3/31/2008

ORIGINS OF ENGINERING AND ENGINERING EDUCATION

The word "engine" comes from the Latin the word "ingenium" in Latin means "innate quality. engineering began with the invention of the stuff such as pulley, wheel and lever in the history, the first real engineers were the military engineers. Military engineers were technicians and soldiers who were working and fighting for their countries. Their main mission was to supply the technical demands of the army such as bridges, roads and fortifications. After military engineering, the second type of engineering appeared was the "civil engineering" whose mission is to work on buildings. A lot of different kinds of engineering came up.
after 18.century, synchronized with the development in technology, The first electrical engineer is considered as William Gilbert who originated the term “electricity”. With the invention of the first “steam engine”, mechanical engineering was started by Thomas Survey. During the “Industrial Revolution” “chemical engineering” appeared which got its rise from mechanical engineering. After the World War Second “The Second Industrial Revolution” happened. In nineties, with the development of computer technology, computer engineer Alan Emtage built the first search engine.
Since engineering was born in military, the education which is given to the officers can be considered as the first education of engineering. However, the first schools of engineering was founded in France, in the middle of 18th century. After 19th century the first engineering curriculums was developed in America and Europe, and they were more or less the same. However they were still classified with respect to some basic differences. The English mode was used at Yale and Harvard. Today there are a lot of technical universities like MIT.

http://www.hi.is/~joner/eaps/y3_85371.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engineering#History

ENGINEERING AS A PROFESSION

As technology develops day by day, engineering needs to be split into different specialties. Today’s world needs different and special needs. Creation of structures, machines, and devices for usage of human are the points that today‘s engineers concern abaout, but they are never directly connected with people. Engineering profession differs form others by using the knowledge of mathematics and natural sciences for use of economics and benefit of people. (except for industrial engineering). As engineers can work with only an undergraduate degree in today’s Master’s degrees for engineering are getting more important day by day. One can say that “ the profession in which a knowledge of mathematical and natural sciences gained by study, experience, and practice is applied with judgment to develop ways to utilize, economically, the materials and forces of nature for benefit of mankind”.
Reference :www.wikipedia.com
www.eksisoluk.com

WHAT ENGİNEERS DO

Engineers make our life easier. They use the fundamentals of mathematics and science to better businesses and solve technical problems. Engineers can be defined as the link between work and science. The major work areas of engineers are designing, development, testing, production and maintenance. They also make cost analysis and follow the steps of production. Also, many engineers ,because of their strong background, take part in businesses as high level managers.

Types of Engineering

Civil Engineers : design and supervise the construction of roads, buildings, airports, tunnels, dams, bridges, and water supply and sewage systems.Chemical Engineers : apply the principles of chemistry to solve problems involving the production or use of chemicals and biochemicals.Electrical Engineers : design, develop, test, and supervise the manufacture of electrical equipment.Mechanical Engineers : research, design, develop, manufacture, and test tools, engines, machines, and other mechanical devices.*The Other Specialist Engineering Types Are :Environmental Engineers develop solutions to environmental problems using the principles of biology and chemistry.Industrial Engineers determine the most effective ways to use the basic factors of production—people, machines, materials, information, and energy—to make a product or provide a service.Petroleum Engineers search the world for reservoirs containing oil or natural gas.Aerospace Engineering design, develop, and test aircraft, spacecraft, and missiles and supervise the manufacture of these products.Agricultural Engineering apply knowledge of engineering technology and science to agriculture and the efficient use of biological resources.Biomedical Engineers develop devices and procedures that solve medical and health-related problems by combining their knowledge of biology and medicine with engineering principles and practices.Computer Hardware Engineers research, design, develop, test, and oversee the manufacture and installation of computer hardware.
Materials Engineers are involved in the development, processing, and testing of the materials used to create a range of products, from computer chips and aircraft wings to golf clubs and snow skis.Mining and Geological Engineers find, extract, and prepare coal, metals, and minerals for use by manufacturing industries and utilities.Nuclear Engineers research and develop the processes, instruments, and systems used to derive benefits from nuclear energy and radiation.Petroleum Engineers search the world for reservoirs containing oil or natural gas.Aerospace Engineering design, develop, and test aircraft, spacecraft, and missiles and supervise the manufacture of these products.Agricultural Engineering apply knowledge of engineering technology and science to agriculture and the efficient use of biological resources.Biomedical Engineers develop devices and procedures that solve medical and health-related problems by combining their knowledge of biology and medicine with engineering principles and practices.Computer Hardware Engineers research, design, develop, test, and oversee the manufacture and installation of computer hardware.Electronics Engineers except computer are responsible for a wide range of technologies, from portable music players to the global positioning system (GPS).
What Makes Industrial Engineering Different ?Industrial engineering is a branch of engineering that concerns a wide range of concepts, such as the development, improvement, implementation and evaluation of integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information, equipment, energy, material and process .Also industrial engineering has no basic physical science like mechanics, chemistry, or electricity. Industrial engineers generally helps to make better the doings of other engineers by making processes more efficient, making products better and consistent in their quality, increasing productivity. In addition, industrial engineers contribute to the communication among the other engineers.
organization and technology, developing management control systems to aid in financial planning and cost analysis, designing production planning and controlling systems to coordinate activities and ensuring product quality are the characteristics of industrial engineers that make them different from other engineers.

MY PREFERENCE

If I were one of these people I prefer to be Max Weber. Because Weber is not also an industrial psychologist but also political economist. His studies are very important for the humanity. We can not think today’s sociology and economy without the Weber’s ideas. His thoughts about industrial life formulates today’s industrial world. By the help of his studies on politics, history, language, religion, law, economics, and administration must be very important for his successful theories.

THE GILBERTHS






Lillian Moller Gilbreth was born in Oakland, California, USA, in 1878. She was one of the first working female engineers. She was an industrial engineer and industrial psychologist who was known as the "mother of modern management" His husband, Frank Bunker Gilbreth was born in Fairfield, Maine, USA, in 1868.Frank Gilbreth was concerned with the relationship between human beings and human effort . He developed many improvements in brick-laying. This two people’s marriage made them one of the “great husband and wife teams in science and engineering”. The Gilbreths believed that there was one best way to perform an operation. However, this idea could be replaced when a better way was discovered. The Gilbreths defined motion study as dividing work into the most fundamental elements possible, studying those elements separately and in relation to one another; and from these studied elements, when timed, building methods of least waste. The couple advanced Taylor’s time-and-motion study but a different way. In this study Taylor was concerned with how time process can be reduced in a work, on the other hand, Gilbreths were trying to make the process more efficient by reducing the motions. . Gilbreth reduced all motions of the hand into some combination of 18 basic motions that named the motions "therbligs" and included search, select, grasp, transport loaded, hold, delay and others. They were not totally agreed with each other.
.Frank had an idea that society should work together to make an efficient work in any field. Unlike Taylor, Frank had basis values such as comfort, happiness, dignity, and service, which made the most effective route in an industry. While Taylor was trying to reduce the time of the processes, the Gilbreths were primarily concerned about reducing the motions involved which makes processes more efficient.
references:
http://www.lib.purdue.edu/spcol/manuscripts/fblg/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillian_Moller_Gilbrethhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Bunker_Gilbrethhttp://gilbrethnetwork.tripod.com/bio.html

FREDERICK W. TAYLOR




Frederick W. TAYLOR
Frederick Winslow Taylor who produced scientific management in business is American industrial engineer. He was born in Pennsylvania.
Taylor first learned to use time as a management tool while attending Philips Exeter Academy. After he completed an engineering degree at the Stevens Institute of Technology he started working at the Midvale Steel Company. Taylor developed detailed systems which are redefining the jobs and explaining the jobs’ descriptions to the workers and dividing the jobs into separate parts to process more output than before. in order to obtain maximum productivity from both workers and machines in the company. These systems trusted in time and motion studies. In 1890, Taylor became general manager of the Manufacturing Investment Company and created the new branch of management consultant. In 1898 while at Bethlehem, he became discoverer of the Taylor-White process, which is a method of tempering steel. His management methods were published in The Principles of Scientific Management. Taylor's scientific management consisted of four principles:
A. Replace rule-of-thumb work methods with methods based on a scientific study of the tasks.B. Scientifically select, train, and develop each employee rather than passively leaving them to train themselves.C. Provide "Detailed instruction and supervision of each worker in the performance of that worker's discrete task" (Montgomery 1997: 250).D. Divide work nearly equally between managers and workers, so that the managers apply scientific management principles to planning the work and the workers actually perform the tasks.

MAX WEBER




Max Weber is a well-known German political economist and psychologist. Max Weber was born in Germany. Weber attended to the University of Heidelberg in 1882. In 1884, after he served for the military, Weber returned to his parents' home to study at the University of Berlin. Weber continued his study of history until the late 1880s. He earned his law doctorate in 1889 by writing a doctoral dissertation on legal history entitled The History of Medieval Business Organizations and later on he was qualified to hold a German professorship. . There he was appointed professor of economics at Freiburg University.
In 1904 Weber published his essay “The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism“, which was the only one of his works that was published as a book during his lifetime. Max Weber died of pneumonia in Munich on June 14, 1920.
Weber is considered the most important classical sociological theorist. Because he investigated many areas and since his approach and methods were much more related to sociological analysis. Weber interested in politics, history, language, religion, law, economics, and administration, in addition to sociology,. Weber first investigated industrial sociology, then sociology of religion and sociology of government, which made him famous. His most famous work is his essay In 1904 Weber published his essay The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, which was the only one of his works that was published as a book during his lifetime. Max Weber died of pneumonia in Munich 1920.
Weber is considered the pioneer of classical sociology. Because he investigated many areas and since his approach and methods were much more related to sociological analysis.
“The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism”
In his book,. Weber argued that religion was one of the important reasons for the different ways the cultures of the West and East have developed, and stressed importance of particular characteristics of ascetic Protestantism which led to the development of capitalism, bureaucracy and the rational-legal state in the western world.
Weber continues to study interaction between religious ideas and economic behavior. He concluded that Calvinist ethic and ideas effected the development of capitalism in western world. For Weber there are three main types of political leadership, domination and authority. These are Charismatic domination , traditional domination, legal domination.

HENRY FAYOL




HENRY FAYOL WAS born in in 1841,Istanbul. Fayol has been described as the father of modern operational management theory.
Fayol had worked as a director of a mining and metallurgical company in France. His book “General and Industrial Management” was published in 1916.he indicated five functions that still form the basis of much of modern management thought and action:1-Planning: Examining the future and drawing up a plan or action. The elements of strategy.
2-Organizing: Build up the structure, both material and human, of the undertaking.
3-Commanding: Maintain the activity among the personnel.
4-Coordinating: Binding together, unifying and harmonizing all activity and effort.
5-Controlling: Seeing that everything occurs in conformity with established rule and expressed command.
Fayol thought that management is a universal human activity and thought that it is important to have unity of command. Division of work, discipline, unity of direction, remuneration of employees, scalar chain, equity, initiative, authority and responsibility, unity of command, subordination of individual interest to general interest, centralization, order, stability of personnel were some of his basic principles for achieving a good organization.
Fayol often associated with Frederick Taylor. Although his ideas have become a universal part of the modern management concepts, some writers associate with with Frederick Winslow Taylor. A primary difference between Fayol and Taylor was that Taylor viewed management processes from the bottom up, while Fayol viewed it from the top down.

HENRY FORD




Henry Ford was the American founder of the Ford Motor Company and father of modern assembly lines used in mass production.Henry Ford was born in Dearborn, Michigan, USA
He is credited with "Fordism", that is, the mass production of large numbers of inexpensive automobiles using the assembly line, coupled with high wages for his workers.
In 1891, Ford became an engineer with the Edison Illuminating Company .he had been worked for years for this company. he learned a lot of thing during the the Edison Illuminating Company years. With his friend Alexander Malcomson ,they formed a partnership, "Ford & Malcomson, Ltd." to manufacture automobiles. This company was reincorporated as the Ford Motor Company.His admire to become the first made his works easy. Ford recognizes the importance of productivity. there are mainly four fundamentals which were interchangeable parts, continuous flow, division of labor, and reducing wasted effort. He created the Model T. The processes that he implemented have their root from Taylor’s studies such as time-and-motion which is developed by Gilbreths.
http://www.hfmgv.org/exhibits/hf/
http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/ford.htm
http://www.usdreams.com/Ford18.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_ford

ABRAHAM MASLOW







Abraham Harold Maslow was an American psychologist. He is a well known scientist. Maslow is considered as the “Father of Humanistic psychology“. He was one of the pioneers of the “Motivation Theories” and known with his “Hierarchy of Needs” theory. He developed a hierarchical model of human motivation. His best work for psychology was the “hierarchy of human needs” which makes him successful and famous. He categorized all the needs of human in a pyramid system. Maslow’s pyramid places the strongest needs at the bottom and the weakest needs at the top. There are three kinds of needs for Maslow. These needs are “conative needs”, “cognative needs” and “aesthetic needs”. He also has the “neurotic needs” but they are not included in the pyramid. Food ,air ,food, air, water ,sleep are at the first level of the pyramid called “psychological needs”. Second level consists of “safety needs. The second level includes socialization. family, identification with a group, good relationships with others. The next level
feed from the recognition form other people, feeling prestige, status and self-esteem which concludes with confidence form the “safety needs”. At the final level, we encounter the “self-actualization” which is a synthesis of morality, creativity, spontaneity.

References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Maslow
http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm
http://www.netmba.com/mgmt/ob/motivation/maslow/