Industrial engineering discipline itself is a unique engineering discipline which already required the multidisciplinary approach in its definition of industrial engineering:
Industrial Engineering 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, to specify, predict and evaluate the results to be obtained from such a system
In order to explain and elaborate this definition, we need to break down this definition into 3 main parts:
Part 1: Industrial Engineering concerned with the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of people, materials, equipment and energy …
In this first part, we elaborate the 3 main roles of industrial engineers: design, improve and installation of integrated systems.
Let us start by exploring the term: integrated systems. Systems can simply be defined as an entity which consists of components that interacts with each others in certain way so the entity could function to achieve its goals. As we could read in the definition above, an integrated system, will in the minimum consist of 4 components: human, materials, equipment, and energy. By this, all type of industry: services, manufacturing, creative, education etc. could be managed by the industrial engineers, since almost all type of industries would have these 4 components.
The term “integrated” means that the interactions between the 4 components lead to an emerging observed behavior which is different than just the sum of its parts. A human is an integrated system due to the interaction of human components: brain, skeleton, heart, etc. However, if we have the technology to develop all of the human components and we put them together, will we have a human?
Industrial engineering educations in Indonesia and the world in general, are different from each other due to different interpretations and emphasizes of the components of an integrated industrial systems. The 4 components is just the minimum, each institution can add more based on the needs of its stakeholders.
Industrial Engineers must learn and understand all of these components when they perform their 3 main roles:
Design: shows the capability to creatively combine all the knowledge that he/she has into the design of the system. Traditionally, Industrial Engineer designs a factory or operation system; however the perspectives can be applied to design a system of solutions with multi-disciplinary, multi-approach and multi-dimensional characteristics.
Improve: can be defined as management since management means you have to improve something. If you just want to do the same things efficiently, it is called administration. Management will always face with problem solving, since problems can be defined as a gap between what we want and what we have now. This would require analytical skills, systems thinking and other tools and methods supporting their problem solving capability.
Install: requires the capability to define steps necessary to install a systems design. Installation forces industrial engineers to think ahead in the future and defines the performance accepted when the system is operational. It would include project management, design for maintenance, design for manufacture, design for six sigma (DFSS), etc.
Part 2: … It draws upon specialized knowledge and skill in the mathematical, physical and social sciences together with the principles and methods of engineering …
Industrial Engineers requires basic knowledge and skills to conduct their jobs, it is also an acknowledgement that industrial engineering is part of engineering discipline even though it also need social sciences. The 1st year of education is mainly consist core engineering courses to develop these basic competencies, such as mathematics, physics and chemistry.
Part 3: … to specify, predict and evaluate the results to be obtained from such a system
As the final stage when Industrial Engineers conduct their work is about results of the systems that they have designed, improved or installed. The systems results or performance should be better than the previous performance which will be calculated using facts and data.
When we talk about performance, there are 3 stages that we usually must performs: specify which performance criteria fit for the systems, predict how the performance on the systems based on our current knowledge or design and how to measure and evaluate them when the systems operational,
Specify, we should specify the results or performance of the systems in the beginning of the design or improvement stage, mainly because there could be different interpretations between multiple stakeholders. A finance expert could say that cost savings is the primary measurement, a marketer could say that delivering what the customer want, a production expert could say that conformance to standards. All of these performances are right, however we might have to develop a trade off since we cannot satisfy them all at the same time. Specify means that an industrial engineers must know how to define the right indicators, how to get them consistently, how frequent, examining the cost and benefits of a measurement.
Predict, after we have specified the results, we should be able to predict how our designed systems will perform. Basically, we use results/performance specifications as the main guidance for our design or improvement.
Evaluate, when the systems have been improved or installed, we then could move into evaluating the performance of the real systems. The results of the evaluation will act as a feedback for further improvement of the systems or when designing a new similar systems.
No comments:
Post a Comment