Did you know that the exemplar of lean manufacturing, Toyota, assigns an industrial engineer to each foreman in its plants? It’s true. Toyota has long understood the value of optimizing operations through traditional industrial engineering techniques. For example, the company “stopwatches” each operation to assure that the people performing work tasks can actually accomplish the task in an optimal amount of time. Optimal is defined as the rate feasible to do the task “right the first time” according to the Toyota standard method (for quality purposes) and to be economically efficient in the traditional manufacturing cost paradigm. If the time assigned to an operation is not “optimal,” then the workers receive additional training or the operation time is adjusted. Assigning an industrial engineer to each foreman has other benefits – work flow management, cycle time reduction, work methods and the like.
So, how does the Toyota approach – clearly feasible for a multibillion dollar global corporation – relate to the small to medium size enterprise (SME)? The message of the Toyota example is rediscovery of the lost art of industrial engineering and its use in making an SME company lean and cost-effective. Certainly few if any SMEs can afford to have an industrial engineering staff like the one Toyota has, but industrial engineering talent can be obtained in many ways and employed just as effectively,
WHY BOTHER WITH INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING?
Why indeed you may ask? Isn’t labor cost reduction passe with labor costs per unit amounting to six or seven percent of the sales dollar? Does it make sense to try to squeeze an extra quarter second out of an operation by changing the way some one moves their left hand when turning a dial? Furthermore, isn’t labor a variable cost that fluctuates with production requiring us to staff up and down as needed? The answer to all these questions is no. Let’s look at each of these questions and then visualize some benefits from industrial engineering in a twenty-first century style.
Low unit labor costs. It is true that direct and indirect labor on a unit basis is lower than it has ever been in recent memory but, labor is often the single largest non-material total dollar expenditure for most manufacturing companies. It therefore behooves management to insure that the labor force is trim and is not growing out of proportion to the level of sales revenue.
Squeezing the additional quarter second out of the process. The additional fractional time reductions and fractional people reductions (we saved one-third of an employee by doing this!) associated with traditional industrial engineering were no doubt meaningful to cost reduction in the first half of the twentieth century when labor forces were orders-of-magnitude larger. These fractional savings, in fact, added up to actual dollar labor savings back in the day. They have almost no similar value today except to comprehend how jobs may be combined to eliminate duplication or non-value added activities.
Labor variability. One of the enduring myths of the twentieth century …
Tag: engineering
Career Prospects of Pharmaceutical Engineering
Pharmaceutical Engineering deals with the innovation of drugs thereby, dealing with the vitality of life. Basically, this is a branch of chemical engineering and is involved in the discovery, design and development of parts and products within pharmaceutical industry.
Pharmaceutical Engineering involves various research facilities and manufacturing plants like Biotechnological Plants, Biopharmaceutical Plants, etc. In these plants, pharmaceutical engineers are involved in the conception, processing, scale-up, labeling, production and packaging required in the process of conversion of chemical and biological substances into valuable pharmaceuticals. In addition, they give emphasis on the disposal of end products, ensuring safety at both personal and environmental level.
This branch of medicine delivers engineers as its product, who are masters in technological and broad Brand Wars Competition knowledge. They are capable of product development and are familiar with production systems, information systems, supply chain management systems and quality systems. Thus, this engineering stream brings out professionals for international markets. There are a wide range of careers in each area of the industry including introduction of new drugs, drugs manufacturing and commercialization, drugs delivery, design facilities, sales management and research works.
Though, an emerging field of science, this field has innumerable applications and contributions to the market. This is further looking forward to introduce better quality Manufacturing System and cost effective drugs for the improvement of society. Moreover, this focus on the exact dosage of particular drug for fast recovery and reduction in wastage of drugs.
In the world of uncertainties, where business industries are facing regular ups and downs, Pharmaceutical Engineering is a ray of hope. To get itself aligned with the pace of changing times and to hold firm position in the market, its making huge progresses in its field of excellence. As it is a subject based on health and medicine, it does not get much affected with fluctuating market conditions. Thus, its consistency not only provides excellent business opportunities but also ensures job securities.…