Methods engineering
It includes designing, creating and selecting the best manufacturing methods, processes, tools, equipment, and skills to manufacture a product. When the best method interacts with the best skills and efficient worker-machine relationship exists. Of course, when one method is established, then a standard time for the product can be determined.
Methods engineering definition
We can define methods engineering as the technique for increasing the production per unit of time or decreasing the cost per unit output. Alternatively, it can be viewed as the technique that looks for productivity improvement.
Method engineering implies the following during the history of a product:
- It is responsible for the design of the work center where the product will be produced;
- It is responsible for the continuous improvement of the work center with the purpose of find a better way to produce the product or improve its quality. This analysis is also called corporate reengineering.
- Methods engineering is in constant development because of the technological evolution. In this sense, the improvements in productivity are never ends. Research and development is therefore essential to methods engineering.
The procedure of methods engineering
Methods engineering use a systematic procedure that can be summarized in the following steps:
- Select the project
- Get and present the data
- Analyze de data
- Develop the ideal method
- Present and install the method
- Develop a job evaluation
- Establish time standards
- Follow up the method
Useful definitions related to productivity
There are some terms that are frequently used when we are talking about productivity or methods of performance measurement. These terms are the following:
- Productivity;
- Total factor productivity;
- Production frontier;
- Technical efficiency;
- Feasible production set.
The definition of productivityWe can define productivity of a firm as the ratio of the output that it produces to the input that it uses.When the product process involves a single input and a single output, productivity can be found easily. However, when there is more than one input, which is often the case, then a method for aggregating these inputs into a single index of inputs must be used to obtain a ratio measure of productivity.Total factor productivityWhen we are talking about productivity, generally we are referring to total factor productivity, which is a productivity measure that involves all factors of production. Other measures of productivity, such as labor productivity, fuel productivity and land productivity, are often called partial measures of productivity. These partial productivity measures can provide a misleading indication of overall productivity when considered isolated.Production frontierProduction frontier may be used to define the relationship between the input and the output. The production frontier represents the maximum output attainable from each input level.Technical efficiencyWhen firms operate in the production frontier they are technically efficient.Feasible production setIt is the set of all input-output combinations that are feasible. This set consists of all points below the production frontier. The points along the production frontier define the efficient subset of this feasible production set.
Productivity
and performance measurement
Productivity
is concerned with measuring the performance of firms, which convert
inputs into outputs. An example of a firm is a computer factory that
uses material, labor and capital (inputs) to produce computers
(output). The performance of this kind of factory can be defined in
some ways. For example a basic measure of performance is a
productivity ratio.
What
is a productivity ratio?
It
is the ratio of outputs to inputs, where larger values of this ratio
are associated with better performance.
Note
that performance is a relative concept, because for example, the
performance of the factory in 2021 can be measured relative to its
2020 performance, or 2019, or 2010, etc.
The
methods of performance measurement can be applied to a variety of
firms or “decision making unit”, as can be named in some of the
literature on productivity and efficiency analysis. They can be
applied to private sectors firms producing goods or to service
industries. The methods may also be used by a particular firm to
analyze the relative performance of units within the firm or to
measure the performance in non-profit organizations.
Even
the context of productivity analysis mentioned above involve
micro-level data, the methods can be used for making performance
comparisons at higher levels of aggregation, like the performance of
an industry over time or across geographical regions, and so on and
so forth.
The
methods of performance measurement differ according to the type of
measures they produce, the data they require and the assumptions they
make regarding the structure of the production technology and the
economic behavior of decision makers.
What
are the requirements for performance measurement?
Some
methods only require data on quantities of inputs and outputs while
other methods also require price data and various behavioral
assumptions, such as cost minimization, profit maximization, etc.
Industrial Accidents and
industrial safety
The industrialization
process has brought a large number of problems; one of them is related to
industrial accidents. With advances in industrial processes, new type of
dangers to life, limb and health are being increasingly introduced. Everyday
employees are injured in factories due to accidents. The accidents may be
caused as a result on any kind of unsafe activity, or act in their part or
chance occurrences, or as a result of some unsafe working conditions or unsafe
act of employees themselves, or defective plant or shop layout. The pain and
suffering of the injured as well as the emotional loss to the victims of the
accidents causing permanent disabilities are impossible to be summed up and
evaluated.
What’s the definition of
accident?
The most agreed definition
of accident is “It is an unplanned and uncontrolled event which causes or is
likely to cause an injury”.
Types of accidents in
industry
Accidents in industry can
be classified using different criteria. Specific classifications are shown in
the next lines.
According to causes of
events
Machine accidents
Machines are responsible
for a large number of accidents in an industry. Depending on the way harm is
caused, accidents from machines can be classified into the following groups:
- Contact: physical
contact of the body with any moving part of a machine;
- Impact: parts
of the body are violently hit by moving parts of machines;
- Traps: parts
of the body coming between the moving parts which mostly lead to crushing of
parts of body trapped;
- Ejection of particles: parts
projected at high velocity from the machine, which causes serious injury when
they hit the parts of the moving body.
Non machine accidents
In this type we include:
Fall of persons which can
be due to
- Tripping over obstacles on
ground
- Slipping due to oily or
greasy substances
- Running inside the shop,
sudden fear or excitement
Fall from a height which
can be due to
- Lack of firm foot hold or
unsafe postures
- Working on a machine at a
height
- Leaning from ladder to
reach a distant object
- Strike against the objects
- Pushes by other persons on
the slop
According to length of
recovery
- Lost time accidents:
lost time accidents are those in which worker loses a day or shift in which
accident occurred. These require payment of compensation to employee to
employer.
- Home-case accidents:
in this type of accidents, worker loses the remainder of shift or turn on which
the accident has occurred.
- First aid cases:
in these, workers receive first aid attention at plant hospital and then
returns to their job.
According to nature of
injury
- Fatal accidents:
in which the worker or more are killed.
- Permanent disablement:
which incapacitate an employee and makes it impossible for him to engage in any
work, which was capable of performing at the time of the accident.
- Temporary disablement:
this reduces the earning capacity of an individual in the employment.
Productivity and industrial engineering
What
is productivity?
Applied
in an enterprise, a sector of economic activity or the economy as a
whole, productivity may be defined as an output and input relation.
The
term productivity can be used to asses or measure the extent to which
a certain output can be extracted from a given input. This may
appears simple enough in cases where both the output and the input
are tangible and can be easily measured; however, in cases where
intangibles are introduced measure of productivity can be more
difficult.
Calculation
of productivity
Productivity
can be calculated as follows:
Productivity
and industrial engineering in goods production
In
the case of goods production, the objective is the manufacturing to a
better cost, through the raw material, with productivity of the
primary resources of production: Materials, human resources and
machines. It's on these, where the action of industrial engineers
should address their efforts. Increasing productivity indexes and
reducing production costs, are fundamental tasks of an industrial
engineer.
The domain of industrial and systems engineering
Definition of
Industrial and Systems Engineering
According
with Womack and Jones (1996),
an Industrial and Systems Engineer is one who is concerned with the
design, installation, and improvement of integrated systems of
people, material, information, equipment, and energy by drawing upon
specialized knowledge and skills 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’’.
The
work of and industrial and systems engineering
But,
what kind of system is it that Industrial and Systems Engineering
work to optimize? In the context of organizations, we can say that
the ultimate system of interest is the extended enterprise.
Industrial
and system engineers must see how performance improvement in the
target subsystem (warehouse layout, work cell configuration, display
/human-equipment interface, queue design, simulation, supply chain,
etc.) serves the higher good or works to optimize the performance of
the larger system.
The
domain of industrial and systems engineering
Basically,
industrial and systems engineering works in four areas: manufacturing
systems engineering, management systems, operations research and
human factors engineering. Of course, each of these areas needs basic
knowledge of mathematics, accounting, economics, statistics,
psychology, etc.
A
simple representation of the domain of industrial and systems
engineering is shown below.
The
Industrial and systems engineering value proposition isn’t only
knowledge; it is the ability to reduce that knowledge to practice in
such a way that it produces positive business results.
About Industrial engineering
Nowadays economic scenario is marked by increasing competition in almost every sector of economy. The expectations of customers are on rise and manufacturers have to design and products in order to satisfy them. Thus, there is a challenge before the industries to manufacture goods of right quantity and quality and at the right time and at minimum cost for their survival and growth. This demands an increase in productive efficiency of organizations. Industrial engineering plays a vital role in increasing the productivity. Industrial engineering techniques are used to analyze and improve the work methods in order to eliminate waste and proper allocation and utilization of resources.
How can industrial engineering be defined?
Industrial engineering can be defined as a profession in which a knowledge of mathematical and natural sciences gained by study, experience and practice is applied with judgment to develop the ways to utilize economically the materials and other natural resources and forces of nature for the benefit of mankind.
The American Institute of Industrial Engineers define industrial engineering as:
Industrial engineering is concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of men, material and equipment. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skills in the mathematical, physical 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.
The prime objective of industrial engineering is to increase the productivity by eliminating waste and non-value adding (unproductive) operations and improving the effective utilization of resources.
About industrial engineer job
What can we say about an industrial engineering job?
An industrial engineer’s job is to find the best combination of people, tools, materials, parts, information and power to provide products or services efficiently. In contrast to other engineering specialties such as civil engineering or mechanical engineering, industrial engineering track isn’t restricted to one industry or type of work. It may be industrial in the sense of working in a traditional manufacturing, mining or transportation environment. Or it can lead to work for a financial services firm, a government agency or a magazine publisher.
Industrial engineers research, analyze, model and test whole systems. They’re efficiency experts; safety engineers; ergonomics engineers; environmental health engineers; and in many cases, managers, principals or business owners. Al most any organization that you can name has a need for someone who understands what all the factors affecting its mission are, how they’re related, and what can be done to make it all work better. That’s what industrial engineering does – it makes a system, a process or an organization work better.
What is the concept of Industrial Engineering
In order to maximize his earnings and enhance his living standards, man has always attempted to improve his processes, methods and tools in order to improve the productivity of his resources. That continued effort gave birth the joint of Industrial Engineering and Production Management.
About the concept of Industrial Engineering, some books and autors tell us that Industrial Engineering is concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated system of men, material and machines for the benefit of mankind. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skills in the mathematical and physical 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?
Industrial engineering can be described as the practical application of combination of engineering fields, together with the principles of scientific management. It is the engineering of work processes and the application of engineering methods, practices, and knowledge to production and service enterprises. Industrial engineering places a strong emphasis on an understanding of workers and their needs in order to increase and improve production and service activities. Industrial engineering activities and techniques include the following:
- Designing jobs (determining the most economic way to perform work).
- Setting performance standards and benchmarks for quality, quantity, and cost.
- Designing and installing facilities.
An important aspect of industrial engineering is its concern with the human element in industrial processes. The classical industrial engineering of the late 19th and early 20th centuries emphasized time studies, work sampling, methods engineering, costing methods, and employee incentives to make human interaction with industrial processes cost effective and reliable. Modern industrial engineering, in addition to the classical methods, deals with mathematical process modelling, management science methods, automation, and robotics. The use of advanced mathematical methods has become possible with the advent of computers.
Mathematical process modelling allows the consideration of all available information on a process and the prediction of outcomes for given inputs and process parameters. The work of industrial engineers is varied and ranges from practical aspects of data gathering and analysis to the use of advanced mathematical methods of process simulation and optimization, as firms seek to reduce costs and increase productivity. Industrial engineers are in demand in all industries, ranging from manufacturing to service enterprises.
DEFINITIONS ABOUT INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING
Here are some extremely wordy definitions which attempt to say the same thing
What is Industrial Engineering?
Industrial engineers focus on systems and how system components fit together. They often are the people who lead the way in understanding how to use the finite resources of the world to the maximum advantage. Industrial engineers must understand people as well as technology. Consequently, industrial engineering draws upon a variety of different disciplines, from mathematics to psychology, from communications to computer science, from production management to process control.
What is Industrial Engineering?
Industrial engineering is concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of people, material, information, equipment and energy. It draws upon specialized knowledge and skills 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?
Industrial engineering (IE) is about choices. Other engineering disciplines apply skills to very specific areas. Industrial engineering gives you the opportunity to work in lots of different kinds of businesses. The most distinctive aspect of industrial engineering is the flexibility that it offers. Whether it's shortening a rollercoaster line, streamlining an operating room, distributing products worldwide, or manufacturing superior automobiles... It's all in a day's work for an industrial engineer.
What is Industrial Engineering?
Industrial engineers determine the most effective ways for an organization to use the basic factors of production—people, machines, materials, information, and energy—to make or process a product or produce a service. They are the bridge between management goals and operational performance. They are more concerned with increasing productivity through the management of people, methods of business organization, and technology than are engineers in other specialties, who generally work more with products or processes.
A DEFINITION 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.
INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING DEFINITIONS
A branch of engineering dealing with the design, development, and implementation of integrated systems of humans, machines, and information resources to provide products and services. Industrial engineering encompasses specialized knowledge and skills in the physical, social, engineering, and management sciences, such as human and cognitive sciences, computer systems and information technologies, manufacturing processes, operations research, production, and automation. The industrial engineer integrates people into the design and development of systems, thus requiring an understanding of the physical, physiological, psychological, and other characteristics that govern and affect the performance of individuals and groups in working environments.
Industrial engineering is a broad field compared to other engineering disciplines. The major activities of industrial engineering stem from manufacturing industries and include work methods analysis and improvement; work measurement and the establishment of standards; machine tool analysis and design; job and workplace design; plant layout and facility design; materials handling; cost reduction; production planning and scheduling; inventory control, maintenance, and replacement; statistical quality control; scheduling; assembly-line balancing, systems, and procedures; and overall productivity improvement. Computers and information systems have necessitated additional activities and functions, including numerically controlled machine installation and programming; manufacturing systems design; computer-aided design/computer-aided manufacturing, design of experiments, quality engineering, and statistical process control; computer simulation, operations research, and management science methods; computer applications, software development, and information technology; human-factors engineering and ergonomics; systems design and integration; and robotics and automation.
The philosophy and motivation of the industrial engineering profession is to find the most efficient and effective methods, procedures, and processes for an operating system, and to seek continuous improvement. Thus, industrial engineering helps organizations grow and expand efficiently during periods of prosperity, and streamline costs and consolidate and reallocate resources during austere times. Industrial engineers, particularly those involved in manufacturing and related industries, work closely with management. Therefore, some understanding of organizational behavior, finance, management, and related business principles and practices is needed.
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.
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.
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 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).
