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Introduction to Industrial Engineering

Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering that concerns with the development,

improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge,
information, equipment, energy, material and process. It also deals with designing new prototypes to
help save money and make the prototype better. Industrial engineering draws upon the principles
and methods of engineering analysis and synthesis, as well as 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.
Industrial engineers (IEs) apply science, mathematics, and engineering methods to complex
system integration and operations.

Industrial Engineering defined:

Industrial engineering has been defined as the engineering approach applied to all factors,
including human factors involved in the production and distribution of products or services.
The art and science of utilizing and coordinating men, equipment and materials to attain a
desired quantity and quality of output at a specified time and at an optimum cost. This may
include gathering , analyzing and acting upon facts pertaining to building and facilities,
layouts, personnel organization, operating procedures, methods, processes, schedules, time
standards, wage rates, wage payment plans, costs and systems for controlling the quality and
quantity of goals and services (ASME)
American Institute of Industrial Engineers has defined the special field of 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.
Functions of Industrial Engineering:
1) Organizational and Management Methods
2) Site Selection and plant Layout
3) Materials Handling Methods
4) Methods Engineering
5) Time Study
6) Production Planning Control
7) Quality Control
8) Cost Control
9) Job Evaluation
10) Wage Incentive
11) Operation Research

Growth of Industrial Engineering

I.E.
Mfg.Engg.

1.
2.

Equipment
specification
Tools, Jigs &
Fixtures Design

Methods
Engineering.

PPC

Inspection &
Quality
Control

Through
Operation Analysis and
Motion Analysis
Achieve
Standardization of methods
1. Work Measurement
2. Determination of Allowance
3. Computation of standard
time

Plant Design

PPC
1. MM
2. Machinery & Man
power
3. Routing
4. Estimating
5. Scheduling
6. Dispatching
7. Expediting

Organizational
Analysis

Wage &
Salary
Admin

Plant Layout

Material
Handling

Budgetary
Control &
Cost Control

Areas of Industrial Engineering:

Some of the important areas are listed below:
1) Method study or Work Simplification: Method study is the process of subjecting work to
systematic, critical scrutiny to make it more effective and/or more efficient. It is one of the
keys to achieving productivity improvement.
2) Time study or Work measurement: It is the application of techniques designed to establish
the time for an average worker to carry out a specified manufacturing task at a defined level
of performance. It is concerned with the length of time it takes to complete a work task
assigned to a specific job.
3) Principles of motion economy
4) Operations research: It is also known as management science: discipline that deals with the
application of advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions
5) Operations management: an area of management concerned with overseeing, designing,
and controlling the process of production and redesigning business operations in the
production of goods or services.
6) Project management: is the process and activity of planning, organizing, motivating, and
controlling resources, procedures and protocols to achieve specific goals in scientific or daily
problems.
7) Incentives: Inducement or supplemental reward that serves as a motivational device
for a desired action or behavior.
8) Inventory Control: inventory control is the processes employed to maximize a company's
use of inventory. The goal is to generate the maximum profit from the least amount of
inventory.
9) Job Evaluation: A job evaluation is a systematic way of determining the value/worth of a
job in relation to other jobs in an organization. It tries to make a systematic comparison
between jobs to assess their relative worth for the purpose of establishing a rational pay
structure.

10) Facility planning: Facility planning is an emerging field with confusing terminology. How
does a master plan differ from a strategic master plan? Is a campus plan part of a master
plan or something else? Every architect, consultant, and builder defines these terms
differently.
11) Material handling: It is the movement, protection, storage and control of materials and
products throughout manufacturing, warehousing, distribution, consumption and disposal.
12) Production Planning & Control: Production planning & Control is the planning of
production and manufacturing modules in a company or industry with proper feedback
system in order to control.
13) Job design, Job Analysis: the specification of contents, methods and relationship of jobs in
order to satisfy technological and organizational requirements as well as the social and
personal requirements of the job holder.
14) Financial engineering: the application of technical methods, especially from mathematical
finance and computational finance, in the practice of finance
15) Management engineering: a specialized form of management that is concerned with the
application of engineering principles to business practice
16) Supply chain management: the management of the flow of goods. It includes the
movement and storage of raw materials, work-in-process inventory, and finished goods from
point of origin to point of consumption.
17) Process engineering: design, operation, control, and optimization of chemical, physical, and
biological processes.
18) Systems engineering: an interdisciplinary field of engineering that focuses on how to design
and manage complex engineering systems over their life cycles.
19) Ergonomics: the practice of designing products, systems or processes to take proper
account of the interaction between them and the people that use them.
20) Safety engineering: an engineering discipline which assures that engineered systems provide
acceptable levels of safety.
21) Cost engineering: practice devoted to the management of project cost, involving such
activities as cost- and control- estimating, which is cost control and cost forecasting,
investment appraisal, and risk analysis.
22) Value engineering: a systematic method to improve the "value" of goods or products and
services by using an examination of function.
23) Quality engineering: a way of preventing mistakes or defects in manufactured products and
avoiding problems when delivering solutions or services to customers.
24) Industrial plant configuration: sizing of necessary infrastructure used in support and
maintenance of a given facility.
25) Facility management: an interdisciplinary field devoted to the coordination of space,
infrastructure, people and organization
26) Engineering design process: formulation of a plan to help an engineer build a product with
a specified performance goal.
27) Logistics: the management of the flow of goods between the point of origin and the point of
consumption in order to meet some requirements, of customers or corporations

Role of Industrial Engineer:

Industrial engineers work to eliminate waste of time, money, materials, man-hours, machine time,
energy and other resources that do not generate value.

Various role played by an industrial engineer is depicted in the following figure.