Knowledge work includes manual operations that require industrial engineering.
Frederick Winslow Taylor‘s principles sound deceptively simple. The first step in making the manual worker productive is to look at the task and to analyze its constituent motions. The next step is to record each motion, the physical effort it takes and the time it takes. Then motions that are not needed can be eliminated. Then each of the motions that remain as essential to obtaining the finished product is set up so as to be done the simplest way, the easiest way, the way that puts the least physical and mental strain on the operator, the way that requires the least time. Then these motions are put together again into a “job” that is in logical sequence. Finally, the tools needed to do the motions are redesigned.
Taylor’s approach is still going to be the organizing principle in countries in which manual work is the growth sector of society and economy. In developed countries the challenge is no longer to make manual work productive. The central challenge will be to make knowledge workers productive. But, there is a tremendous amount of knowledge work—including work requiring highly advanced and theoretical knowledge—that includes manual operations. And the productivity of these operations also requires Industrial Engineering, the name by which Taylor’s methodology now goes.
ACTION POINT: Figure out the mix of knowledge work and manual work in your job. Apply the basic principles of industrial engineering to the latter.
Management Challenges for the 21st Century
* Source: The Daily Drucker by Peter F. Drucker