Industrial engineering designs and improves the systems that turn materials, information, people and equipment into finished goods and services, rather than any single physical product. Its core methods, including time and motion study, process flow analysis, quality control and operations research, grew out of Frederick Winslow Taylor's scientific management movement of the early twentieth century and Henry Ford's moving assembly line. The discipline now covers manufacturing, logistics, healthcare delivery and other large scale operations wherever the design of the whole system matters as much as any individual machine in it.
Facts
Core ConcernOptimizing complex processes, systems and organizations that involve people, materials, information and equipment. 1 Core PrincipleIndustrial engineering optimizes complex processes, systems and organizations, improving the efficiency, productivity and quality of integrated systems of people, materials, information, equipment and energy rather than any single machine. 2 Disputed
Origin Year1911
1911 marks the publication of Taylor's The Principles of Scientific Management, the work most often credited with founding the discipline; its first dedicated professional society, the American Institute of Industrial Engineers, was not founded until 1948. Connections
Associated With
Co-invented the barcode as a retail identification system.
Developed the Six Sigma quality methodology at Motorola.
Applied and popularized lean manufacturing analysis of the Toyota Production System.
Co-invented the barcode as a retail identification system.
Both coordinate complex processes and organizations rather than a single physical artifact.
Principal architect of the Toyota Production System and lean manufacturing.
Advanced statistical quality control methods central to industrial engineering.
Developed statistical quality control, foundational to industrial engineering practice.
Includes
Source A History of TechnologyCharles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors
Open Questions
Source Frank Bunker Gilbreth (Wikipedia)Wikipedia contributors
Sources
1. Technology: A World History
2. Industrial Engineering (Wikipedia)
Wikipedia contributors, Wikimedia FoundationIntroduction section
Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering that focuses on optimizing complex processes, systems, and organizations by improving efficiency, productivity, and quality.
Lead section, opening definition of industrial engineering
Industrial engineering (IE) revolves around the design, improvement and installation of integrated systems of people, materials, information, equipment and energy.
View the Source A History of Technology
Charles Singer, E. J. Holmyard, A. R. Hall and Trevor I. Williams, editors, Oxford University Press, 1954Includes: Frederick Winslow TaylorView the Source Open Questions (1 open question)
Who deserves primary credit for founding industrial engineering as a discipline: Frederick Winslow Taylor, originator of time study, or Frank and Lillian Gilbreth, originators of motion study?
Time study and motion study were developed independently and stood in philosophical tension; the disagreement between Taylor and the Gilbreths became a personal rift that, after Taylor died, turned into an open feud between the Gilbreths and the Taylor camp, and the documented record states that friction over questions of history and intellectual property still remains even after Lillian Gilbreth attempted to heal the rift.
What would resolve this A settled historical account, backed by primary correspondence or patent records, establishing whose methodological contribution founded industrial engineering as a discipline and how the intellectual property dispute between the two camps was actually resolved.
History of TechnologyWikipedia contributors, Frank Bunker Gilbreth (Wikipedia)
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between industrial engineering and mechanical engineering?
Mechanical engineering designs individual machines and mechanical systems. Industrial engineering designs and improves the larger systems those machines operate within, including factory layouts, supply chains, staffing, scheduling and quality control, optimizing how people, equipment, materials and information work together as a whole process. An industrial engineer is less concerned with how a single machine works internally and more concerned with how a whole production or service system performs.
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