Techniques of Industrial Engineering: The 11 Core Tools

Industrial engineering raises an organisation's productivity by getting the most from its resources, men, materials, and methods. It does so with eleven core techniques that span the shop floor, the stockroom, and the org chart. Here is the toolkit.

The eleven techniques

#	Technique	What it does
1	Method study	Establish a standard method and a back-track-free material flow
2	Work measurement	Establish a standard time for a job/operation
3	Motion economy	Analyse operator motions (key for mass, short-cycle work)
4	Financial + non-financial incentives	Rational compensation for effort
5	Value analysis	Deliver required functions at minimum cost
6	Production planning & control	Right quantity/quality at set time and cost
7	Inventory control	Economic lot size + reorder level, avoid stock-outs
8	Job evaluation	Relative worth of jobs for a sound wage policy
9	Material handling	Eliminate unnecessary movement of materials
10	Ergonomics	Fit the work to the worker (man-machine system)
11	Systems analysis	Study sub-systems and their interdependencies to improve them

The floor tools (1–3)

Method study sets the standard method and lays out facilities for a uniform flow with no back-tracking.
Work measurement sets the standard time.
Motion economy analyses operator motion, most valuable for mass production and short-cycle repetitive jobs.

The people tools (4, 8, 10)

Incentives (financial and non-financial) reward effort rationally.
Job evaluation finds each job's relative worth to match people to jobs and set fair wages.
Ergonomics minimises mental and physical stress by studying the man-machine relationship.

The materials/system tools (5, 6, 7, 9, 11)

Value analysis strips unnecessary cost while keeping required function, raising the product's worth.
Production planning and control (PPC) plans resources and schedules to hit quantity, quality, time, and cost.
Inventory control finds the economic lot size and reorder level with minimum capital locked up.
Material handling scientifically eliminates unnecessary material movement.
Systems analysis studies how sub-systems interconnect, to design, modify, and improve them.