History of industrial engineering

The late-nineteenth-century factory initially was a collection of skilled machinists and

mechanical artisans working in a big work area based on their skills. The management of
production activity was basically done a first-line supervisor, the foreman. He organized
materials and labor, directed machine operations, recorded costs, hired and fired employees,
and basically the principal production management. The manager or general manager above
him looked after external issues related to supplies of goods and services.

In the 1870s and 1880s, critics began to attack the model of the factory wherein each operator
worked according his personal methods and mostly worked under a piece rate system. Their
critique became the basis for the best-known effort to encourage coordination within the firm
during the first half of the twentieth century under production manager. Shop Management
theory and practice was proposed by F.W. Taylor.  The changes in management that occurred
during period were  known under various labels - systematic management, scientific
management, efficiency engineering. As stated above, in 1901, the term "industrial engineering"
was proposed and in 1908, it became a course, and a branch of engineering. Shop
Management and subsequent books fostered greater sensitivity to the manager’s role in
production and led to greater diversity in industrial practice also as managers selectively
implemented ideas and techniques.

The attack on traditional factory management originated in two late-nineteenth-century

developments. The first was the maturation of the engineering profession, based on formal
education and mutually accepted standards of behavior and formally educated engineers
embraced scientific experimentation and analysis in place of sporadic developments based on
experience. The second development was the rise of systematic management, an effort among
engineers and sympathizers to substitute system for the informal methods that had evolved with
the factory system.  The factories replaced traditional managers who focused less on production
methods with engineers and managerial systems replaced guesswork and ad hoc evaluations.
By the late 1880s, cost accounting systems, methods for planning and scheduling production
and organizing materials, and incentive wage plans were developed. Their objective was an
unimpeded flow of materials and information. Systematic management sought to extract the
efficiency benefit required to run a factory by developing science for each work element. It also
developed planning systems that helped in realizing the organization's goals through work of
managers and operators. It promoted decisions based on performance by giving wages based
on merit rating and incentives based on quantity of output rather than on personal qualities and
relationships.
Discuss notable industrial engineers and their contribution

Contribution of F.W. Taylor

In the 1890s,  Frederick Winslow Taylor, became the most vigorous and successful proponent
of systematic management. As an executive in production engineering and management, he
introduced factory accounting (cost accounting) systems and based on those records made
engineering changes in systems that gave lower cost of operation and production. Taylor
explained his systems through papers and discussions in meetings of American Society of
Mechanical Engineers (ASME). The systems and practices developed by Taylor permitted
engineers and managers to use operating records to guide their engineering and production
management actions. Taylor focused on reducing metal cutting times through various
engineering improvements to increase productivity of machines. The improvements include use
of cutting fluids, higher power in the machines for increasing feed, development of high-speed
steel, development of tool life equation and many more improvements. Taylor estimated the
time required for taking each cut and reduced the time taken by improvement in cutting speed,
feed and depth of cut.

Contribution of Gilberth, Emerson and Bedaux

Competition for clients and recognition, especially after the recession of 1920-21 made
executives more cost-conscious-produced other changes. Some industrial engineering
consultants began to seek clients outside manufacturing. Spurred by the growing corps of
academicians who argued that the principles of factory management applied to all businesses,
they reorganized offices, stores, banks, and other service organizations. A Society of Industrial
Engineers survey of leading consulting firms in 1925 reported that many confined their work to
plant design, accounting systems, machinery, or marketing. A third trend was an increasing
preoccupation with labor issues and time study. This emphasis reflected several postwar
developments, most notably and ominously the increasing popularity of consultants who
devoted their attention to cost cutting through the aggressive use of time study.