Industrial Engineering

Industrial engineering is all about value addition, waste elimination and productivity improvement.
Operations Research, Quality Management and Work Study are the three pillars of industrial engineering.

The ability of industrial engineering to bridge the technical and managerial gap makes it uniquely well suited to address management as well as technical issues. Industrial engineering methods focus on such small and minute activities which otherwise seems uncontrollable or unidentifiable e.g. waste of motion, waste of over production, waste of movements etc.

Philosophies and tools like Just-in-Time, Work Study, Method Study, Time Study, 5-S, Ergonomics, Lean Manufacturing, inventory control, queuing models, man-machine assignments, transportation optimization models, simulation and hundreds more find their roots in Industrial Engineering.

Work, Method and Time Study

Work study investigates the work done in an organization and aims at finding the best and the most efficient way of utilizing the available resources to achieve best possible quality work in minimum possible time and causing least possible fatigue to the worker
Method Study refers to systematic investigation and recording of existing and possible alternate ways of doing work or a work step in order to identify best possible way.

Time study is a tried and tested method of work measurement for setting basic time and thereby the standard times for carrying out specified work. The aim of time study is to establish a time for a qualified worker to perform specified work under stated conditions and at a defined rate of working.

This is achieved by a qualified practitioner observing the work, recording what is done and then timing (using a time measuring device) and simultaneously rating (assessing) the pace of working.