Introduction
Industrial engineering directs the efficient execution of construction, commercial enterprises of various undertakings, transportation, or manufacturing, indeed, in that human labor is directed in carrying out any type of duty. Industrial engineering has drawn upon various diverse fields of engagement including accountancy, sociology, psychology, mechanical engineering, economics and at times it distinct itself as a specific body of science in its own. The older branches of the profession never constituted the human elements and the economic parts and this differentiates it with the current understanding of industrial engineering. It is thus this complexity of operation that in industrial engineering working in groups becomes an aspect that every individual in the profession aspire to because the various combinations cannot be achieved by one person. A single individual cannot achieve or coordinate the various tasks alone because of the diversity in the field as it associate with a wider perspective of human life. Industrial engineering at times is identified as an approach to engineering that is applied to all factors included in production and distribution of services and goods.
Coordination of various tasks in such field is thus important to ensure the aspired efficiency in terms of resources including labor. Unorganized workforce is usually known to be costly and if this prevails in an industrial engineering field then the whole concept of industrial engineering being human effort engineering and efficiency engineering will be arbitrary as the efficiency aspect will not be realistic. Direct people costs constitute up to an average of 40% of organizational costs (Chen, 2008). Besides this, a significant number of the workforce in Industrial engineering are involved in complex, knowledge intensive roles that are vital to the achievement of organizational goals and objectives. The cost of getting workforce planning out of order is significant and detrimental. An integration of the workforce demand and supply into the strategic planning of an industrial engineering project or undertaking will ensure that the organization will acquire the five rights. The rights include the right number of personnel, with right skills and knowledge, in the right environment or place, at the right cost and the right level.
An industrial engineer can perform various activities to enable him or her fulfill his or her duties. Process analysis functions to examine procedures and processes of manufacturing. An industrial engineer can utilize time study and work study comprehending study method to exercise his or her efficiency in the workplace. A method study that can be utilized in this case is the study of how a duty is performed including the recording of activities, materials, and operators involved in the process. Time study records job perform over time. These are referred to as operations management. The coordination of these activities require a work plan that will organize the various personnel involved in the group job categories that an industrial engineer is suppose to coordinate as part of his or her duty in a particular organization (Taylor, 2013).
For an organization to justify its utilization of the various groupings of human resource, it has to realize the various talents available at its disposal. Various groupings are available to ensure that various organizations can have the right personnel in place to deal with situations. It is common sense that resources are usually limited and a successful enterprise is one makes maximum use of its resources. Many industries face critical shortages of essential and potential talents as the struggle in the midst of rapid and major dynamics. It common for organizations to know that success will always result from having the right talents together and efficiency in execution of duties. The environment that industrial engineering is operating at is dynamic and risky because it is more affected by technology and yet technology is ever changing. The workforce itself is dynamic in its factors like age of the workforce, which reduces by time, scarce skills costs more rampant in industrial engineering, changing career expectations and patterns and skills and qualification gaps (Taylor, 2013). Various statistics derived from researches have shown that despite the huge investment that is put into higher education, there exist significant gaps in scientific skills, technical and engineering and more specifically industrial engineering.
Strategy and Leadership
It is vital for an organization to put into place mechanisms to ensure that it has with it the best personnel and be in a position to maintain it. Strategic workforce planning is the best option that an industry can always employ in its management plan to ensure that its workforce is in order and ready to do that is supposed to be done. Strategic planning being part of workforce, is important in ensuring that its execution gets the right people in personnel in place to perform duties in order to fulfill the laid strategies (Miles, 2007). It is therefore; important for planners of industrial engineering organizations to understand the various strategies that affect there delicate field and more necessarily the impact of technologies need to be factored into plans. The planning of workforce should thus consider the impacts of the most likely technology that might be adapted.
It is up to the organizations management group to decide on the various plans that fit its organization plans or even the available industrial plans. The various plans available to a leader include operational, tactical and strategic. However, a leader needs to understand the various requirements and implementation for various plans employed. The common planning types involves strategic planning, tactical and operational planning. Strategic planning is always related with long-term plans of an organization including the long-term plans for organization of workforce groups. Tactical planning involves mid-term plans and usually for not more than one year. It includes scheduling of workforces duties and their execution, forecasting of future workforce trends and staffing requisitions. Operational workforce planning involves daily execution of duties (Taylor, 2013).
An effective implementation of a clearly planned workforce structure aligned with the strategic plans of an organization will mean involvement of workforce group leader in the initial process of initiating a plan. This will always ensure that the various techniques and talents will be involved in the planning and hence the whole execution process of an organization performance. It will also ensure that talents are aligned with strategic plans of an organization (Kamsu-Foguem, 2013).
Since the industrial engineering field is complex, a workforce leader and hence the planning team needs to understand the needs and requirements of the workforce team as in accordance to their diversity in area of specialization. A leader needs to a champion in allocation of enough resources to the workforce team to facilitate its effectiveness in execution of tasks. Various researchers and planners concur on integrated planning of groups as effective strategy in justifying the effectiveness of organizations plans (Köksal, 2013).
The industrial engineer plans his group in such a way that it will include among others an order to be followed from the lower level to the senior management. There should be a hierarchy in such a way that communication between different groups of industrial engineers is made easy. The senior management is responsible for the day-to-day operation of the group. They are responsible for the coordination between the lower level staff and the other management team to achieve the group’s objectives. The industrial engineer should organize the group structure in such a way that there is recognized leadership in the group (Taylor, 2013).
A visible and workable leadership encourage and enable group managers to motivate and inspire their group members. A good leadership is responsible for guiding the group members towards a certain direction. A strong leadership led to a group achieving the specific goals of the industrial engineers group. The workable force plan also recognizes strategic direction. This ensures that the industrial engineers ‘group members understand and are guided by the group strategic aims and goals of the group. This will make the group to go in one direction. As they move in one direction, they will achieve their set objectives and goals. When members use the group follow this strategic direction, the members will understand each other and no member from the group will not go against the group’s rules and regulations (Taylor, 2013). The policy advice is another group structure, which help the group members to understand that the group rules, goals and specific objectives are very important in the group’s management. The objectives set by the groups under this policy advice also will be achieved. Under the groups, leadership also is the partnership.
This ensures that there is strong partnership across the group members to achieve certain objectives of the industrial engineers group. Partnership ensure that the there is good relationship among the group members. It also ensures that team members work the external stakeholders of the group. The team may require working with the other members of the public. This structure ensures that there is good relationship between the group and the public or the other groups. The other structure is the operational management. In this structure, there are managers who oversee the finances and how these finances are used within the group. It ensures that the set budget of the group is followed and no money gets lost but they money should be used as per the budget of the group (Taylor, 2013).The financial managers ensure that the budgeted money of the group achieve the goals per the groups budget. There are also performance managers who ensure that the results of the group are known. They compare the actual results of the group and the expected results or the set objectives. They also identify the factors that caused the deviation between the actual outcomes and the planned outcomes. In this category, also there are risk managers. These managers ensure there are ways of mitigating the risks associated with the group.
The group will be organized basing on their ages. Different ages will form different sub groups. The age of an individual member will determine the group the member will fall into. The group will structure in such a way that there will be old members who share common interests, middle-aged members and the young members. Grouping them into sub groups will ensure that the members contribute towards the achieving of the group’s members. When members are grouped into different groups with similar characteristics, they can air their views easily. The opinions can be beneficial into the group. The structure of the group will also be based on the different member’s background and the objectives of the group. Economic status of the members will also determine how the group will be structured also. Different people have different economic backgrounds. Therefore, the group’s structure to be formed is determined by the economic background of the members. The educational background of the members will also influence the structure of the group (Taylor, 2013).
The group will be led by use of strategies of the group set. Since people of different backgrounds will form the group, the leadership style required will be diverse knowledge to accommodate their differences. The group will make decisions concerning the group through use of social decision schemes where the group individuals gather their different responses to come up with a common group decision (Köksal, 2013). The schemes will include delegating decisions, where the sub-group members make decisions, which will affect the entire group. The workable group also will make decisions through unanimous approach. The group will make decisions after talking and consulting each other until they reach a common decision. The decision will govern the entire members of the group and this is the most effective decision approach as there is no much objection from the members of the group. The group will benefit from these decisions and other benefits, which are already learnt.
References
Chen, C. T. (2008). Extensions of the TOPSIS for group decision-making under fuzzy environment. Fuzzy sets and systems, 114(1), 1-9.
Hackman, J. R. (2010). Groups that work (and those that don't): Creating conditions for effective teamwork.
Kamsu-Foguem, B., & Noyes, D. (2013). Graph-based reasoning in collaborative knowledge management for industrial maintenance. Computers in Industry, 64(8), 998-1013.
Köksal, G., & Eği̇tman, A. (2008). Planning and design of industrial engineering education quality. Computers & Industrial Engineering, 35(3), 639-642.
Miles, R. E., Snow, C. C., Meyer, A. D., & Coleman, H. J. (2007). Organizational strategy, structure, and process. Academy of management review, 3(3), 546-562.
Taylor, F. W. (2013). Scientific management. Routledge.
