Industrial Engineering articles from January 1995

Industrial Engineering archives from January 1995

Reengineering readiness test: what's your infrastructure IQ? (Reengineering)
January 1, 1995... Reengineering is an exciting concept. Talking about it is like talking about a fitness program -- trim the waistline and expand aerobic endurance. Like the success of any program, it is fueled by feedback from base data that says, "You're...

Cost modeling: an effective means to compare alternatives. (Modeling)
January 1, 1995... Factory modeling, which includes capacity planning, queuing models and computer simulation, has provided decision support to a variety of factory design and operation questions. Some of these include: * How many machines are needed? * How...

Translating business reengineering into bottom-line results. (part 1) (Business Process Reengineering)
January 1, 1995... This is the first in a series of 6 articles on improving the financial performance of companies. Under pressure to participate in improvement activities, or to become involved with the newest business wisdom, management may lose focus on the real...

Taking quality as seriously as profits. (Quality)
January 1, 1995... Recent studies commissioned by the Quality Research Institute (QRI), a partnership between Philip Crosby Associates Inc. and The Gallup Organization, reveal a startling gap between business executives and customers and their perceptions of...

Tools for teams addressing total customer satisfaction. (QFD)
January 1, 1995... Do you think the environment is more customer oriented now than it has been in the past? Do you think customers expect consistent quality products at a reasonable price? The obvious answer to both these questions is a resounding "yes." Closely...

Making a team work: techniques for building successful cross-functional teams. (Integrated Planning Process)
January 1, 1995... In spite all the recent attention given to the importance of teams and the process of "team building," anyone who has every tried to organize a project knows how hard it can be to get the whole team on-board to ensure that everyone knows where...

Design for assembly: an ergonomic approach. (Ergonomics)
January 1, 1995... Corporate America's effort to regain the competitive edge has radically impacted the design phase of the product life cycle. The product design process can no longer be viewed as linear, where a design is passed sequentially from department to...

Simulation: why aren't we where we should be? (Simulation)
January 1, 1995... There is only one constant -- change. Things evolve. As an IE, it is easy to recognize that evolution does not simply pertain to nature, it also applies to man-made systems. Arguably, the most dramatic change occurring in industry today is found...

The Internet: information resources for industrial engineers. (Management of Technology)
January 1, 1995... Once the exclusive domain of federal research laboratories and academic researchers, the Internet has emerged as a global communication network that is poised to become a staple of modern business communications. In fact, the Internet is the...

An introduction to quality improvement through Taguchi methods. (Management of Technology)
January 1, 1995... Genuchi Taguchi is a quality management expert from Japan. Through his research in the 1950s and the early 1960s, he laid the foundation for robust design for quality improvement. His method is popularly known as Taguchi techniques. In...