Historical Development of Industrial Engineering - Literature review Example

Historical development of industrial engineering Introduction Industrial engineering used to refer only to manufacturing, but today it refers to a range of things including the way a whole city is designed. It refers to any system of production where all types of resources are planned in a way that makes it easier for optimum utilization. In fact, it is today referred by some as Production engineering or systems engineering in order to deal with the ambiguous or misleading nature of the term industrial. Industrial Engineering can refer to a number of topics which include operational management, which is the science of overseeing and designing production systems and business operations. Industrial engineering is also concerned with job design which involves the specification of jobs and how these jobs relate to each other for optimum productivity (Telsang, 2006). As has been stated, the term industrial engineering used to refer to manufacturing alone and therefore the term in its maiden time used to refer to the design of layout for manufacturing factories. This involved the design of production lines and manufacturing philosophies. History Military science It is believed that industrial engineering has its history way back in the 18th century. As late as the 18th century, the biggest work force for any state was the military (Peppas, 1989). There was need to develop ways to increase the efficiency of the military and that led to emergency of the military science discipline. Military science is involved in the study and development of procedures, institutions, and humans well as organizational behavior with regard to how it can be applied in development of aggressive and defensive forces. It also involves the study of warfare, as well as application of organized military forces. Although military forces had existed for a long time before the 18th century, it is at this time that military science was developed by people such as napoleon. This was to lay the foundation upon which the modern industrial science was to be developed. The quest for mass production The quest for mass production and manufacturing of interchangeable parts was another big step towards the development of the modern industrial engineering. This was about the 19th century especially the latter part. During this time, industrial revolution had reached its peak. Manufacturers, especially manufacturers of equipment wanted to manufacture parts that could be used in the same way. This can be seen even in today’s world where a car part can be used in any car as long as it is the same model. For instance, a windscreen of a Ford Territory can be used in any of the car models. In the quest to manufacture this type of parts, manufacturers had to up their game and this was also another big step in the industrial engineering field. Henry ford and the assembly line If there is one person who contributed a lot in the development of the industrial engineering, it was Henry ford with his famous assembly line. Henry ford was so determined to introduce efficiency in the production of automobiles that he came up with his own production system that enhanced the use of labor. His invention of the assembly line was so good that people were becoming suspicious about his move. The invention of the assembly line was like a crystal ball in the early days of industrial revolution. His invention of the assembly line can be looked together with the quest for mass production and the manufacture of identical parts. The Henry ford assembly line was important in the development of modern industrial engineering because it showed that with proper planning, there are some elements of production that can be made easy, automated and specialized (Salvendy, 2001). This is the core of modern industrial engineering and it can be applied to any industrial engineering project, whether it is the design of an entire city or the design of a manufacturing factory. However, his quest for better and more efficient production systems was not in the light of the modern industrial systems that encompass larger projects like the design of cities, but was focused on the design of manufacturing factories. Developments in industrial engineering Industrial engineering has its history in the early years of industrialization. During this time, the main work for industrial engineers, even if the term had not been coined, was to develop manufacturing systems. The last quarter of the 19th century was the time when the first seeds of industrial engineering were planted. During this time, the industrial revolution was taking place in most parts of the developed world, including the USA and most parts of Europe. The need to streamline and make production systems better and more economical was imminent and people started to look for ways to make production system more efficient. At this time, the profession of industrial engineering was developed and many of the pioneers of industrial engineering were only working on a trial and error method to try and make manufacturing systems to be better. In fact, industrial engineering grew from a number of industries, including mining. For instance, Henri Fayol was one of the pioneers who developed principles of industrial engineering. He was a mining director and used Industrial engineering principles to try and bring in production efficiency in the mine. Henri Fayol was one of the people who believed in organized management as a way to increase efficiency. He believed that people in an organization and not need to know everything about the organization but that they only needed to know only one aspect that is concerned to what they contributed to the organization. This was an important step in industrial engineering as Henri Fayol helped to show how efficiency in systems can be achieved through planning and thorough strategic use of resources. Henri Fayol used this theory in the mining industry to help in improving the production and efficiency in the mining industry. Another important person in the history of industrial engineering was Frederick Winslow Taylor who was a mechanical engineer. He is credited as one of the first people to come up with the principle of scientific management. Frederick Winslow Taylor has been credited even by some management gurus as a father of modern scientific management. He created a scientific management approach that would help in increasing production and efficiency in production system. While his theory entails four tenets, the first and probably the most applicable to industrial engineering in its entire entirety is the principle of replacing rule-of-thumb methods with methods that have been developed and researched scientifically. Expansion of industrial engineering While the above pioneers were very important in the development of industrial engineering, their focus was only in the context of manufacturing factory oriented systems. However, as has been discussed, the modern aspect of systems engineering goes way buying just designing or implementing a manufacturing system. Modern industrial engineering The way industrial engineering has developed into the modern day can be seen in two ways. The first way is the one directed toward the traditional manufacturing setup. This is geared towards manufacturing systems. In this regard, industrial engineering has developed into modern manufacturing systems that are way more efficiency than in the past. This can be seen in three major steps that have been made; Just in time manufacturing Just in time manufacturing is an industrial engineering advancement that tends to look not just look at the manufacturing process but also at the logistics. As a result, just in time manufacturing is geared towards optimizing logistics by saving on the cost of warehouse. To achieve this, JIT involved manufacturing goods only on order (Patil, 2008). When well planned and implemented, it introduces a paradigm of manufacturing and industrial efficiency that has not been achieved before it. Process improvement manufacturing (Japanese style) This was invented by the Japanese. It is an industrial process where the industrial process learns from itself and keeps getting better. It was invented by the Japanese automobile industry as a way to help it get better so as to catch up with the industry in the developed world. Automated manufacturing and specialization Automated manufacturing is another important development in modern manufacturing. This involves the manufacturing of goods where most of the processes are automated. With the computer technology in the modern world, this has been made possible, especially with the use of robots in the production line (assembly line). The other aspect of the development of industrial engineering is the larger aspect of industrial engineering. This has grown to encompass larger aspects such as designing a city. Today’s industrial engineers do not just design manufacturing systems, but are involved in even bigger projects. From operations management to conceptualization of cities, the projects can encompass very huge systems that the engineers are proposed to design implementation. For instance, in designing a city, industrial engineers are the ones who are able to use scientific methods to determine where the water, gas and petroleum pipelines are going to pass through, where the sewer lines should be located, where the industrial areas should be located, how big certain roads should be etc. Bibliography Patil, S. (2008). Industrial Engineering And Management. New York, NY: Technical Publications. Peppas, N. (1989). One Hundred Years of Chemical Engineering: From Lewis M. Norton (M.I.T. 1888) to Present. New York, NY: Springer Science & Business Media. Salvendy, G. (2001). Handbook of Industrial Engineering: Technology and Operations Management. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons. Telsang, M. (2006). Industrial Engineering And Production Management. New York, NY: S. Chand. Read More