Applications and development of industrial engineering in China

Computersind.gaSa8, VoL31,No.3/4,pp.537- 542,1996

~ g h t © 1995ChinMachmPr~ PublishedbyElsevierSeie~oeLtd.Pt~edin GreatBritain

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Applications and Development of Industrial Engineering in China W e i m a u XU

Institate of Policy & Management

C h i n Academyof S c i ~ P.O.Box 8712. Belting 100080, P.KChina

Raigang Wang Chinese Mechanical Engineering Society No. 46, Sanlihe Road Beijing 100823, P~KChina Abstract

The teclnfical term Industrial Engineering (IE) was rarely known to Chinese

engineers and IE courses were seldom given in higher education until late 70's. In receat years, IE has made considerable progress. Emerging market economy provides an arena for industrial engineers to fully display their talents. IE certainly will get rapidly developed in the near future. Keywords: Industrial Engineering, Work Study, Facility Planning and

I k s ~ ~mgment ~

Optimization.

1. The Course of IE Development in China China is a country with an ancient civilization. The Great Wall and the Grant Canal are famous to the world and cited in [9] as brilliant ~/.amplcs of Imsc e~aeering in ancient time that used simple idea of Industrial Engincoring ( IrE ). Howovcr, the tochnical term Industnal Engineering was rarely known to engineers/managers and IE courses were seldom given in higher education in China until late 70's. During the past decade, IE has been gradually introduced into this country and attached more and more attention to. With a little modifiauttion to [8], the coarse of IE development in China may be divided into three periods in correspmalmce to the political and ecommcal enviromnent. I. Cradle Period (up to 1977) Former Soviet Umon's planned economy system was adopted in China since 1950's. Most of industrial activities such as factory construction, plant layout and production managcmmt were carried out in Soviet patterns mandatorily. Managers (cadres) wore judged mainly by political criteria and their fulfilment'of the production targets set in the state plan. Thus, there was little a~_ention being paid to advanced mmagenmat techniques. Even worse, many management techniques in the western world, including IE, were criticized as ruthless tools that capitalists used to exploit the workers. Most of courses related to business and managentent were canceled from higher education. The only IE department in China's universities, set up in Shanghai Jiaotong University, was also canceled not long after its birth. However, productivity and product quality were matters of common concern in spite of 537

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different systems. Some techniques were introduced or invented for these purposes, such as technical innovation and revolution movement, mechanization and automation campaign in Anshan Iron and Steel Co., I-lao's operating method, Huang's warehouse-keeping method, Li's train-switching method, etc.[16]. These techniques contained a number of individual techniques in IE from nowadays viewpoint, though the term IE was not known at all at that time. An important event in this period is worth to be mentioned [4]. From 1965 to early 80's but interrupted for five years during the Culture Revolution, Prof. Hua Lo-geng, a world-wide famous mathematician, organized a team to popularize and apply Overall Planning Methods (OPM) and Optimum Seeking Methods (OSM). The former were similar to CPM, PERT and project management while the latter to Optimization. The team members visited thousands of industrial factories over 27 provinces, giving plain lectures to and making experiments with technicians and workers. Remarkable results in improving productivity and technology convinced vast numbers of people that scientific methods were useful and important to their own practical work (see [3] for example). IL Initiation Period (1978 - 1989) The Reform and Open Poficy promulgated in 1978 made great changes in industrial enterprises. In stead of political movements, economic development turned to be the focal point of the nation. Advanced technology and management techniques regained attention. In early 80's, the State Economy & Trade Commission issued an important document. It called for promoting 18 techniques aiming at the modernization of management. Among those techniques were, for instance, optimum seeking and optimization, overall planning, TQC, value engineering, card control, ABC analysis, etc., which could be classified as techniques in IE Many advanced management techniques, like modem IE, GT, CIMS, CAD/CAM/CAPP, TQC, physical distribution techniques .-" etc., were introduced into China by invited foreign experts or Chinese scholars who had studied abroad. Intensive training courses on special subjects of IE, like work study and materials handling, were organized. More and more IE applications were made in some large enterprises, In this period, more than one hundred of universities and colleges established, earlier or later, specialties or departments for Management Engineering (ME). Among the ME courses, many subjects are relative to IE: TQC, value engineering, MIS, human engineering, engineering economics, coordinated planning, system engineering, operations research, etc.. Many students who got well educated with these subjects became active researchers, trainers or practitioners in the IE field during the recent years. III. Developing Period (after 1990) A landmark decision was promulgated to call for transferring from the planned economy to Socialist Market Economy. Many enterprisers and managers are getting conscious of the importance of modern management techniques like IE that are efficient for improving productivity and profitability hence are powerful for market competition. Initiated by some foresighted experts, like Mr. Renkang Wang and Mr. Shuwu Zhang, the Industrial Engineering Institute attached to the Chinese Mechanical Engineermg Society (IEI-CMES) was established in !990, which was the first national academic IE organization in China. smee then, Modern IE has been energetically and organizationally promoted in industrial as well as academic circles, and gets rapid development in many aspects which will be introduced in next section.

2. Recent Progress In this section, we will brief the recent progress of IE development in organizations, education and training, popularization and applications.

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Table 1. Examples o f l E wqgikafiom: W o r k Study No. l

BENEFITS

WS APPLICATIONS Statistical survey on 8 entcrprises

Total input : ¥ 0.5 millionyuan (RMB)

affiliated to the Instrument & Meter

Increment of neat profit: ¥1.5 m. per

bureau of S h a n ~ Govelmne~t

year.

Statistical survey on 12 production

Total input : 0.76 m.

lines from 10 enterprises affiliated to

Increment of neat profit: 28.15 m. per

the Chinese Ele~caic Industry

year.

Honguang Electron Tube Factory in

Total input: ¥10 thousandyuan.

Cheng dou: improvingoperations on

Increment of neat profit: ¥3.63 m. per

a kinescope production line

year.

Shangling Refrigerator Factory:

Increment of neat profit: ¥1.3 m. per

improving operations on an assembly

year.

line of 68 meters Ion8 Fatfilities Plaanin~ and I)es'mn. Beginning from late 70's, about a dozea o f design institutes, affiliated to the Ministry o f Mechanical and Electronic Industry, took the lead to learn and apply IE m plant designs. Various IE techniques have been put in experiments, such as, group techniques, plant location, value engineering, engineering economics, manascmmt information systems, MRP and MRP-II, etc.. [12] gave a good survey on a total o f 36 completed projects in which IE techniques were well used. Table 2 shows a few examples from

U2]. Table 2. No. I

applications: Facility Phuminl[ and Design. ENTERPRISE Hang Zhou Automobile Engine Factory

BENEFITS a. Amount of material handling work reduced flora 1205 tkm/a to 650 tkm/a.; b. Land use saved: 5283 sq.m.; c. Building area saved: 3563 sq.m.; d. Cost of equipment saved: 350000 sq.m..

2

Hefei Mining Machinery Factory

a. Annual production output of excavators mc'reased from 300 to 500; b. Productioncycle for excavator reduced from 5 months to 40 days.

3

MaAnshan Transmission

a. Output value raised 20.4%;

Machinery Factory: The fh-st

b. Staff quota reduced from 45 to 5 men/da~

phase of a GT production

d. Distance for tranSlXa'tingmaterials reduced

engineerin8 56%. Overall Ovtimization o f Production Systems. One o f the outstanding chaxacteristics o f modem IE is to seek overall benefits o f the concerned systems by synthetically applying

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various IE techniques, system engineering, operations research, nmnagement science, computer and information techniques, and other advanced techniques. A few projects that embody such characteristic for large production systems have been completed in recent years. A planning project titled " On the Optimal Planning for Oil Production and Ground Engineering in Daqing Oil field " is a good example [1]. This project was done in 1984 by a cooperative team consisted of researchers and technicians from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Daqing Oil field. For comparison, several plans were worked out independently through conventional methods. It was calculated and approved by the financial deparlment of the oil field that 4.7% of the total investment over future five years could be saved according to the optimal plan worked out by the project team. This was a great achievement since the total planned invesanent amounted to a huge value. Due to the advanced techniques used and the remarkablel benefits gained, the project won the National Award for Science and Technology Progress of the second rank in 1988. Other examples may be referred in [18] and [7]. These two projects also obtained great benefits and won the National Awards for S&T Progress, of the first rank and second rank respectively.

3. Potentials and Prospects There are about 500 thousands of industrial enterprises in China. Being no need for reticence, the average levels of technologies and management in China's enterprises are far behind that m developed countries. Inefficiency is one of the major problem of the enterprises in common. The wastes of various resources are temble and intolerable. Let's take a look at some statistical data as examples [5]. Waste of human resource: the man-hour utilization rate in China's enterprises were only 40% to 60% in 1989. Waste of energy resources: the energy consumption per thousand US dollars of output value m 1985 was 2.37 tons in equivalent of standard coal, the highest consumption in the world. This was three times of that in Japan and 1.5 times of that in India. Waste of materials: the material utilization rate was 63% in China (1987), comparing 80% in the United States (1975). Wastes in industrial process: it was evaluated by experts that the total economical losses in all industrial enterprises suffering from unqualified products or semi-finished products amounted to more than ¥100 billions yuan (RMB) each year. In addition, the economical losses due to disordered management, irrational organization of production process and inefficient operations are even more astomshin 8, though hard to be calculated. China's economy is now at the stage of transferring to marketing economy system. Marketing competition has become a critical issue of all enterprises for surviving and developing. Hence managers and enterprises must pay great attention to productivity and economical benefits. They began to appeal consciously to effective techniques for aids. Based on the application benefits gained, IE techniques are generally recognized and accepted as the powerful means for barring various wastes and raising productivity and efficiency effectively. The important role of IE in improving technology and management has been highly appraised by leaders at different levels of the government. In his speech at the Conference of IE Applications and Training held by CMES, Mr. Xu Zhijian, the Vice-general Secretary of the State Council, called on popularizing and applying IE and making IE serve the economical development better [14]. A number of ministries and commissions of the State Council that have connections with industrial production have started their plans for promoting IE research and applications. In summary, nowadays economical environment in China provides an arena for industrial engineers to fully display their talents. A good beginning has been made. Though there will be a long way to go in order to catch up the developed countries, it can be predicted that IE certainly will get rapidly developed in China m the near furore.

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ORGANIZATIONS Several ~hationalIE societies has been established during recent years. These societies have n,=_~ great efftm, to introduee and popularize IE techniques and to promote research and applicatic~ of IE. IEI-CMES (1990), chaired by Prof. Yinglo Wang. It has thousands of members and a dozen of branch societies in different provinces. Since its establishment, IEI-CMES has organized 4 annual conferences, tens of symlxmiumsand seminars on different subjects of IE, and hundreds of intensive IE traini~ courses. IEI-CMES is the organizer of the 18th ICC&IE'95-Shanghm. IES-CSOOPEM (1993), a sub society attached to the Chinese Society of Optimization, Overall Planning and Economic Mathematics, chaired by Prof. Renchu Gan. It has held 2 annual conferences so far. IES-CES (1994), a sub society affiliated to the Chinese Electronic Society. More and more large enterprises, especially those joint-ventured enterprises, have set up their own IE departments or groups in order to promote IE applications. EDUCATION AND TRAINING Up to 1994, more than 20 universities have set up IE programs and enrolled undergraduate students. IE Master' Program has been approved by the Degree Committee of the State Council and launched in Xi'an Jiaotong University, Tianjin University, Hefei Industrial University, as well as others. IrE Doctoral Program is also approved and will begin enrollment next year. An IE in-servicetraining undergraduate program has been approved and began its enrollment of 8300 students in the College of Continuing Engineering Education for Mechanical Engineers [19]. The Ministry of Personnel and Labor is about to establish for the first time a professional system awarding different levels of Industrial Engineers [ 16]. Heating discussion is underway aiming at improvement of IE education and training (see [2] and [19] for example]. APPLICATIONS In the past decade, traditional and modem IE has been popularized and promoted through newspapers, periodicals, training courses, conferences, as well as TV education programs. The above-mentioned IE organizations often send IE groups to industrial enterprises to make experimental applications. Most of the component techniques in IE have found their applications in the planning, designing, eval,,Afin~or c.onsulting of industrial projects. Benefits of these applications are encouraging. Statistics on 16 enterprises that attended the Second Conference on IE (CIE'93) shows that the total profit owing to the applications OflE amount to 42 million yuan per year. The ratio of input : output = 1:28. However, it is impossible to make a comprehensive survey on all application cases. Here we only show a few examples of IE applications in Work Study, Facility Planning and Design, and Overall OptimiT~hon of production systems. Work Study {WS). work Study techniques belong to basic IE. Comparatively, they are easier to be learned and accepted by managers, technicians and ordinary workers. Hence they have been used more widely in China's enterprises. References [6], [10], [11], [13] and [15] introduced many WS applications. A few of them, as examples, are briefly shown in Table 1. It has been well recognized that WS techniques are effective in work quota formulation, in managerial and technological transformation for production lines. Once WS techniques are put in practice, remarkable benefits can be gamed.

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References i. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 1i. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

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