The Industry and the Production floor has been planned, with the best available Machinery and Technology and in the best suited way for the Organisation... What next?
It's time to get practical! The various positions has to be filled up with competent Staff and Workers, Start and Manage the Production. Well that sounds quite simple, but its not.
As explained earlier the Process Flow in the Production Floor can get as complicated as ever. Sophisticated Process Monitoring and Control Systems are required. Sophisticated Troubleshooting has to be done, when the numbers in the Plan does not reflect the reality!
The Tool to do this Job is Industrial Engineering (IE).
Industrial Engineering plays a vital role in the following and many more situations:
- Evaluation of Employee's during recruitment.
- Constant monitoring of all Production Staff and Workers.
- Floor Planning for each Product with Machinery and Attachments details.
- Evaluate and fix Production Targets.
- Constant monitoring of all Procees involved in Production.
- Constant research using Time Study and updating of the concerned data.
- Constant research on Motion Study and implementation of systems to cut down the same.
- Ascertain any bottlenecks if any, in the planned Process Flow and rectify the same immediately.
- Constant research on new Machineries and Systems and implement the Right Technology in the Right Place and Time.
- The above is an indicative list and the actual role can be very elaborate and exhaustive.
Depending on the Industry Size and other requirements the Industrial Engineering can be a seperate department or may be managed by the Operations Head. Either ways the IE department has to coordinate with the Production, Machinery & Maintenance and the Quality Assurance Department in almost all situations.
The Data generated should be intricately studied and actions taken.
It may sound surprising, but generally in India as an example, most of the Industries run at less then 50% efficiency due to various reasons. Some examples are listed below:
- Improper balancing of the Line - Process I produces 200 no a day but Process II produces only 120 no a day - Actual Production is only 120 but with some adjustments 140-150 is definitely reachable. Imagine the increase in Productivity when we are having about 40-100 different Workstations in one Assembly Line!
- Improper Process Flow : The Work Stations should always be in sequence with the Process Flow but imagine this situation - The Work has to jump 7 Workstations to reach the next level process. There is waste of time, waste of workforce, etc...
- The right Machinery and Attachments are not used for the particular process.
The IE department also collects and maintain enough data, that the Management can review the Progress at all times and implement strategies to correct deficiencies if any.