Handbook of Industrial Engineering: Technology and Operations Management 3rd edition

Citation

Narasimhan, K. (2002), "Handbook of Industrial Engineering: Technology and Operations Management 3rd edition", The TQM Magazine, Vol. 14 No. 6, pp. 377-378. https://doi.org/10.1108/tqmm.2002.14.6.377.2

The first edition of this handbook was first published in 1982. This edition, appearing nine years after the second edition, has been completely revised and contains 102 chapters grouped under five main sections: industrial engineering function and skills (two chapters); technology (29 chapters); performance improvement management (13 chapters); management, planning, design, and control (38 chapters); and methods for decision making (20 chapters). In addition to the main contents list, each chapter has its own list of contents with the paragraph numbers of the key concepts covered, and a comprehensive list of references. The handbook also includes a 48‐page author index and a 98‐page subject index, and 922 figures, 388 tables, and a total of 4,139 references support the text.

A total of 176 international professionals with varying backgrounds have authored these chapters. The editor of this edition, Gavriel Salvendy, is a professor of industrial engineering at Purdue University. He is the author or co‐author of over 380 research publications, and the author or editor of 24 books. A 26‐member advisory board and other experts in some fields have contributed to the review process.

The first section comprises two chapters. In chapter one, the authors explore how organizations can achieve full potential by large‐scale transformation by reconfiguring the industrial systems engineering in the value system and fully utilizing the industrial systems engineers. The topic of chapter two is business modeling analysis and design. Both the context and the content of business processes are covered in some depth. A list of generic business processes and sub‐processes is provided in the Appendix.

The second section is entitled technology and comprises three subsections on information technology (seven chapters), manufacturing and production systems (11 chapters), and service systems (11 chapters). Thus, the service sector is treated on a par with the manufacturing sector; in the previous edition there were only two chapters on service systems. Topics covered under information technology include tools for building information systems, decision support systems, automation technology, computer information technology and knowledge management, computer networking, electronic commerce, and enterprise modeling.

The section on service systems has been enhanced with the addition of nine chapters to the previous edition. Though there are 11 chapters a‐piece devoted to manufacturing and service systems, yet it is the manufacturing aspects that get more coverage (312 pages as opposed to 216 pages for service systems). Further, aspects related to manufacturing are covered in other sections too. The 11 chapters under manufacturing and production systems include topical issues such as the factory of the future, automation and robotics, clean manufacturing and lean production, environmental engineering and collaborative manufacturing. After considering service systems in general, separate chapters are devoted to dealing with issues involved in industrial engineering applications in health‐care systems, financial asset management, retailing, transportation, and hotels and restaurants.

Performance improvement and management is covered in two subsections of section III. In section IIIA, the subject of organization and work design is covered in seven chapters. First issues involved in leadership, motivation and the implications for strategic human resource management are dealt with. Then, the following topics are dealt with in sequence: job and team design, job evaluation, selection, training and development, aligning technological and organizational change, teams and their management, and managing performance. The following section is devoted to human factors and ergonomic issues involved in designing cognitive and physical tasks and the application of digital technology and designing for occupational health and safety.

Section IV is about management, planning, design, and control and is covered in seven subsections. Project management (PM), including the application of computers for PM, is covered in three chapters in subsection A. In subsection B, comprising four chapters, product planning is covered. Manpower resource planning is covered in the following subsection in three chapters dealing respectively with methods engineering, time standards, and work measurement. The following two subsections deal respectively with issues related to systems and facility design (five chapters) and planning and control (six chapters). The subject of quality gets a wider coverage in ten chapters (291 pages) in the next subsection, which is followed by a comparatively brief treatment of supply chain management and logistics in the next subsection with seven chapters (136 pages). In the subsection on quality, quality tools for learning and improvement, understanding variation and statistical process control, reliability and maintainability, human factors and automation in test and inspection, and an approach for improving processes and design are dealt with in some depth.

The final section is about methods for decision making and is covered in 20 chapters (510 pages) divided into four subsections. The first subsection deals with probabilistic models and statistics and the second deals with economic evaluations covering activity‐based management, discounted cash flow methods, economic risk analysis, etc. Computer simulation and optimization methods form respectively the topics of the next two subsections.

One glaring omission is the popular work of Noriaki Kano on classifying product and service attributes into “exciters”, “must‐be”, and “expected” characteristics, especially when Kano’s classification of teams is included in the section on teams. However, the book is a must on local library shelves as well as in organizations as reference material for all their staff. Given the cost of books on single topics, the handbook is reasonably priced and well worth it.