What Is Production Engineering?

I have been asked that question outside of the Department many times, but before going into details Is will try and answer the question generally. Is it something new! No, it is what all factory managers and engineers, from time immemorial, have included as part of their many duties. It is the. ‘specialist development of the science of industrial management,” just as every other science and job is specialised to-day to meet modern requirements of competitive business.

The late H. L. Gantt, that eminent management engineer who started this work on the Canadian Pacific Railway, in 1900, and to whom I owe. my owri original training, frequently described it thus:-

The scientific management of industries, the object of which is to do the right job, at the right time, on the right machine, by the right man, at the right cost.

Considering the hundreds of books, the dozens of magazines, and the numerous societies devoted to this specialised branch of management engineering, that answer is a very concise interpretation. If you think over his statement you will realise that its application is to any shop, department, industry, railway, or, in fact, to any industrial institution that considers business efficiency.

Production methods, which is only another term for scientific management, simply analyses management or shop methods into the finest number of elemental details, and examines them in the light of economics and experience, to get at basic facts. When the analysis is complete, the best is chosen in each case, and the whole built up into a new organisation or construction.

Frank B. Gilbreth, who has done outstanding work in motion study analysis, used to say, “Our object is to find the one best way.” In railway practices we are all doing the same class of work; exactly the same job in many cases, and each shop does it a different way. It does not require much brains to know they cannot all be best, right or cheapest. We must find the “one best way.” Mr. Gilbreth carried his investigations much further than the mechanical field and went so far as to take motion pictures of surgeons performing operations in large hospitals. Detailed examination of the films of all the different surgeons showed up the unnecessary motions, until what was recognised as the “one best way” was found, and the display of this film for the education of other surgeons with less opportunity has advanced the science.

Do not say that does not apply to us. It does. In railway work, by reason of the great similarity of the operations of all railways and railway shops, there is less excuse than ever for economic inefficiency. The first thing that is necessary is that we think right. Stop the thought that “because you have managed along certain lines for thirty years” it should be good enough. It is not, and that is the best reason why it is not. If true, it means that you have not advanced a step in thirty years. Well, the rest of the World has!

My object here is to get all departments and men concerned to think with an open mind on the subject. There are no secret methods and the best way is to explain in more detail, the reasoning behind the different phases of the work. Passing from generalities and principles involved, let me list a few of the specific jobs that the Railway Production Department requires to give attention to in actual practice:-

• (1.) Planning shops, machinery and equipment in order that work may be properly routed, and planning the work by scheduling the operations to be performed to the desired economical result.

• (2.) Co-ordinate all the Departments concerned in the output of each shop. In other words, get every department concerned to do its own function right.

• (3.) Balance the shops organisation so that it can do economically what it is asked to do.

• (4.) Get costing methods that are useful and useable to the men who are spending the money.

• (5.) Analyse the methods employed for the purpose of arriving at the “one best way,” whether in offices or shops.

• (6.) Budget Expenditures of all departments concerned so that it is known what is going to be spent before it is spent, and not after, when they are only history.

These are some of the subjects 1 shall explain further in future issues. Meanwhile I want to give you one—just one—reason behind “scheduling locomotives,” in regard to which page 21 the Production Department, in conjunction with the workshop management in the various shops concerned, is getting in some good work and good results. This is the “out of service” reason.

You will agree that a locomotive is only productive of revenue when on the road and that when it is in the shops it represents loss, because it represents a sum of money, say £7,000, lying idle. Figure the interest alone and you will realise that if we take only £10 per day as its earning value, we are taking a figure for this calculation far below the actual one.

Now, the average number of days an engine was “out of service” for a thorough overhaul in 1924 was over seventy. In a properly equipped and scheduled workshop, 35 days would be excessive, and it is much less in many shops outside New Zealand. From an “engine out of service” point of view, what is the difference to the Traffic Department between these two conditions? The difference is that double the number of engines are “out of service” under the old condition.

Scheduling work through shops does not mean necessarily that we are going to do work in half the time, and therefore double the period output. It just as correctly means planning the work to be done in half the time and yet to deliver the same period output. If this alone were done, the “out of service” days per period would be reduced by half, and this means that the Traffic Department would have available for revenue traffic an increased number of engines equal to half the total number held up for repairs, and this on our railway has been carefully figured out to be equal to forty more engines in service all the time. It is not difficult, therefore, to figure the saving possible by the application of schedule methods.

How is the shop affected? For each engine scheduled a careful plan is made stating when each section of the work is to be delivered to each detail department, and when it is required back in the Erecting Shop. All departments are given a schedule showing completion dates on all parts. The whole plan is co-ordinated with a master schedule which shows the position of each engine daily, and, by a system of cheeking every item not done “on time,” the Workshop Manager is able to prevent delays from affecting the final “out” date. Theoretically the men are working on half the number of engines to give the same output as formerly. Practically this condition may, or may not, be attained, due to the variation in engine classes and the classification of repairs.

The speeding up of the output by schedule methods is attained, not by any increased speed in performing machine or hand operations in detail, but by cutting down the time between jobs, by ensuring continuity of operations by having tools, drawings, materials and instructions in readiness ahead of requirements.