INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING – WORKING CONDITIONS
Industrial engineers spend part of their time in factories, observing operations and trying to spot problems. At times, they must travel to construction sites, laboratories, industrial plants, transportation facilities, warehouses, and other places that are part of their company's total operations. Most of their time is spent in offices, where they monitor or direct operations, identifying and solving problems and working to improve efficiency. Many engineers work a standard forty-hour week. At times, deadlines or design standards may bring extra pressure to a job, requiring longer hours.
EARNINGS AND BENEFITS
Earnings for engineers vary significantly by specialty. Even so, as a group engineers earn some of the highest average starting salaries among those holding bachelor's degrees. Petroleum and nuclear engineers earn the highest median wage, while agricultural engineers earn the lowest. Beginning industrial engineers with bachelor's degrees earn a median annual salary of $49,567 in private industry. Those with master's degrees earn about $56,561 a year. The median annual income for all industrial engineers is $65,020. Benefits include paid holidays and vacations, health insurance, and pension plans.
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING - GETTING THE JOB
The placement offices in universities or engineering schools can provide information about getting a job as an industrial engineer. Professional and trade publications as well as newspaper want ads and Internet job sites often list job openings. Applicants may apply directly to manufacturing companies that are likely to need industrial engineers.
ADVANCEMENT POSSIBILITIES AND EMPLOYMENT OUTLOOK
Advancement usually depends on education and experience. Industrial engineers are often promoted to jobs as managers and executives. Others advance by improving their skills and becoming experts in one industry or in one phase of industrial engineering. Some start their own engineering consulting firms or manufacturing companies.
The field of industrial engineering is expected to grow about as fast as the national average for all occupations through 2014. The job outlook is good. As firms seek to reduce costs and increase productivity, they are anticipated to turn increasingly to industrial engineers to develop more efficient processes to reduce costs, delays, and waste. Because their work is similar to that done in management occupations, many industrial engineers leave the occupation to become managers. Many job openings are expected to be created by the need to replace the industrial engineers who transfer to other occupations or leave the labor force.
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING EDUCATION AND TRAINING REQUIREMENTS A bachelor's degree in industrial engineering is required for almost all entry-level industrial engineering jobs. College graduates with degrees in a physical science or mathematics may occasionally qualify for some engineering jobs, especially in specialties in high demand.
Most engineering programs involve a concentration of study in an engineering specialty, along with courses in both mathematics and science. Many programs also include courses in general engineering. A design course, often accompanied by a computer or laboratory class, is part of the curriculum of most programs.
HOW SHOULD BE AN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER? Industrial engineers must be good at solving problems. They must combine their technical knowledge with a sense of human capabilities and limitations. They should be able to organize many details into a broad view of the total operations and organization of a company. Although much of their work is done independently, industrial engineers must also be able to cooperate with other engineers, technicians, and managers. They must be able to talk with production workers and be willing to understand their concerns. Since they may present their plans in the form of written reports or oral presentations, industrial engineers must have good communication skills.
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING DEFINITION
Industrial engineers determine the most effective ways to use the basic factors of production—people, machines, materials, information, and energy—to make a product.
They are primarily concerned with increasing productivity through the management of people, methods of business organization, and technology. To solve organizational, production, and related problems efficiently, industrial engineers carefully study the product requirements, use mathematical methods to meet those requirements, and design manufacturing and information systems. They develop management control systems to aid in financial planning and cost analysis, and design production planning and control systems to coordinate activities and ensure product quality. They also design or improve systems for the physical distribution of goods and services, as well as determining the most efficient plant locations. Industrial engineers develop wage and salary administration systems and job evaluation programs. Many industrial engineers move into management positions because the work is closely related to the work of managers.
WHAT INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERS DO? So what do industrial engineers do to increase productivity and assure quality?
An Industrial Engineer can perform several activities to fulfill its task:
Processes and Procedures of manufacturing or service activities can be examined through Process Analysis.
They can Use Work Study comprehending Method Study and Time Study. Method Study is the Study of How a job is performed examining and recording the activities, operators, equipment and materials involved in the process. Time Study records and rates the times of jobs being performed. The mentioned activities are also called operations Management. Furthermore can Industrial Engineering involve inventory management to make a manufacturing process more feasible and efficient. Industrial Engineers are also involved in design activities for Products, Equipment, Plants and Workstations. Here ergonomics and motion economy play a role. Last but not least is the Industrial Engineer playing an important role in developing Quality Management Systems (as they i.e. should comply with the ISO 9000 Standards). Here they often have job titles like Quality Engineer or Quality Manager.
DEFINITION OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING - THE WORK OF AN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER The field of engineering is subdivided in several major disciplines like mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, civil engineering, electronical engineering, chemical engineering, metallurgical engineering, and also industrial engineering. Certainly this discipline can also be subdivided further. Industrial Engineering integrates knowledge and skills from several fields of science: From the Technical Sciences, Economic Sciences as well as Human Science - all these can also be supported with skills in Information Sciences.
The Industrial Engineer comprehends knowledge in those sciences in order to increase the productivity of processes, achieve quality products and assures Labour safety.
WHERE DO INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERS WORK? The term “industrial” actually applies to “any organization”. Industrial engineering gives the graduates the opportunity to work in all kinds of business; manufacturing firms, service industries, and municipal and government organizations.
Some sample projects of IE’s are as follows:
- Preparing the night shift schedule at a hospital
- Performing production planning activities of a manufacturing firm
- Developing layout of a bank
- Simulation modelling
- Designing a product that will prevent worker injury
WHAT DO INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERS DO? Industrial engineers (IEs) figure out how to do things better, drawing upon specialised knowledge and skills in the mathematical and physical sciences, engineering sciences, humanities and the social sciences to analyse, design, improve, control and evaluate production systems.
Some benefits that can be directly linked to the work of industrial engineers include;
- More efficient and more profitable business practices while increasing customer service and quality,
- Good organization,
- Increased ability to do more with less,
- Making work safer, faster, easier, and more rewarding,
- Reducing the costs associated with new technologies,
- Showing ways to improve the working environments.
WHAT IS INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING? Industrial engineering is a discipline concerned with the design, improvement and the installation of the systems for organising the basic resources – people, materials, equipment, energy and information – to produce goods and services.
¿WHAT’S DE MEANING OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING?
Industrial engineering is also operations management, systems engineering, production engineering, manufacturing engineering or manufacturing systems engineering; a distinction that seems to depend on the viewpoint or motives of the user. Recruiters or educational establishments use the names to differentiate themselves from others. In healthcare, industrial engineers are more commonly known as management engineers or health systems engineers.
Where as most engineering disciplines apply skills to very specific areas, industrial engineering is applied in virtually every industry. Examples of where industrial engineering might be used include shortening lines (or queues) at a theme park, streamlining an operating room, distributing products worldwide (also referred to as Supply Chain Management), and manufacturing cheaper and more reliable automobiles. Industrial engineers typically use computer simulation, especially discrete event simulation, for system analysis and evaluation.
The name "industrial engineer" can be misleading. While the term originally applied to manufacturing, it has grown to encompass services and other industries as well. Similar fields include Operations Research, Management Science, Financial Engineering, Supply Chain, Manufacturing Engineering, Engineering Management, Overall Equipment Effectiveness, Systems Engineering, Ergonomics, Process Engineering, Value Engineering and Quality Engineering.
There are a number of things industrial engineers do in their work to make processes more efficient, to make products more manufacturable and consistent in their quality, and to increase productivity.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE TOPICS THE INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER STUDIES? (Part V)
Material
The IE is concerned with the delivery and flow of material throughout the plant, often the plant has evolved as the company has.
Lot size
To allow the manufacturer to stay flexible the production lot sizes should be minimalized. This will only be economical after the reduction of machine set-ups have been achieved.
Inventory Levels
Since inventory is capital that cannot be converted until finished and purchased by a consumer, it should be kept to a minimal. Inventories not only tie up capital but if the customer requests a change then the inventory runs the risk of becoming obsolete.
Quality
The quality of the material can affect all parts of the system. Poor quality material often introduces excessive amounts of rework into each of the processes. A typical job for an IE would be to work with the quality department to set up a Quality Management system QMS.
Maintenance
The amount of maintenance that the machine is going to require is a variable that must be considered. Another issue about maintenance is whether or not the staff on hand will need to be retrained.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE TOPICS THE INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER STUDIES? (Part IV)
Set-Up Times
Set up time is the amount of time it takes to begin producing different parts on a machine. If set-up times remain large the company will operate with high levels of work in progress and finished goods tying up the companies valuable capital. Companies that fail to reduce their set-up times have a tendency to look sluggish in regards to their customers.
Cost
An IE will generally be responsible for coming up with a cost analysis on the equipment purchase. There are a several ways of coming up with this. Lifehow long the machine is expected to last when developing the cost analysis.
Efficiency
The traditional way of looking at efficiency was to keep the machine running at a 100%. The idea was the cost of the machine could be spread out over the amount of time it was kept running. The higher the machines efficiency, time running / time available, the better the accounting numbers looked in regards to machine cost.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE TOPICS THE INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER STUDIES? (Part III)
Performing a time study
Without a standard the company will find it hard to estimate lead-time on their products. Times very greatly when the employee does not know what the expectation of company is. In order to correct this problem the IE will develop a fair standard expectation for each operation. It has been estimated that 12% of a company's total cost comes from direct labor. Another 43% of cost comes from the material cost. The other 45% is spent in overhead. So the idea that the largest productivity gains can be felt on the floor does not hold up in this light. Standards will be set for all parts of the company not just the operations performed by the direct laborers. The IE will be involved in analyzing and standardizing office work as well.
A good time study will take into account the unavoidable delays, fatigue, and to an extent, outside interferences. Time for wasteful steps, such as searching for tools, will not be included in the final standard. The expectation is that the workplace will be designed to accommodate the work and will be free from this type of waste.
By setting a performance standard the company can look at the schedule for the next year and determine if they have the proper amount of manpower. Prior to establishing standards the company would have to go on their gut feelings about the current capacity and need for additional help.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE TOPICS THE INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER STUDIES? (Part II)
Performing a motion study
Every job can be broken down into its’ fundamental work elements. The Gilbreth family found that there are seventeen of these motions. The time to complete each motion does not change. This is the important part. Jobs can be studied visually or through the assistance of a camera for micro-motion studies.
Whether the study is visual or micro the IE will be applying the same rules of motion economy to the person, environment and tools. The rules that are applied to the person, intend to help the person move in a more balanced and synchronized manner. For example, both hands should begin and end moving at around the same time. Foot pedal devices should only be used when the operator can sit down.
The environment for the workers also needs to be set up to promote efficiency of work. Tools should be placed in fixed locations to eliminate the search and selection therbligs. Work surfaces and chairs should be adjusted to the correct working heights to eliminate stress. Whenever possible, gravity feeders should be used to deliver parts to the correct location. The worker's tools should be designed to eliminate multiple cuts. Adjustment handles should be designed to maximize the operator’s mechanical advantage.
The process above is a continuous process. To stay competitive companies must continue to increase the production capacity of their facilities while reducing their cost. The IE will be expected to come up with additional improvements each year.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE TOPICS THE INDUSTRIAL ENGINEER STUDIES? (Part I)
PeopleThis area is what sets industrial engineering apart from the other engineering disciplines. The IE undergoes several courses in psychology and social science to help them understand some of the work place dynamics involved in managing people. It also helps them develop effective methods of dealing with these problems.
Other areas of concern for the IE are how many people are required, is the job designed correctly for a human operator (Ergonomics), is the operation safe, what level of pay should be offered for the work, does the job require the employee to get more training, and is there good communication between management and their employers.
Manpower Requirements
To understand the manpower requirement a great deal of time study and motion study activity will need to occur. Depending on the company’s policies for setting work standards one of several methods will be chosen.
THE HISTORY OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING (Part V)
During the 1960s, and after, Universities began to adopt operation research techniques and add them to the curriculum for the Industrial Engineering Degree. Now for the first time the methods of industrial engineering could rest on an analytical foundation, instead of the old method of empiricism. New developments in mathematics for optimization as well as new methods of advanced statistical analysis helped to fill in the holes once left by the purely theoretical approach. However, problems where extremely large and complex to and until the digital computer was developed processing this kind of information was almost impossible.
With Digital Computer and mass storage capabilities the industrial engineer had a brand new tool for calculating massive problems quickly. Prior to the computer computations on a system would take weeks or months if possible at all, but with the computer and the development of sub-routines, calculations could be done in minutes and easily repeated with new problem criteria. With the storage capabilities of the modern digital computer, results from previous systems could be saved and compared with new information. This data gave industrial engineers a powerful way of studying production systems and their reaction to change.
THE HISTORY OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING (Part IV)
When the United States entered World War II the government enlisted scientist to study there war plans, production methods, and logistics. These scientists developed a number of techniques for modelling and predicting optimal solutions. Later when this information was declassified the field of Operation Research was born. Much of the work was still highly theoretical and a good understanding of how to apply it in the real world did not exist. Engineers tended to ignore the developments in this field because of this. This intern caused the gap between the Operation Research (OR) group and the engineering profession to widen. Only a few companies where quick to develop Operation Research departments and capitalize on the benefits afforded by this new type of analytical modeling.
In 1948 a new society, the American Institute for Industrial Engineers (AIIE), was opened for the first time and began to give a more professional authenticity for the practicing engineers. Up to this time industrial engineers really had no specific place in the hierarchy of a company. Depending on the primary focus of the industrial engineering department the IE may end up in engineering, manufacturing, or personnel. The ASME was the only other society that required its members to have an engineering degree prior to the development of the AIIE.
THE HISTORY OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING (Part III)
No history of industrial engineering would be complete without mentioning Fredrick Winslow Taylor. Taylor is probably the best known of the pioneers in industrial engineering. He used the ASME as present his ideas on the organization of work by management. He coined the term "scientific management" to describe the methods he developed through empirical studies. His work, like others, covered topics such as the organization of work by management, worker selection, training, and additional compensation for those individuals that could meet the standard as developed by the company through his methods. The Taylor method of Scientific Management had far reaching effects on the industrial revolution, in America, and abroad.
The Gilbreth family is accredited with the development of time and motion studies. Frank Bunker Gilbreth and his wife Dr. Lillian M. Gilbreth worked on understanding fatigue, skill development, motion studies, as well as time studies. Lillian Gilbreth had a Ph.D. in psychology which helped in understanding the many people issues. The Gilbreth family was interested in the "one best way" to do work. One of the most significant things the Gilbreth family did was to classify the basic human motions into seventeen types, some effective and some non-effective. They labeled the table of classification therbligs (Gilbreth spelled backwards). Effective therbligs are useful in accomplishing work and non-effective therbligs are not. Gilbreth concluded that the time to complete an effective therblig can be shortened but will be very hard to eliminate. On the other hand non-effective therbligs should be completely eliminated if possible. Gilbreth claims that any form of work can be broken down into these simple types of work.
THE HISTORY OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING (Part II)
In the United States during the later part of the nineteenth century more developments where being made that would lead to the formalization of industrial engineering. Henry R. Towne stressed the economic aspect of an engineer’s job. How was the engineer going to improve the bottom line for the company? Towne belonged to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) as did many other early American pioneers in this new field. It was to the ASME that Towne expressed the need to develop a field focused on manufacturing systems. The IE handbook says the, "ASME was the breeding ground for industrial engineering."[2] Towne along with Fredrick A. Halsey worked on developing and presenting wage incentive plans to the ASME. It was out of these meetings that the Halsey premium plan of wage payment developed. The purpose of his plan was to increase the productivity of workers without negatively affecting the cost of production. The plan also suggested that some of the gains be shared with the employees as an incentive to keep it going. This is one early example of one profit sharing plan.
Henry L. Gantt also belonged to the ASME and was interested in selection of workers and their training. He, like Towne and Halsey, would present papers to the ASME on topics such as cost, selection of workers, training, good incentive plans, and scheduling of work. He is the originator of the Gantt chart, currently the most popular chart used in scheduling of work. Today however, the Gantt chart is coupled with statistics to make more accurate predictions. Other types of charts that have developed out of the early scheduling efforts are the Program Evaluation and Review Technique (PERT) and Critical Path Mapping (CPM).
THE HISTORY OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING (Part I)
The origins of industrial engineering can be traced back to many different sources. Fredrick Winslow Taylor is most often considered as the father of industrial engineering even though all his ideas where not original. Some of the preceding influences may have been Adam Smith's treatise The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, Thomas Malthus’s Essay on Population, published in 1798, David Ricardo’s Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, published in 1817, and John Stuart Mill’s Principles of Political Economy, published in 1848. All of these works provided Classical Liberal explanations for the successes and limitations of the Industrial Revolution. Adam Smith was an economist as were most of his contemporaries at the time. "Economic Science" is the phrase to describe this field in England prior to American industrialization. The amount of influence this literature had on Taylor is unknown.
Another major contributor to the field and precursor to Taylor was Charles W. Babbage. Babbage was mathematics professor at Cambridge University. One of his major contributions to the field was his book On the Economy of Machinery and Manufacturers in 1832. In this book he discusses many different topics dealing with manufacturing, a few of which will be extremely familiar to an IE. Babbage discusses the idea of the learning curve, the division of task and how learning is affected, and the effect of learning on the generation of waste. He also was very interested in different methods of wage administration and even suggested profit sharing as a viable approach. Charles Babbage was the first person to suggest building a mechanical computer, "analytical calculating machine" as he called it, for the purpose of solving complex mathematical problems. An idea that is far beyond the technology of his time but later proves to be a valuable concept to the modern IE.
¿WHAT IS INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING? (Part II)
The Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology defines industrial engineering as: the profession in which a knowledge of the mathematical and natural sciences gained by study, experience and practice is applied with judgment to develop ways to utilize economically, the materials and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of people, materials, equipment and energy. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skill in the mathematical, physical and social sciences together with the principles and methods of engineering analysis and design to specify predict and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems.
¿WHAT IS INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING? (Part I)
The American Institute of Industrial Engineers (AIIE) defines industrial engineering as concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of people, materials, equipment and energy. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skill in the mathematical, physical and social sciences together with the principles and methods of engineering analysis and design to specify predict and evaluate the results to be obtained from such systems.
WHAT IS INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING?Here you have some definitions about industrial engineering:
According to the American Institute of Industrial Engineers, Industrial Engineering is concerned with the design, improvement and installation of an integrated system of men, machine and equipment.
A field of engineering concerned with the analysis and design of systems for organizing the basic production resources such as personnel, information, materials, and equipment. Industrial engineers use mathematics, the physical and engineering sciences, and the management and behavioral sciences.
Industrial engineering, industrial management (the branch of engineering that deals with the creation and management of systems that integrate people and materials and energy in productive ways).
