Showing posts with label
WHERE INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERS WORK.
Show all posts
Showing posts with label
WHERE INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERS WORK.
Show all posts
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
About occupational health
and safety
Occupational health and safety is relevant in all branches of industry,
business and commerce including traditional industries, information technology
companies, care homes, schools, universities, leisure facilities and offices.
Occupational health and safety affects all aspects of work, that’s why high
hazard manufacturing plant requires many different specialists, such as
engineers (industrial, electrical, mechanical and civil), lawyers, medical
doctors and nurses, trainers, work planners and supervisors, may be required to
assist the professional health and safety practitioner in order to ensure that
there are satisfactory health and safety standards.
Generally, there are many obstacles in the process of achieve good
health and safety standards. The pressure of production or performance targets,
financial constraints and the complexity of the organization are typical
examples of such obstacles. However, there are powerful incentives for
organizations to strive for high health and safety standards. These incentives
are moral, legal and economic.
The corporate
responsibility and the relation with occupational health and safety
Corporate responsibility, a term used extensively in our days, covers a
wide range of issues. It includes the effects that an organization’s business
has on the environment, human rights and common welfare. Health and safety in
the workplace is an important corporate responsibility issue.
One
definition of corporate responsibility
Corporate responsibility has various definitions, however, broadly
speaking it covers the ways in which organizations manage their core business
to add social, environmental and economic value in order to produce a positive, sustainable impact on both society and the business
itself. Terms such as corporate social responsibility and socially responsible
business refer to this concept.
In terms of corporate responsibility, organizations must
work in order to:
- improve management systems to reduce
injuries and ill health
- demonstrate the importance of health and
safety issues at board level
- report publicly on health and safety
issues within their organization, including their performance against targets.
Effective management of health and safety:
- is vital to employee well-being
- has a role to play in enhancing the
reputation of businesses and helping them achieve high-performance teams
- is financially beneficial to business.
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.
Industrial engineering functions
Industrial engineering plays an important role in any organization. Organizations are usually set up with selected industrial engineering functions best suited to their requirements. For example a company manufacturing standardized products may not have operation research functions whereas a manufacturer of precision instruments may heavily rely on quality control functions.
Traditionally, industrial engineering involves different functions, which support manufacturing and service operations in order to improve productivity, safety and workers welfare. These functions, as in the past, are otherwise neglected by many entrepreneurs who are only motivated by profit. Developed countries have long ago realized the physiological needs of their citizens as their life style has improved with the abundance of material resources. Further, with an increase in educated workers, the demand for improved working conditions and better treatment from the owners of enterprises increased. The owners adopted many of the industrial engineering functions to satisfy the employees demand while still maintaining profitability.
Industrial engineering functions can be grouped in different ways to suit an organization’s need. The major groupings, which provide a profile of its involvement, are:
- Methods engineering
- Work measurement
- Planning of facilities and handling of materials
- Statistical quality control
- Production planning and control
- Operations analysis and computer simulation
- Human resources
- Safety at work
- Equipment engineering
- Advanced concepts and strategies
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.
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
