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Abstract
Frederick Winslow Taylor proposed four principles of scientific management. He explained each principle with an example in his treatise on scientific management. Frederick Taylor was instrumental in starting of the industrial engineering discipline. Even though the objective of scientific management, the achievement of efficiency in the production of goods and services is applicable to all activities of business and economy, engineering concerns have immediate need and scope for implementing scientific management. Hence, Taylor advocated the course of industrial engineering in engineering departments. In the literature so far, no attempt is made for developing principles of industrial engineering using the foundation of principles of scientific management. In the paper, principles of industrial engineering are developed and their utility for improvement of productivity, efficiency and cost reduction in engineering organizations is described.
Keywords
Industrial Engineering Principles and Methods, Industrial Engineering, Principles
1. Introduction
"Principles of management" is an accepted framework for developing management theory. Frederick Taylor [1] explained scientific management through principles. Koontz [2] strongly emphasizes the role of principles in management theory by stating that principles provide a conceptual framework. By formulating principles which explain related activities of management, we can have predictions and therefore provide more research opportunities to validate principles and implied practices. Koontz notes that Fayol [3], Barnard [4] and Brown [5] in the early days of management emphasized formulation of principles. Koontz took forward the principle development into more detail by classifying each function of management into sub-activities. Industrial engineering was started in the mechanical engineering department of Pennsylvania State University due to the active efforts of F.W. Taylor. The purpose was to introduce into engineering curriculum the ideas that Taylor developed in decreasing cost of production and increasing income to factory operating personnel. Taylor's ideas were incorporated into engineering curriculums and business or management curriculums. In engineering curriculums, naturally there is an emphasis on the application of the shop management thought in engineering organizations and engineering activities and the specialization got the name "industrial engineering." Based on the principles of scientific management, principles of industrial engineering can be derived and such principles when refined by contributions of various scholars would provide direction to further development of the discipline. In this paper, an attempt is made to deduce the principles...