporations, which found in industrial engineering an effective answer to the problems that often prevented large, expensive factories from achieving their potential. Incentive wage plans were an indicator of this trend. Feiss, Dennison, and others hoped to transform the character of industrial work through the use of incentives and personnel programs; judging from the information that survives, big business managers had more modest goals. Their principal objective was to make the best use of existing technology and organization by enlisting the workers’ interest in a higher wage. In the early 1930s, many managers were attracted to the “work simplification” movement that grew out of the Gilbreths’ activities, but the effects were apparently negligible, at least until the World War II mobilization effort. To most manufacturers, industrial engineering provided useful answers to a range of shop-floor problems; it was a valuable resource but neither a stimulus to radical change nor a step toward a larger goal.

A third source, contemporary surveys of the industrial engineering work of large corporations, provides additional support for this conclusion. A 1928 survey by the Special Conference Committee, an elite group of large industrial firms, emphasized related problem. It reported wide differences in the practice of time study, in the duties of time-study technicians, and in the degree of commitment to time study as an instrument for refining and improving the worker’s activities. At Western Electric, which had one of the largest industrial engineering staffs, a manufacturing planning department was responsible for machinery and methods; the time-study expert was simply a rate setter. At Westinghouse, which also had a large industrial engineering department, time-study technicians were responsible for methods and rates. However, a report from the company’s Mansfield, Ohio, plant indicated that the time-study engineer could propose changes in manufacturing methods “in cooperation with the foremen.” Most companies had similar policies. The time-study expert was expected to suggest beneficial changes to his superiors, often after consulting the foreman, but had no independent authority to introduce them. Essentially, the “expert” was a rate setter. In most plants, industrial engineering focused on detail, seldom threatened the supervisors or workers, and even more rarely produced radical changes in methods.

Experience at Du Pont

A recent, detailed examination of industrial engineering at E. I. Du Pont de Nemours & Company, a Special Conference Committee member, suggests the range of possibilities that could exist in a single firm (Rumm 1992, 175-204). Du Pont executives created an Efficiency Division in 1911 after the company’s general manager read The Principles. Rather than employ an outside consultant, they appointed two veteran managers to run the division. These men conducted time and motion studies, “determined standard times and methods for tasks, set standard speeds for machinery, and made suggestions for rearranging the flow of work, improving tools, and installing labor-saving equipment.” Yet they encountered a variety of difficulties; their proposals were only advisory, they clashed with the new employment department when they proposed to study fatigue and the matching of workers and jobs, and they found that many executives were indifferent to their work. Worst of all, they could not show that their activities led to large savings. In 1914, after the introduction of functional supervision in the dynamite-mixing department apparently caused several serious accidents, the company disbanded the Efficiency Division.

Although some Du Pont plants introduced time-study departments in the following years, the company did nothing until 1928, when it created a small Industrial Engineering Division within the larger Engineering Department. The IED was to undertake a “continuous struggle to reduce operating costs.” That battle was comparatively unimportant until the Depression underlined the importance of cost savings. In the 1930s, the IED grew rapidly, from twenty eight engineers in 1930 to over two hundred in 1940. It examined “every aspect of production,” conducted job analyses, and introduced incentive wage plans. IED engineers began with surveys of existing operations. They then “consolidated processes, rearranged the layout of work areas, installed materials-handling equipment, and trimmed work crews.” To create “standard times” for particular jobs, they used conventional stopwatch time study as well as the elaborate photographic techniques the Gilbreths had developed. By 1938, they had introduced incentive wage plans in thirty plants; one-quarter of all Du Pont employees were affected.

Du Pont introduced a variety of incentive plans. Three plants employed the Bedaux Company to install its incentive system. Other managers turned to less expensive consultants, and others, the majority, developed their own “in-house” versions of these plans. Some executives, and workers, became enthusiastic supporters of incentive wages; others were more critical. Despite the work of the aggressive and ever-expanding IED, many workers found ways to take advantage of the incentive plans to increase their wages beyond the anticipated ranges. Wage inflation ultimately led the company to curtail the incentive plans. Time and motion study, however, remained hallmarks of Du Pont industrial engineering.

During the depression of the 1930s, when they developed a new sensitivity to the value of industrial engineering, they defined it as a way to cut factory costs. One reason for this perspective was bureaucratic: Du Pont had developed an extensive personnel operation in the 1910s and 1920s, which had authority over employee training, welfare programs, and labor negotiations. Equally important was the apparent assumption that industrial engineering only pertained to the details of manufacturing activities, especially the work of machine operators. Despite mounting pressures to reduce costs, the company’s offices, laboratories, and large white-collar labor force remained off-limits to the IED. Despite these handicaps, the IED had a significant impact because rapid technological change in the industry created numerous opportunities for organizational change and Du Pont avoided relations with powerful unions.

Du Pont executives were receptive to the “principles” of industrial engineering but focused on the particulars, which they assessed in terms of their potential for improving short-term economic performance. As a result there was little consistency in their activities until the 1940s; even then, industrial engineering was restricted to the company’s manufacturing operations. This approach, fragmentary and idiosyncratic by the standards of Taylor or Dennison, was logical and appropriate to executives whose primary objective was to fine-tune a largely successful organization.

During the first third of the twentieth century, industrial engineers successfully argued that internal management was as important to the health of the enterprise as technology, marketing, and other traditional concerns. Their message had its greatest impact in the 1910s and 1920s, when their “principles” won wide acceptance and time study and other techniques became common-place. Managers whose operations depended on carefully planned and coordinated activities and reformers attracted to the prospect of social harmony were particularly receptive. By the 1930s, the engineers’ central premise, that internal coordination required self-conscious effort and formal managerial systems, had become the acknowledged basis of industrial management.

(See
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=LyQOQWC66usC&pg=PA44#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://books.google.co.in/books?id=w-Wm_PrFB5IC&pg=PA552#v=onepage&q&f=false)

1930s

Allan Mogensen's Common Sense Applied to Motion and Time Study (1932)

Ralph Barnes's Industrial Engineering and Management: Problems and Policies (1931).

Steward M. Lowry, Harold B. Maynard, and G. J. Stegmerten's widely used Time and Motion Study and Formulas for Wage Incentives. - The 1927 edition treated motion study only briefly and insubstantially, while devoting many chapters to stopwatch methods and rate setting formulas. In 1932, the authors approached Lillian Gilbreth and her research group for more detailed information on their methods. By 1940 Lowry, Maynard, and Stegmerten had reduced their treatment of wage incentive formulas from nine chapters to three, and increased the number of chapters devoted to motion study to seven.

IE History - Some Recollections
Andrew Shultz
https://www.informs.org/Resource-Center/Video-Library/H-T-Videos/Andrew-Schultz-on-AIIE-ORSA-and-Cornell-s-ORIE

2017
Principles, Functions and Focus Areas of Industrial Engineering - Narayana Rao

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Industrial engineering is carried out at various levels in an organization. The following are the important levels of IE.

Industrial Engineering Strategy - Enterprise Level Industrial Engineering

Policy Decisions by Top Management: Starting and Expanding IE Department, Approval of Productivity Improvement Project Portfolio as part of Capital Budgeting of the Company, Approving Productivity Policy, Setting Productivity and Cost Reduction Goals. Setting Employee related comfort, health and safety goals. Incentive income policy making.

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2014/11/industrial-engineering-strategy.html

Facilities Industrial Engineering

Facilities are used by processes. Facilities are common to processes. Taylor clearly mentioned in his "Piece Rates - Elementary Rate Fixing System" paper that he has to make modifications to all machines to increase productivity of his machine shop. Toyota even today carries out gradual improvements to the machines in the direction of autonomation. Machines are continuously improved. Period layout studies and readjustments are another example of facilities industrial engineering. 5S that demands upkeep of facilities is another example of facilities IE when it is implemented for the first time and proposed and initiated by the IE department. Thereafter it becomes the activity of operations management.

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2020/05/facilities-industrial-engineering.html

Process Industrial Engineering - Process Machine Effort Industrial Engineering - Process Human Effort Industrial Engineering.

Process industrial engineering is the popular method of industrial engineering. But, the process chart method was promoted by Motion Study books. The machine effort industrial engineering, that is improvement of machine effort, that was done by Taylor primarily to increase productivity got neglected in the evolution of industrial engineering. It is a weakness to be corrected to make IE a strong discipline.

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2021/11/process-industrial-engineering-process.html

Operation Industrial Engineering.

Process chart is a condensed version that show the entire process of producing a full product and the production of each part. The process chart is composed by symbols representing 5 operations. Operation - Inspection - Transport - Temporary Delay (WIP) - Permanent Storage (controlled store). Using process chart, the sequence of operations can be investigated and changed for more benefit. But each operation needs to be improved. It is termed simplification in process chart analysis. To do simplification information on each operation has to be collected in operation information sheets and they have to be analyzed in operation analysis sheets (Stegemerten and Maynard)

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2013/11/approach-to-operation-analysis-as-step.html

Element Level Analysis in Industrial Engineering

Elements are in Operations - We can understand the term "element" from the subject "Design of Machine Elements". Each engineering product has elements. Similarly each operation, that is part of a process has elements. Some are related to machines and tools used in the process. Some are related to human operators. Some are related to working conditions. Some are related to the work being done. Taylor first named the productivity department as "Elementary Rate Fixing Department." It has to improve each and every element in task and determine the output possible for unit time in the work element. The time allowed for that element for a piece or batch is determined through these elementary standard times or allowed times.

Taylor's Industrial Engineering System - First Proposal 1895 - Productivity Improvement of Each Element of the Process

Taylor's Industrial Engineering Department - Process/Operation Element Level Productivity Improvement & Rate-Fixing Department

2023

INTRODUCTION TO MODERN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING. EBook. FREE Download.

Most popular publication on Academia.Edu platform. Top 2% - 11585+ Donwloads/Views.

https://www.academia.edu/103626052/INTRODUCTION_TO_MODERN_INDUSTRIAL_ENGINEERING_Version_3_0

2027

Effective Industrial Engineering - Some Thoughts by Narayana Rao K.V.S.S.

Effective industrial engineering has to satisfy management about the contribution it made to the organization year after year.

The prime contribution of IE has to be cost reduction through productivity improvement.

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2025/07/effective-industrial-engineering-some.html

Contributions of Industrial Engineering Pioneers, Researchers and Scholars in Chronological Order

#IISE75 (1948 - 2023) - 75 Productive Years of IISE (Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers)

Wyllys Stanton. Inside his Columbus, Ohio home on Jan. 12, 1948 (75 years ago), he and a dozen others met to discuss “the problems, methods and potentialities of a new organization specializing in the problems and interests of industrial engineers.”

That’s a direct quote from a blurb Stanton himself penned. It’s included in “Origins of Industrial Engineering: The Early Years of a Profession,” by Howard P. Emerson and Douglas C.E. Naehring.

The fateful discussion inside Stanton’s home included talks on prospective membership requirements, ways such an organization could be useful, scopes of activities and plans for the path ahead.

“There seemed to be no question in the founders' minds of the desirability of such an organization,” Stanton wrote. “They believed that industrial engineering was an important branch of engineering and just as much in need of an organization devoted to its exclusive representation as civil, mechanical, or electrical engineers.”

Invites were sent out to all known industrial engineers in the Columbus area to attend the American Institute of Industrial Engineers’ first-ever meeting. The name would later change multiple times to reflect the organization’s international presence as well as the scope of professions included in what is now the Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers. For more: iise.org/75

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/narayana-rao-kvss-b608007_tbt-iise75-activity-7021336008017227776-Mspl

AIIE Journal of Industrial Engineering - Interesting on Archive - Org - Collection

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2019/11/interesting-on-archive-org-collection.html

Industrial Engineering in Academic Institutions

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

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2023/09/prof-diemers-1908-proposal-4-year.html

Prof. Diemer started the first two year specialization and the first four-year course in industrial engineering in the Pennsylvania State College. Now it is Penn State University.

Histories of Industrial Engineering Departments and Institutes - USA

https://nraoiekc.blogspot.com/2017/03/histories-of-industrial-engineering.html

Lesson 2. Industrial Engineering - Definition and Explanation

Updated on 1.6.2026, 27.12.2025, 1.6.2024, 23.9.2023, 18.1.2023, 1 June 2022, 2 January 2022, 8.11.2021, 1 June 2021, 1 April 2021, 19 May 2020, 9 April 2020, 10 November 2019, 22 December 2014

The updates to this post are examples of industrial engineering - continuous improvement based on periodic reviews as well as when a relevant information becomes available or an idea comes to mind.

The first creation of the post is the example of basic engineering - product design as well as process design. The updates made show that there will be opportunities for improvement. Similarly in engineering systems, there is opportunity for industrial engineering, periodic and continuous improvement.

Monday, May 25, 2026

Henry Laurence Gantt (1861-1919) - Industrial Engineer

Henry Laurence Gantt worked under F.W. Taylor, the person credited with founding Industrial Engineering Discipline.

Gantt graduated in mechanical engineering from Stevens Institute. In July 1887, he took up the post of Assistant in the Engineering Department of Midvale Steel Company. A year later he had become Assistant to the Chief Engineer, F.W.Taylor. In this post, Gantt was engaged in determining the most economical methods of working the machine tools in the machine shop. Gantt worked in close contact with Taylor even after Taylor left Midvale. They shared in many inventions and technical developments.

Gantt’s professional career can be categorized into two parts. One, he was a technician and a manager in the industry. The second, he was a consulting engineer for economical shop management and for time-, cost-, and record-keeping. He will be remembered for his contribution to economical shop management.

Gantt was preoccupied with human aspect of management in his quest for economy in industrial activities.

Two of his statements exemplify this concern.

“The control over labour given to management by the application of the system which I installed was so far-reaching as compared with other management controls that I refused to install it unless convinced that the management was such that no unfair advantage would be taken of the system to oppress labour.

“Before I undertake to do any work for any concern, I ask the people employing me, or who contemplate employing me, to read this little book, ‘Work, Wages and Profits.’ I ask those people who have in mind employing me whether they are in accord with the idea expressed in that book of how to handle their workmen, and what share the workmen shall have in what is being done. Unless they are willing to subscribe substantially to what I have written in this book, I have always declined to do any work for them.”

In 1904, Gantt secured an assignment as “efficiency expert” at Sayles Bleacheries. It was a textile plant. Based on this assignment, he read the paper “Training Workmen in Habits of Industry and Cooperation.”

https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/fluidsengineering/article-pdf/doi/10.1115/1.4060307/7229506/1037_1.pdf

He amplified his ideas on the subject in a further paper “Modern Methods of Training Workmen” in 1915.

In 1916, Gantt started a body by name “The New Machine.” It was an organization of Engineer-Executives. The slogan of this body was “to increase the purchasing power a day’s work in New York City.”

The best known contribution of Gantt is the bar chart. The graphic presentation of facts has always appealed to him

The official biography of H.L. Gantt was prepared by L.P. Alford for American Society of Mechanical Engineers and was published in 1934.

Reference

L. Urwick and E.F.L. Brech, The Making of Scientific Management: Thirteen Pioneers, Sir Issac Pitman and Sons, London, 1951.

Industrial leadership

by Gantt, Henry Laurence, 1861-1919

Publication date 1916

Topics Industrial efficiency

Publisher New Haven, Yale university press;

https://archive.org/details/cu31924002249161

It is (now) becoming recognized among

the most progressive manufacturers of the

day, that the ratio between the wages paid

and the work done is more important than

the absolute amount of wages paid, and that

the absolute amount of work done is more

important than either.

Moreover, it is becoming recognized that

the good man at high wages not only does

more work per dollar of wages than the poor

man at low wages, but better work. In the

most prosperous factories, and those turning

out the highest grade of product, we inva-

riably find high-grade, well-paid workmen;

while in those factories which are making

but little profit, and where the work is of a

poor quality, the workmen are usually poorly

paid and of low grade.

The authority to issue an order involves

the responsibility to see that it is properly

executed.

The system of management which we advo-

cate is based on this principle, which elimi-

nates "bluff" as a feature in 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 some-

body else to do it.

As was said before, the world advances

through leadership, and I feel that it is just

as much the function of our engineering

schools to train our industrial leaders as it is

that of our military schools to train our

military leaders.

Search archive.org

https://archive.org/search.php?query=%28%28subject%3A%22Gantt%2C%20Henry%22%20OR%20subject%3A%22Henry%20Gantt%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Gantt%2C%20Henry%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Henry%20Gantt%22%20OR%20creator%3A%22Gantt%2C%20H%2E%22%20OR%20title%3A%22Henry%20Gantt%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Gantt%2C%20Henry%22%20OR%20description%3A%22Henry%20Gantt%22%29%20OR%20%28%221861-1919%22%20AND%20Gantt%29%29%20AND%20%28-mediatype:software%29

THE FOLLOWERS OF HENRY L. GANTT (1861-1919).

Peter B. Peterson

Published Online:13 Dec 2017https://doi.org/10.5465/ambpp.1993.10315773

https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/ambpp.1993.10315773?journalCode=amproc

Web references

https://www.asme.org/about-asme/honors-awards/achievement-awards/henry-laurence-gantt-medal

149.164.39.1/~dupenb/Senior%20Design/Gantt.html

www.answers.com/topic/gantt-task-and-bonus-plan

www.allbiographies.com/biography-HenryLaurenceGantt-52448.html

encyclopedia.jrank.org/Cambridge/entries/035/Henry-Laurence-Gantt.html

industrialeducation.blogspot.com/2008/05/gantt-charts.html

Ud. 25.5.2026, 24.1.2022

Pub 7.2.2012

Friday, April 3, 2026

The Nature and Types of Expenses - Going Industrial Engineering Chapter 5

CHAPTER V

THE NATURE OF EXPENSE

LEAVING now the general principles of industrial or-
ganization and the institutions and agencies by which
industrial operations are carried on, we may view the prob-
lems of manufacturing as they present themselves to the
works manager and study the several elements of these prob-
lems from his characteristic point of view. In practice, the
processes of manufacture fall naturally into four great di-
visions: First, gathering materials of various sorts neces-
sary to the product we plan to turn out; second, operating
upon these materials in some way so as to change their form,
condition, combination, location, or bulk; third, distributing
again among buyers that which we have previously gathered
and manufactured; fourth, overseeing, safeguarding and
promoting the whole cycle. To put it more briefly, the
steps are: procuring raw materials, making them into finished
product, selling our goods, managing the business. To re-
duce it to four words, the functions are purchase, produc-
tion, selling, administration. All are necessary to the con-
duct of a manufacturing business, but to the manufacturer's
mind some elements in the scheme, such as outlay for
material and direct labor, seem to be visibly embodied in the
finished product, and these he calls "productive"; others,
like the outlay for administration, are only indirectly identi-
fied with the finished product, and are classed by him as
" non-productive." Therefore, as the manufacturer always
thinks in terms of cost, every proposition in production ap-
pears in his mind as consisting of three terms labor,
materials, and expense.

Let us examine this position again in more detail and
from a slightly different angle of vision. All business is
carried on for the sake of making money. In the simplest
conceivable kind of accounting, we would put down on one
side of the account or in one place a list of everything we
spend in the course of carrying on our business, and on the
other side of the account or in another place we would put
down a list of everything we receive. The difference be-
tween the sums of these two lists would be our profit.

Now if our business is manufacturing, we shall always
find, if we examine the items on the debit side that is, the
list of expenditures that these items fall naturally into
three great groups corresponding to three distinct sorts of
thing for which our money has been expended. One of
these groups will contain all the expenditures for the ma-
terials we use in our manufacturing iron, steel, brass,
wood, cloth, whatever it may be. The second of the three
great groups into which we can divide our expenditures will
contain all the outlay for labor the money that we have
paid to men for working and making up these materials
into our manufactured product; and the third of the great
groups will contain a list of expenditures for things that do
not go into our product as labor and materials do, but yet
are necessary to carry on the business. Such items are
advertising, selling, office salaries, insurance and repairs and
so on. This third great group of expenditure, then this
group of items of outlay for things that are necessary to
carrying on the business and yet do not go directly into
the product this is called expense.

In one sense there is not an absolutely hard and fast
line between these three classes of expenditure. In one
sense expense overlaps, so to speak, both material and
labor. For example, in a foundry, moulding sand is
physically speaking " material." In a brick yard, lumber
for runways is in the same sense a " material." But in
neither case does it go into our product. It is not sold
with our product. We can not find or weigh or measure
a fragment of it in each piece of our product. It is used
up and disappears, but the cost belongs to the business as
a whole.

So men carrying messages about a factory, or carting
shavings from a planing mill, are humanly speaking " la-
borers " labor. But again they are doing work that can
not be directly charged to any particular job it is part
of the necessary general cost of the work as a whole.

From the accounting point of view, then, the deciding
question is does the material or the labor go directly into
product; can we trace it there and say definitely u so much
material and so much labor make up this article " or
does it merely serve in some general way the making of
all or many of the articles we are turning out? If the
latter, then it is an expense item, to the accountant, even
though in a dictionary sense it might seem to be material or
labor.

Some accountants recognize this sort of double character of certain items by calling them " expense material " and " expense labor." It is more common, however, to speak of the three divisions of cost as direct material (or simply material) direct or productive labor, and " expense " in-
cluding in the latter term all indirect material and labor.

Whether the manufacturer's money is expended for materials, for labor, or for expense items, he has one great general object, and that is that it shall be expended wisely, economically, and efficiently.

But when we get beyond this first principal purpose and care, which is always in a manu-facturer's mind, we can readily see that the things to be considered second are of different and characteristic natures in the case of materials and of labor and of expense.

The points in which the manufacturer is especially inter-ested, so far as concerns materials, are to make sure that they are provided and maintained in sufficient quantity for the operations of manufacture to go on without interruption, that receipts are verified, materials on hand properly stored
and cared for, and materials in manufacture moved safely
and in an orderly way from process to process until the
manufactured product is complete.

In the case of labor the manufacturer's leading care and anxiety is to secure enough workers of desirable quality, to keep them contented, to increase their productivity, and to keep track of their time.

The fundamental problem of expense is distribution.
That is, if our business is to be intelligently and success-
fully carried on, after we have accounted for the money that
we have paid for materials and found out how much of it
has gone into each unit we have manufactured, and after
we have paid for our labor and accounted for the time and
wages spent upon each unit of our product, we must be able
to take the rest of our expenditures the confused total bulk
of general expense, which is neither direct labor nor direct
material and to divide it up into a multitude of little frac-
tions, each corresponding to one unit of our product, and
we must make this division and u levy this assessment " so
that we can say confidently that' we have charged each unit
with its fair, reasonable, and just proportion; that we have
assessed to each unit of product the actual cost of the ma-
terial that went into it and the labor that was put upon it,
and its proper share of the general expense of carrying on
the business. If we do this correctly we are sure that
when we have added to these costs a proper percentage of
profit, we will make money if we can find a market for
our goods.

The importance of being right about it is this: If we
make a mistake in the distribution and charge some . one
line of our product with more expense burden than it ought
to bear, a clever competitor who knows his costs better
than we know ours, will make a lower price which still
leaves him a safe margin and he will undersell us and
take away our market. If we charge some one line of our
product with less expense burden than it ought to bear,
we shall probably get the business in that line away from
our wiser competitors who are asking correct prices, but
the more we sell the more money we shall lose.

In other words, the reason that makes it necessary to
have a correct knowledge of our costs is competition. "And
in the correct knowledge of costs, the most difficult and
at the same time the most necessary thing is the correct
distribution of expense. Mr. A. Hamilton Church, who
is one of the leading authorities on the distribution of ex-
pense burden, says: " Very few concerns have come to grief
by ignoring labor costs " (or he might add material costs),
" but many have passed into the hands of receivers by
ignoring the relative importance of other factors of pro-
duction."

K

Selling Price $600

Inclusive or Total Cost $500

-Shop Cost~ >!
$400
Prime or Flat Cost *i

$150 Material

$150 Labor

$100 Factory Expense

$100 General
Expense

$100 Profit

We may represent by this simple diagram the several frac-
tions making up total costs, and the several parts of which
the final selling price of an article is made up. The relative
proportions of material and labor, factory expense, selling
expense, and profit vary widely in different cases. The pro-
portions used in the diagram are wholly arbitrary, but are
not improbable.

The figure serves to show the significance of the terms
commonly used in cost accounting, and to emphasize the
division of expense into two parts, the first called u factory,"
" shop," or " manufacturing " expense, and the second
called " general," " commercial," or " selling " expense.
This division is commonly in use and is logical. There is
no necessary connection between the expense attending the
making of an article and the expense of selling it. They
may be relatively very different. There is hence no reason
why these two expense elements should be distributed at
the same time or in the same ratio, and indeed there are
many reasons why they should not.

The discussion following will leave until last the rational
mode of apportioning general expense among the varied
products of any establishment, and will take up first and
at greatest length the distribution of factory expense.

Ud. 3.4.2026

Pub. 18.9. 2013

Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Functional Foremanship - F.W. Taylor

Lesson of Industrial Engineering ONLINE Course.

Lesson of Productivity Management Module.

Functional Foremanship for Productivity Management - Introduction by Narayana Rao

It is important for industrial engineers and productivity managers to read the original content of Taylor and then read the subsequent developments that modified and enriched Taylor's ideas. Some of the Taylor's ideas may have been determined to be not appropriate. It should not surprise anybody because science develops in that way only. The speculation of the earlier persons is checked and supported or refuted by the latter day scientists and alternative speculation or guesses are presented. When they are expressed as relations between well developed concepts, there are termed as propositions. From them, for specific contexts, hypotheses are deduced and empirical verification is attempted.

Job Specifications Given by Taylor for 8 Foremen for a Machine Shop

The gang boss has to plan and see that every man under him has at all times at least one piece of work ahead at his machine, with all the jigs, templates, drawings, driving mechanism, sling chains, etc., ready to go into his machine as soon as the piece he is actually working on is done. The gang boss must show how to set work in the machines in the quickest time. He is responsible for the work being accurately and quickly set.

The speed boss must see that the proper cutting tools are used for each piece of work, that the work is properly driven, that the cuts are started in the right part of the piece, and that the best speeds and feeds and depth of cut are used. He has to ensure that operators use the speeds and feeds and depth of cut as directed on the instruction card. He has to demonstrate that the work can be done in the specified time by doing it himself in the presence of his men.

The inspector is responsible for the quality of the work, and both the workmen and speed bosses must follow his directions to see that the work is all finished to dimensions to suit him. The inspector, must have the capability to finish work to specification with in the specified time.

The repair boss sees that each workman keeps his machine clean, free from rust and scratches, and that he oils and treats it properly, and that all of the standards established for the care and maintenance of the machines and their accessories are rigidly maintained, such as care of belts and shifters, cleanliness of floor around machines, and orderly piling and disposition of work. (Can you recognize total productive maintenance in this description?)

Order of Work and Route Clerk. As a route clerk the exact route which each piece of work is to travel through the shop from machine to machine in order that it may be finished at the time it is needed for assembling, and the work done in the most economical way is to be specified. The order of work task is to daily write lists instructing individual workmen the order in which they have to take up the jobs. These lists constitute the chief means for directing the workmen in this particular function by the gang boss.

Instruction Card Foreman and Clerks. The "instruction card," is the chief means employed by the planning department for providing instructions to both the executive foremen and the men in all of the details of their work. It tells them briefly the general and detail drawing to refer to, the piece number and the cost order number to charge the work to, the special jigs, fixtures, or tools to use, where to start each cut, the exact depth of each cut, and how many cuts to take, the speed and feed to be used for each cut, and the time within which each operation must be finished.

Time and Cost Clerk. This man sends to the men through the "time ticket" all the information they need for recording their time and the cost of the work, and secures proper returns from them. He refers these for entry to the cost and time record clerks in the planning room.

Shop Disciplinarian. In case of insubordination or impudence, repeated failure to do their duty, lateness or unexcused absence, the shop disciplinarian takes the workman or bosses in hand and applies the proper remedy. He sees that a complete record of each man's virtues and defects is kept. This man should also have much to do with readjusting the wages of the workmen. One of his important functions should be that of peace-maker to maintain harmony in the shop (discipline for peace and harmony).

-------------------

Taylor's Writing in Detail

Evidently the foreman's duties are in no way clearly circumscribed. It is left each day entirely to his judgment what small part of the mass of duties before him it is most important for him to attend to, and he staggers along under this fraction of the work for which he is responsible, leaving the balance to be done in many cases as the gang bosses and workmen see fit. The second principle calls for such conditions that the daily task can always be accomplished. The conditions in his case are always such that it is impossible for him to do it all, and he never even makes pretence of fulfilling his entire task. The third and fourth principles call for high pay in case the task is successfully done, and low pay in case of failure. The failure to realize the first two conditions, however, renders the application of the last two out of the question.

The foreman usually endeavors to lighten his burdens by delegating his duties to the various assistant foremen or gang bosses in charge of lathes, planers, milling machines, vise work, etc. Each of these men is then called upon to perform duties of almost as great variety as those of the foreman himself. The difficulty in obtaining in one man the variety of special information and the different mental and moral qualities necessary to perform all of the duties demanded of those men has been clearly summarized in the following list of the nine qualities which go to make up a well rounded man:

Brains.

Education.

Special or technical knowledge; manual dexterity or strength.

Tact.

Energy.

Grit.

Honesty.

Judgment or common sense and

Good health.

Plenty of men who possess only three of the above qualities can be hired at any time for laborers' wages. Add four of these qualities together and you get a higher priced man. The man combining five of these qualities begins to be hard to find, and those with six, seven, and eight are almost impossible to get. Having this fact in mind, let us go over the duties which a gang boss in charge, say, of lathes or planers,

is called upon to perform, and note the knowledge and qualities which they call for.

First. He must be a good machinist--and this alone calls for years of special training, and limits the choice to a comparatively small class of men.

Second. He must be able to read drawings readily, and have sufficient imagination to see the work in its finished state clearly before him. This calls for at least a certain amount of brains and education.

Third. He must plan ahead and see that the right jigs, clamps, and appliances, as well as proper cutting tools, are on hand, and are used to set the work correctly in the machine and cut the metal at the right speed and feed. This calls for the ability to concentrate the mind upon a multitude of small details, and take pains with little, uninteresting things.

Fourth. He must see that each man keeps his machine clean and in good order. This calls for the example of a man who is naturally neat and orderly himself.

Fifth. He must see that each man turns out work of the proper quality. This calls for the conservative judgment and the honesty which are the qualities of a good inspector.

Sixth. He must see that the men under him work steadily and fast. To accomplish this he should himself be a hustler, a man of energy, ready to pitch in and infuse life into his men by working faster than they do, and this quality is rarely combined with the painstaking care, the neatness and the conservative judgment demanded as the third, fourth, and fifth requirements of a gang boss.

Seventh. He must constantly look ahead over the whole field of work and see that the parts go to the machines in their proper sequence, and that the right job gets to each machine.

Eighth. He must, at least in a general way, supervise the timekeeping and fix piece work rates. Both the seventh and eighth duties call for a certain amount of clerical work and ability, and this class of work is
almost always repugnant to the man suited to active executive work, and difficult for him to do; and the rate-fixing alone requires the whole time and careful study of a man especially suited to its minute detail.

Ninth. He must discipline the men under him, and readjust their wages; and these duties call for judgment, tact, and judicial fairness.

It is evident, then, that the duties which the ordinary gang boss is called upon to perform would demand of him a large proportion of the nine attributes mentioned above; and if such a man could be found he should be made manager or superintendent of a works instead of gang boss. However, bearing in mind the fact that plenty of men can be had who combine four or five of these attributes, it becomes evident that the work of management should be so subdivided that the various positions can be filled by men of this caliber, and a great part of the art of management undoubtedly lies in planning the work in this way. This can, in the judgment of the writer, be best accomplished by abandoning the military type of organization and introducing two broad and sweeping changes in the art of management:

(a) As far as possible the workmen, as well as the gang bosses and foremen, should be entirely relieved of the work of planning, and of all work which is more or less clerical in its nature. All possible brain work should be removed from the shop and centered in the planning or laying-out department, leaving for the foremen and gang bosses work strictly executive in its nature. Their duties should be to see that the operations planned and directed from the planning room are promptly carried out in the shop. Their time should be spent with the men, teaching them to think ahead, and leading and instructing them in their work.

(b) Throughout the whole field of management the military type of organization should be abandoned, and what may be called the' "functional type" substituted in its place. "Functional management" consists in so dividing the work of management that each man from the assistant superintendent down shall have as few functions as possible to perform. If practicable the work of each man in the management should be confined to the performance of a single leading function. Under the ordinary or military type, the workmen are divided into groups. The men in each group receive their orders from one man only, the foreman or gang boss of that group. This man is the single agent through which the various functions of the management are brought into contact with the men. Certainly the most marked outward characteristic of functional management lies in the fact that each workman, instead of coming in direct contact with the management at one point only, namely, through his gang boss, receives his daily orders and help directly from eight different bosses, each of whom performs his own particular function. Four of these bosses are in the planning room and of these three send their orders to and receive their returns from the men, usually in writing. Four others are in the shop and personally help the men in their work, each boss helping in his own particular `line or function only. Some of these bosses come in contact with each man only once or twice a day and then for a few minutes perhaps, while others are with the men all the time, and help each man frequently. The functions of one or two of these bosses require them to come in contact with each workman for so short a time each day that they can perform their particular duties perhaps for all of the men in the shop, and in their line they manage the entire shop. Other bosses are called upon to help their men so much and so often that each boss can perform his function for but a few men, and in this particular line a number of bosses are required, all performing the same function but each having his particular group of men to help. Thus the grouping of the men in the shop is entirely changed, each workman belonging to eight different groups according to the particular functional boss whom he happens to be working under at the moment.

The following is a brief description of the duties of the four types of executive functional bosses which the writer has found it profitable to use in the active work of the shop: (1) gang bosses, (2) speed bosses, (3) inspectors, and (4) repair bosses.

The gang boss has charge of the preparation of all work up to the time that the piece is set in the machine. It is his duty to see that every man under him has at all times at least one piece of work ahead at his machine, with all the jigs, templates, drawings, driving mechanism, sling chains, etc., ready to go into his machine as soon as the piece he is actually working on is done. The gang boss must show his men how to set their work in their machines in the quickest time, and see that they do it. He is responsible for the work being accurately and quickly set, and should be not only able but willing to pitch in himself and show the men how to set the work in record time.

The speed boss must see that the proper cutting tools are used for each piece of work, that the work is properly driven, that the cuts are started in the right part of the piece, and that the best speeds and feeds and depth of cut are used. His work begins only after the piece is in the lathe or planer, and ends when the actual machining ends. The speed boss must not only advise his men how best to do this work, but he must see that they do it in the quickest time, and that they use the speeds and feeds and depth of cut as directed on the instruction card In many cases he is called upon to demonstrate that the work can be done in the specified time by doing it himself in the presence of his men.

The inspector is responsible for the quality of the work, and both the workmen and speed bosses must see that the work is all finished to suit him. This man can, of course, do his work best if he is a master of the art of finishing work both well and quickly.

The following is an outline of the duties of the four functional bosses who are located in the planning room, and who in their various functions represent the department in its connection with the men. The first three of these send their directions to and receive their returns from the men, mainly in writing. These four representatives of the planning department are, the (1) order of work and route clerk, (2) instruction card clerk, (3) time and cost clerk, and (4) shop disciplinarian.

Order of Work and Route Clerk. After the route clerk in the planning department has laid out the exact route which each piece of work is to travel through the shop from machine to machine in order that it may be finished at the time it is needed for assembling, and the work done in the most economical way, the order of work clerk daily writes lists instructing the workmen and also all of the executive shop bosses as to the exact order in which the work is to be done by each class of machines or men, and these lists constitute the chief means for directing the workmen in this particular function.

Instruction Card Clerks. The "instruction card," as its name indicates, is the chief means employed by the planning department for instructing both the executive bosses and the men in all of the details of their work. It tells them briefly the general and detail drawing to refer to, the piece number and the cost order number to charge the work to, the special jigs, fixtures, or tools to use, where to start each cut, the exact depth of each cut, and how many cuts to take, the speed and feed to be used for each cut, and the time within which each operation must be finished. It also informs them as to the piece rate, the differential rate, or the premium to be paid for completing the task within the specified time (according to the system employed); and further, when necessary, refers them by name to the man who will give them especial directions. This instruction card is filled in by one or more members of the planning department, according to the nature and complication of the instructions, and bears the same relation to the planning room that the drawing does to the drafting room. The man who sends it into the shop and who, in case difficulties are met with in carrying out the instructions, sees that the proper man sweeps these difficulties away, is called the instruction card foreman.

Shop Disciplinarian. In case of insubordination or impudence, repeated failure to do their duty, lateness or unexcused absence, the shop disciplinarian takes the workman or bosses in hand and applies the proper remedy. He sees that a complete record of each man's virtues and defects is kept. This man should also have much to do with readjusting the wages of the workmen. At the very least, he should invariably be consulted before any change is made. One of his important functions should be that of peace-maker.

Thus, under functional foremanship, we see that the work which, under the military type of organization, was done by the single gang boss, is subdivided among eight men:

(1) route clerks, (2) instruction card clerks, (3) cost and time clerks, who plan and give directions from the planning room; (4) gang bosses, (5) speed bosses, (6) inspectors, (7) repair bosses, who show the men how to carry out their instructions, and see that the work is done at the proper speed; and (8) the shop disciplinarian, who performs this function for the entire establishment.

The greatest good resulting from this change is that it becomes possible in a comparatively short time to train bosses who can really and fully perform the functions demanded of them, while under the old system it took years to train men who were after all able to thoroughly perform only a portion of their duties.

A glance at the nine qualities needed for a well rounded man and then at the duties of these functional foremen will show that each of these men requires but a limited number of the nine qualities in order to successfully fill his position; and that the special knowledge which he must acquire forms only a small part of that needed by the old style gang boss. The writer has seen men taken (some of them from the ranks of the workmen, others from the old style bosses and others from among the graduates of industrial schools, technical schools and colleges) and trained to become efficient functional foremen in from six to eighteen months. Thus it becomes possible with functional foremanship to thoroughly and completely equip even a new company starting on a large scale with competent officers in a reasonable time, which is entirely out of the question under the old system. Another great advantage resulting from functional or divided foremanship is that it becomes entirely practicable to apply the four leading principles of management to the bosses as well as to the workmen. Each foreman can have a task assigned him which is so accurately measured that he will be kept fully occupied and still will daily be able to perform his entire function. This renders it possible to pay him high wages when he is successful by giving him a premium similar to that offered the men and leave him with low pay when he

fails.

The full possibilities of functional foremanship, however, will not have been realized until almost all of the machines in the shop are run by men who are of smaller calibre and attainments, and who are therefore cheaper than those required under the old system. The adoption of standard tools, appliances, and methods throughout the shop, the planning done in the planning room and the detailed instructions sent them from this department, added to the direct help received from the four executive bosses, permit the use of comparatively cheap men even on complicated work. Of the men in the machine shop of the Bethlehem Steel Company engaged in running the roughing machines, and who were working under the bonus system when the writer left them, about 95 per cent were handy men trained up from laborers. And on the finishing machines, working on bonus, about 25 per cent were handy men.

To fully understand the importance of the work which was being done by these former laborers, it must be borne in mind that a considerable part of their work was very large and expensive. The forgings which they were engaged in roughing and finishing weighed frequently many tons. Of course they were paid more than laborer's wages, though not as much as skilled machinists. The work in this shop was most miscellaneous in its nature.

Functional foremanship is already in limited use in many of the best managed shops. A number of managers have seen the practical good that arises from allowing two or three men especially trained in their particular lines to deal directly with the men instead of at second hand through the old style gang boss as a mouthpiece. So deep rooted, however, is the conviction that the very foundation of management rests in the military type as represented by the principle that no workman can work under two bosses at the same time, that all of the managers who are making limited use of the functional plan seem to feel it necessary to apologize for or explain away their use of it; as not really in this particular case being a violation of that principle. The writer has never yet found one, except among the works which he had assisted in organizing, who came out squarely and acknowledged that he was using functional foremanship because it was the right principle.

The writer introduced five of the elements of functional foremanship into the management of the small machine shop of the Midvale Steel Company of Philadelphia while he was foreman of that shop in 1882-1883:

(1) the instruction card clerk, (2) the time clerk, (3) the inspector, (4) the gang boss, and (5) the shop disciplinarian.

Each of these functional foremen dealt directly with the workmen instead of giving their orders through the gang boss. The dealings of the instruction card clerk and time clerk with the workmen were mostly in writing, and the writer himself performed the functions of shop disciplinarian, so that it was not until he introduced the inspector, with orders to go straight to the men instead of to the gang boss, that he appreciated the desirability of functional foremanship as a distinct principle in management. The prepossession in favor of the military type was so strong with the managers and owners of Midvale that it was not until years after functional foremanship was in continual use in this shop that he dared to advocate it to his superior officers as the correct principle.

Until very recently in his organization of works he has found it best to first introduce five or six of the elements of functional foremanship quietly, and get them running smoothly in a shop before calling attention to the principle involved. When the time for this announcement comes, it invariably acts as the proverbial red rag on the bull. It was some years later that the writer subdivided the duties of the "old gang boss" who spent his whole time with the men into the four functions of (1) speed boss, (2) repair boss, (3) inspector, and (4) gang boss, and it is the introduction of these four shop bosses directly helping the men (particularly that of the speed boss) in place of the single old

boss, that has produced the greatest improvement in the shop.

When functional foremanship is introduced in a large shop, it is desirable that all of the bosses who are performing the same function should have their own foreman over them; for instance, the speed bosses should have a speed foreman over them, the gang bosses, a head gang boss; the inspectors, a chief inspector, etc., etc. The functions of these over-foremen are twofold. The first part of their work is to teach each of the bosses under them the exact nature of his duties, and at the start, also to nerve and brace them up to the point of insisting that the workmen shall carry out the orders exactly as specified on the instruction cards. This is a difficult task at first, as the workmen have been accustomed for years to do the details of the work to suit themselves, and many of them are intimate friends of the bosses and believe they know quite as much about their business as the latter. The second function of the over-foreman is to smooth out the difficulties which arise between the different types of bosses who in turn directly help the men. The speed boss, for instance, always follows after the gang boss on any particular job in taking charge of the workmen. In this way their respective duties come in contact edgeways, as it were, for a short time, and at the start there is sure to be more or less friction between the two. If two of these bosses meet with a difficulty which they cannot settle, they send for their respective over-foremen, who are usually able to straighten it out. In case the latter are unable to agree on the remedy, the case is referred by them to the assistant superintendent, whose duties, for a certain time at least, may consist largely in arbitrating such difficulties and thus establishing the unwritten code of laws by which the shop is governed. This serves as one example of what is called the "exception principle" in management, which is referred to later.

Before leaving this portion of the subject the writer wishes to call attention to the analogy which functional foremanship bears to the management of a large, up-to-date school. In such a school the children are each day successively taken in hand by one teacher after another who is trained in his particular specialty, and they are in many cases disciplined by a man particularly trained in this function. The old style, one teacher to a class plan is entirely out of date.

F.W. Taylor, Shop Management

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Production Planning and Control - F.W.Taylor

Important Statements.

The speed foreman of the shop must be able to train operators to achieve specified productivity.

The quality foreman of the shop must be able to train operators to produced the specified quality in specified standard time. - F.W. Taylor

Productivity Methods Training - Principle of Industrial Engineering

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Ud 27.1.2026, 18.12.2021, 4.10.2021, 19.9.2021

Pub 4.8.2013