Industrial Engineering: What & Why?,History & Development of Industrial Engineering, Distinctive features of IE, Functions of Industrial Engineering, Scope of Industrial Engineering

Industrial Engineering: What & Why

Before Industrial Engineering

• Engineering history lies back to the beginning of civilization.
• Until the end of 17th century, production meant crafts

• A craftsman used to treat material and assemble the pieces

• Until then a single person used to

• Plan

• Select and supply material

• Produce and control

History & Development of Industrial Engineering

• For the first time the term “Industrial Engineering” appears in 1901 in the journal “The Engineering Magazine” by James Guin

•  The real beginning are connected with Industrial Revolution (1760 to 1840)

• In 1776, James Watt invented the Steam Engine & The beginning of İndustrial Revolution (convert hand production method to machine) & Adam Smith gave the concept of Division of Labour through his book “The Wealth of Nations”

• Frederick Taylor (1881) the father of scientific management & industrial engineering, began first motion & time studies & created efficiency principles

• Period between 1882 to 1912 was the critical period in the history of Industrial Engineering. The concept of Factory system, Owner, Manager, Equal work, Equal pay, incentives, Scheduling, Cost control & Accounting were evolved

• Henry Ford (1913) first used moving Assembly Line & paid workers very well

• Henry L. Gantt (1916) invent the measurement of management result by Gantt Chart

• Frank & Lillian Gilbreth (1917) developed Method study & Work measurement (micro-motion study) as a tool for work analysis

• L.H.C Tippet (1937) developed the concept of Work sampling

Definition of Industrial Engineering

• Fierce Competition in Economy.
• Customers demands are rising.
• Challenge are to produce goods of right quantity, quality, in time & at minimum cost.
• Industrial Engineering plays a pivotal role in meeting these challenges.

American Institute of Industrial Engineers (AIIE) defines Industrial Engineering as:

"Industrial Engineering is concerned with the design, improvement & installation of integrated system of men, materials & equipment. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skills in the mathematical, physical sciences together with the principles and methods of engineering analysis & design to specify, predict & evaluate the results to be obtained from such system."

Prime objective of industrial engineering are:

• To increase the productivity
• Eliminating waste and non-value added activities
• Improving the effective utilization of resources

Distinctive features of IE from other engineering disciplines

• First: IE focuses on the human being in the design of the integrated systems & it requires a thorough understanding of such behavioral & social sciences as psychology & sociology, as well as life sciences as biology, anatomy & human physiology. Thus, Industrial Engineer is more broadly educated than other engineers who acquire skills in very specific areas.

• Second: IE is the only engineering discipline that focuses on Productivity & Quality improvement that is badly needed in the age of globalization & trade liberalization accelerated by the growing impact of information & communication technology.

Industrial Engineering is dealing with the optimization of systems & processes (in given circumstances) & find the most efficient & effective ways to make things (how to do things better’) by optimum utilization of resources.

Functions of Industrial Engineering

Scope of Industrial Engineering

• In early stage, primary focus was in manufacturing & Main objective was:

• Achieving maximum productivity, through the design, improvement & installation of integrated systems of human, machine & equipment

•  Later Stage:

• With the development of Operation Research, Cybernetics, Modern control theory & Computing power, field of IE expanded dramatically

• To-day:

• IE is being applied not only to manufacturing, but also to hospital, consulting firms, sales, government, virtually all types of industries (manufacturing as well as service)

• IE is among the top ranking engineering professions in the developed & fast developing countries (West, Japan, Singapore and even in the Middle East).

• In Bangladesh, IE appeared with the introduction of IPE Dept. in BUET in 1981.

• The demand for IE graduates is steadily increasing albeit at a much slower rate than expected. Many employers are still unaware of the contributions that IE graduates can make to their industries/organizations.

Why is IE Necessary?

IIE (USA) contends that the following benefits can be directly linked to the work of Industrial Engineers

• Leaner, more efficient & profitable business practices while increasing customer service & quality

• Improved efficiency & as a result improved competitiveness & profitability

• Setting of labor & time standards,

• Good organization & improving productivity, essential for long term business

• Increased ability to do more with less focusing on optimization

• Making work safer, faster, easier & more rewarding

• Providing a method for business to analyze their processes & try to make improvements

• Reducing costs associated with new technologies

• Designing safer & easier to use products, etc.

Industrial Engineering is a philosophy that ‘there is always a better way to do things’.

Industrial engineer takes ‘what exists today & conceptualizes what should exist in the future’.