What Does a Plant Engineer Do?

An IE engineer (industrial engineer) is a person who is engaged in industrial engineering. In a narrow sense, that is, a practitioner in a factory who is responsible for scheduling management personnel, equipment, production materials, operating methods, and factory facilities. In a broad sense, it refers to engineers who use IE to professionally manage a system as a whole.

IE engineer

Now that the students trained in the Department of Industrial Engineering have the above knowledge, what role does an industrial engineer play in the factory? To understand this problem, let's first look at a few general problems that exist in factories:

In the factory, each professional engineer performs his or her own job. Who will communicate with different professional engineers?

In the factory, the boss cares about one thing (making money and output), and the employee cares about another thing (salary and labor). So who will be the bridge between the boss and the employees?

(3) In the factory, everyone cares about rush delivery and quality. Does anyone care about doing better today than yesterday and doing better tomorrow? If so, who will do the improvement?

Everyone cares about machines, materials, ..., who cares about the most important "people"? How can these people be made more comfortable, do more, earn more, and be respected?

Everyone cares about output, who cares about total cost?

Every small unit often has standardism. Who will consider the optimization of the entire factory?

The most appropriate person to solve these problems is an industrial engineer.

In more detail, what industrial engineers do in the factory are: design and improvement of working methods, setting of standard operating time and standard material usage, manufacturing processes, design of fixtures and tools, calculation and analysis of costs, production planning and Control, capacity planning and analysis, material management, quality analysis and control, factory layout, industrial safety operations, establishment of job evaluation and reward system, improvement of business processes, system or system design, etc.

An industrial doctor?

Some people say that a business management consultant is a doctor in the business world, and an industrial engineer is like a doctor in the industry. He can help the factory to define problems and coordinate the operation of the entire factory. Like a general practitioner, he is responsible for diagnosing and treating patients. Then an expert from a certain department will examine and treat it. The same is true of industrial engineers. He points out the faults in the factory and then coordinates the experts in various departments to solve them.

In fact, the industrial type is team work. To solve any problem, it can never be done by one person and one hand. The role of an industrial engineer is often a team leader, which requires a strong combination. ), Coordination and communication skills, extensive knowledge, that is, able to communicate with people in the right language. Under this tendency, industrial engineers need to have both engineering and management knowledge and training, so in the factory can make it easy for others to cooperate and solve problems together.

Second efficiency expert? Eyeliner of management?

Industrial engineers have indeed played a complex role, and some have criticized them as:

"Industrial engineers make people do it faster and make less money!"

"Industrial engineers are efficiency experts and the eye of management!"

"Industrial engineers look for mistakes everywhere, and like to have trouble with others."

The role of three diversity?

Some people think that the industrial engineer is the safety nanny of the operator, which protects them from tool injuries and the pressure of excessive workload; because his training includes management and engineering knowledge, he is a plant planner and coordinator; He has been trained in statistics, probability and reliability, so he can become a quality control officer; he often thinks "Is this the best way?", So he is the seeker of better ways; from the above, industrial engineers He has a strong ability to change careers and has strong survivability. Moreover, his promotion ability is also high, and it is easier to be promoted to the senior management level.

Generally speaking, the promotion of the concepts and practices of industrial engineering in factories is not smooth and without resistance. This can be divided into three points:

In some closed family-owned enterprises, the concept of the business owner is not open enough, and he is unwilling to provide problems in all aspects of the public factory, and is not willing to provide comprehensive information. Without the information, industrial engineers cannot start to solve the problem.

Conservative ideas of mankind, refuse to change, so industrial engineers will not be able to exert their expertise.

(3) A new thing must go through the learning process before people can apply it with ease. However, the beginning of learning is always difficult and the effect is not significant. Therefore, people would prefer to continue to use the old methods and old things they are accustomed to, even if they work harder.

This kind of resistance has weakened the promotion of industrial engineering concepts, which is why the Chinese business community has not

Industrial engineering solves the problem in two ways:

Problem solving and decision-making

(Problem solving & decision making)

Identify the problem: first understand the nature of the problem and

Can industrial engineers only work in factories?

From the above descriptions, can industrial engineers only work in factories? In fact, industrial engineering has long been applied outside the factory in developed countries ^[1] . Industrial engineering is used in hospitals, farms, restaurants, hostels, post offices, banks, transportation, construction, military agencies and various government departments.

In China, some hospitals have also hired personnel to study industrial engineering, responsible for equipment configuration, personnel use, drug inventory control, data flow and other tasks (such as Maji Hospital). This application can be said to be an extension of industrial engineering. The field of industrial engineering is no longer limited to the industrial world. For this reason, the name of industrial engineering can no longer cover its scope.

In the domestic industry, although the military and national undertakings took the lead in implementing industrial projects, it was those foreign-invested factories that really blossomed it. Because of their enviable results, they also convinced many state-owned factories to pay attention to this new gadget. Over the years, the number of advertisements for industrial engineers has increased. This is a clear proof that industrial engineering has generally been accepted in China.

Due to the lack of energy, rising raw materials, and shortage of workers, competition in the international market is becoming increasingly fierce, and pollution problems have generally received attention. Industrial engineers in China will inevitably become the darlings of the era, no doubt.

On the other hand, the development of electronic calculators and the field of industrial engineering are rapidly expanding its fields. In foreign countries, system engineering and operations research have become extensions of industrial engineering. Use them to solve large and complex problems that exist in business operations. This trend will undoubtedly be the direction of China's industrial engineering development.

Two little stories of industrial engineering

In the field of industrial engineering, "motion and time study" occupies a very important position. In 1881, Frederick W. Taylor, who was revered as the "father of industrial engineering", pioneered the "Time study" (or "time study"). B. Gilbrtth) reaffirmed "motion study" (or "engineering"). Later, the two studies were closely related and could not be separated, so they merged and called "movement and time study" (or work time study). Here are two stories to trace the origins of "Study of Action Time".

In 1898, Taylor's worked at the Bethlehem Iron and Steel Plant. At that time, the plant employed 400 to 600 shovel manual workers. On a square about 2 miles long and 1/4 mile wide every day, shovel Move various materials ^[2] . These shovelers do not use the shovel prepared by the workplace. Many people bring their own shovel from home. When shoveling coal, each shovel weighs only 3.5 pounds, and when shoveling ore, it weighs 38 pounds. The difference between this kind of self-provided shovel and the weight of each shovel caused Tai's curiosity. He thought, "Is there any relationship between the shape and size of the shovel and the workload of the shovel?" "What kind of shovel weight is the most economical and effective?" Come fast? "These issues really need to be discussed. Tai's is to select two excellent shovel hands to conduct test work at different locations in the field. At the same time, use Stop watch to record the time, and use different size shovel to shovel materials with different specific gravity, and record the used shovel The size, style, and weight of each shovel, after many tests, found that when the weight of each shovel is about 21.5 pounds, the most economical and effective result is that the worker can shovel the most material per person per day. Use a small shovel for heavy objects and a large shovel for light objects, but each shovel weighs about 21.5 pounds. After obtaining this result, Tai's designed various shovel tools with different sizes, trained workers, and worked out the reward method. When the workers can complete the required work, they can get a bonus of 60% of their daily salary, otherwise they will be awarded by the staff. The right way of working so that they can get the same bonus. After this improvement, the work that originally required 400 to 600 workers can be completed. With the new method, 140 workers can complete it. As a result, the shovel fee per ton is reduced by 50%, and the worker's salary is increased by 60%. In addition to the various expenses required for research, a savings of $ 78,000 can be saved each year. This will not only greatly increase the production capacity of the factory, but also improve the efficiency of the shovel's work, increase the treatment, and work mood will be much happier.

In 1885, Gilbreth was 17 years old. He was employed by a builder and found that workers used different methods and speeds of work to build bricks. The method that is most economical and effective should be discussed. Ji analyzed the workers' brick-laying movements. It was found that for each brick that the worker laid, he took the lead to pick it up with his left hand, and at the same time flipped the brick to choose the best side. When he piled it, he placed it outward. After this operation is completed, the right hand starts to scoop up the marl and apply it to the pile. After placing the bricks in the left hand, hit the marl with the right hand again for a few times to fix it. This cyclical action was carefully discussed by the agent and made into a video. After detailed analysis, it was known that the worker leaned down to pick up the bricks, which easily increased fatigue. When he took the bricks with his left hand, his right hand was idle. It is also superfluous. So after many experiments, a new method of brickwork was obtained. When the bricks are transported to the workplace, the cheap workers are ordered and placed in a wooden frame. Each frame contains 90 bricks. The best side or end is placed in a certain direction. The frame is hung beside the left side of the worker. When picking up the bricks with his left hand, he will pick up the mud at the same time, and at the same time, he will improve the concentration of the mud. The workload has increased greatly, and the movement of building each brick has been reduced from 18 times to 5 times. After the workers are trained, the old method can only build 120 blocks per hour, and the new rule can build 350 blocks, increasing the work efficiency by nearly 200. %. After Ji's action analysis, the best bricklaying method was determined. This has led to future motion studies.

The above two cases show the attitude of the pioneers of working hours science, Taiji and Ji Ershi, to explore the truth, and this kind of spirit is also the basis of future industrial engineering.