Steel mill
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A steel mill or steelworks is an industrial plant for the manufacture of steel. It may be an integrated steel works carrying out all steps of steelmaking from smelting iron ore to rolled product, but may also be a plant where steel semi-finished casting products are made from molten pig iron or from scrap.
History
Since the invention of the Bessemer process, steel mills have replaced ironworks, based on puddling or fining methods. New ways to produce steel appeared later: from scrap melted in an electric arc furnace and, more recently, from direct reduced iron processes.
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries the world's largest steel mill was the Barrow Hematite Steel Company steelworks located in Barrow-in-Furness, United Kingdom. Today, the world's largest steel mill is in Gwangyang, South Korea.[1][2]
Integrated mill
An integrated steel mill has all the functions for primary steel production:
- iron making (conversion of ore to liquid iron),
- steel making (conversion of pig iron to liquid steel),
- casting (solidification of the liquid steel),
- roughing rolling/billet rolling (reducing size of blocks)
- product rolling (finished shapes).
The principal raw materials for an integrated mill are iron ore, limestone, and coal (or coke). These materials are charged in batches into a blast furnace where the iron compounds in the ore give up excess oxygen and become liquid iron. At intervals of a few hours, the accumulated liquid iron is tapped from the blast furnace and either cast into pig iron or directed to other vessels for further steel making operations. Historically the Bessemer process was a major advancement in the production of economical steel, but it has now been entirely replaced by other processes such as the basic oxygen furnace.
Molten steel is cast into large blocks called blooms. During the casting process various methods are used, such as addition of aluminum, so that impurities in the steel float to the surface where they can be cut off the finished bloom.
Because of the energy cost and structural stress associated with heating and cooling a blast furnace, typically these primary steel making vessels will operate on a continuous production campaign of several years duration. Even during periods of low steel demand, it may not be feasible to let the blast furnace grow cold, though some adjustment of the production rate is possible.
Integrated mills are large facilities that are typically only economical to build in 2,000,000-ton per year annual capacity and up. Final products made by an integrated plant are usually large structural sections, heavy plate, strip, wire rod, railway rails, and occasionally long products such as bars and pipe.
A major environmental hazard associated with integrated steel mills is the pollution produced in the manufacture of coke, which is an essential intermediate product in the reduction of iron ore in a blast furnace.
Integrated mills may also adopt some of the processes used in mini-mills, such as arc furnaces and direct casting, to reduce production costs.
Minimill
A minimill is traditionally a secondary steel producer; however, Nucor (one of the world's largest steel producers) and Commercial Metals Company (CMC) use minimills exclusively. Usually it obtains most of its iron from scrap steel, recycled from used automobiles and equipment or byproducts of manufacturing. Direct reduced iron (DRI) is sometimes used with scrap, to help maintain desired chemistry of the steel, though usually DRI is too expensive to use as the primary raw steelmaking material. A typical mini-mill will have an electric arc furnace for scrap melting, a ladle furnace or vacuum furnace for precision control of chemistry, a strip or billet continuous caster for converting molten steel to solid form, a reheat furnace and a rolling mill.
Originally the mini mill was adapted to production of bar products only, such as concrete reinforcing bar, flats, angles, channels, pipe, and light rails. Since the late 1980s, successful introduction of the direct strip casting process has made mini mill production of strip feasible. Often a mini mill will be constructed in an area with no other steel production, to take advantage of local markets, resources, or lower-cost labour. Mini mill plants may specialize, for example, in making coils of rod for wire-drawing use, or pipe, or in special sections for transportation and agriculture.
Capacities of mini mills vary: some plants may make as much as 3,000,000 tons per year, a typical size is in the range 200,000 to 400,000 tons per year, and some old or specialty plants may make as little as 50,000 tons per year of finished product. Nucor Corporation, for example, annually produces around 9,100,000 tons of sheet steel from its four sheet mills, 6,700,000 tons of bar steel from its 10 bar mills and 2,100,000 tons of plate steel from its two plate mills.
Since the electric arc furnace can be easily started and stopped on a regular basis, mini mills can follow the market demand for their products easily, operating on 24-hour schedules when demand is high and cutting back production when sales are lower.
See also
References
- "POSCO Steel’s Fourth Quarter Executive Board Meeting in India" New Delhi, October 18, 2007
Further reading
- McGannon, Harold E. (editor) (1971). The Making, Shaping and Treating of Steel: Ninth Edition. Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: United States Steel Corporation.
External links
- Travel Channel video 1 of the Homestead Works
- An extensive picture gallery of all methods of production in North America and Europe
- History of steelworks in Scotland
- Trends in EAF quality capability 1980–2010
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steel_mill
Physical plant
Physical plant, mechanical plant or industrial plant (and where context is given, often just plant) refers to the necessary infrastructure used in operation and maintenance of a given facility. The operation of these facilities, or the department of an organization which does so, is called "plant operations" or facility management. Industrial plant should not be confused with "manufacturing plant" in the sense of "a factory". This is a holistic look at the architecture, design, equipment, and other peripheral systems linked with a plant required to operate or maintain it.
Power plants
Nuclear power
The design and equipment in a Nuclear Power Plant, has for the most part remained stagnant over the last 30 years [1] There are three types of reactor cooling mechanisms: “Light water reactors, Liquid Metal Reactors and High Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactors”.[2] While for the most part equipment remains the same, there have been some minimal modifications to existing reactors improving safety and efficiency.[3] There have also been significant design changes for all these reactors. However, they remain theoretical and unimplemented.[4] Nuclear power plant equipment can be separated into two categories: Primary systems and Balance-Of-Plant Systems.[5] Primary systems are equipment involved in the production and safety of nuclear power.[6] The reactor specifically has equipment such as, reactor vessels usually surrounding the core for protection, the reactor core which holds fuel rods. It also includes reactor cooling equipment consisting of liquid cooling loops, circulating coolant. These loops are usually separate systems each having at least one pump.[7] Other equipment includes Steam generators and pressurizers that ensures pressure in the plant is adjusted as needed.[8] Containment equipment is the physical structure built around the reactor to protect the surroundings from reactor failure.[9] Lastly primary systems also include Emergency core cooling Equipment and Reactor protection Equipment.[10] Balance-Of-Plant Systems are equipment used commonly across power plants in the production and distribution of power.[11] They utilize; Turbines, Generators, Condensers, Feedwater equipment, auxiliary equipment, fire protection equipment, Emergency power supply equipment and used fuel storage.[12]
Broadcast engineering
In broadcast engineering, the term transmitter plant is the part of the physical plant associated with the transmitter and its controls and inputs, the studio/transmitter link (if the radio studio is off-site),[13] the radio antenna and radomes, feedline and desiccation/nitrogen system, broadcast tower and building, tower lighting, generator, and air conditioning. These are often monitored by an automatic transmission system, which reports conditions via telemetry (transmitter/studio link).[citation needed]
Telecommunication plants
Fiber optic telecommunications
Economic constraints such as capital and operating expenditure lead to Passive Optical Networks as the primary fiber optic model used to for connecting users to the fiber optic plant.[14] A central office hub utilities transmission equipment, allowing it to send signals to between one and 32 users per line.[14] The main fiber backbone of a PON network is called an optical line terminal.[15] The operational requirements such as maintenance, equipment sharing efficiency, sharing of the actual fiber and potential need for future expansion, all determine which specific variant of PON is used.[14] A Fiber Optic Splitter is equipment used when multiple users must be connected to the same backbone of fiber.[14] EPON; a variant of PON, which can hold 704 connections in one line.[15] Fibre networks based on a PON backbone have several options in connecting individuals to their network, such as fibre to the “curb/building/home”.[16] This equipment utilises different wavelengths to send and receive data simultaneously and without interference[15]
Cellular telecommunications
Base stations are a key component of mobile telecommunications infrastructure. They connect the end user to the main network.[17] They have physical barriers protecting transition equipment and are placed on masts or on the roofs/sides of buildings. Where it is located is determined by the local radio frequency coverage that is required.[18] These base stations utilize different kinds of antennas, either on buildings or on landscapes to transmit signals back and forth [19] Directional antennas are used to direct signals in different direction, whereas line of sight radio-communication antennas, allow for communication in-between base stations.[19]
Base stations are of three types Macro, Micro and Pico cell sub-stations.[18] Macro cells are the most widespread used base station, utilizing omnidirectional or radio-communication dishes. Micro cells are more specialized; these expand and provide additional coverage in areas where macro cells cannot.[20] They are typically placed on streetlights, usually not requiring radio-communication dishes. This is because they are physically interconnected via fiber optic cables.[17] Pico cell stations are further specific, providing additional coverage only within a building when the coverage is poor. This will usually be placed on a roof or a wall in each building.[17]
Desalination plants
Desalination plants are responsible for removing salt from water sources, so that it becomes usable for human consumption.[21] Reverse osmosis, multi-stage flash and Multi-effect distillation, are three main types of equipment and processes used that differentiate desalination plants.[21] Thermal technologies such as MSF and MED are the most used in the Middle East, as they have low access to fresh water supply yet have access to excess energy.[21]
Reverse osmosis
Reverse osmosis plants use “Semi-Permeable Membrane Polymers”, that allow for water to pass through unabated, while blocking molecules not suitable for drinking.[22] Reverse Osmosis plants typically use intake pipes, which allow for water to be abstracted at its source. This water is then taken to pre-treatment centers, of which particles in the water are removed, with chemicals added to prevent water damage. HR-pumps and booster pumps are used to provide pressure, to pump the water at different heights of the facility, which is then transferred to a reverse osmosis module. This equipment depending on the specifications effectively filters out between 98 and 99.5% of salt from the water. Waste that is separated through these pre-treatment and reverse osmosis modules and taken to an energy recovery module, and any further excess is pumped back out through an outfall pipe. Control equipment is used to monitor this process, to ensure it continues running smoothly. When the water is separated it is then delivered to a household via a distribution network for consumption.[23] Pre-Treatment systems have intake screening equipment such as forebays and screens.[24] Intake equipment can vary in design, open ocean intakes are either placed onshore or off the shore. Offshore intakes transfer water using concrete channels into screening chambers to be transferred directly to pre-treatment centers, using intake pumps where chemicals will be added. It is then dissolved and separated from solids using a flotation device, to be pumped through a semi-permeable membrane.[25]
Electrodialysis
Electrodialysis competes with reverse osmosis systems and has been used industrially since the 1960s.[26] It uses cathodes and anodes at multiple stages to filter out Ionic compounds into a concentrated form leaving a more pure and safe drinking water. This technology does have a higher cost of energy so unlike reverse osmosis it is mainly used for Brackish water which has a lower salt content than seawater.[27]
Multi-stage flash distillation
Thermal distillation equipment is commonly used in the middle east similarly to Reverse Osmosis it has a water abstraction and pre-treatment equipment, although in MSF different chemicals such as anti-sealant and anti-corrosives are added. Heating equipment is used at different stages at different pressure levels until it reaches a brine heater. The brine heater is what provides steam at these different stages to change the boiling point of the water.[28]
Traditional water treatment plants
Conventional water treatment plant. are used to extract, purify and then distribute water from already drinkable bodies of water. Water treatment plants require a large network of equipment to retrieve, store and transfer water to a plant for treatment. Water from underground water sources are typically extracted via wells, to be transported to a water treatment plant.[29] Typical well equipment includes pipes, pumps, and shelters.[30] ). If this underground water source is distant from the treatment plant, then aqueducts are commonly used to transport it.[31] Many transport equipment such as aqueducts, pipes, and tunnels utilize open-channel flow to ensure delivery of the water.[32] This utilizes geography and gravity to allow the water, to naturally flow from one place to another without additional pumps. Flow measurement equipment is used to monitor the flow is consistent with no issues occurring.[33] Watersheds are areas where surface water in each area will naturally flow too and where it is usually stored after collection.[34] For storm water runoffs natural bodies of water as well as filtration systems are used to store and transfer water. Non-Stormwater runoffs use equipment such as septic tanks to treat water onsite, or sewer systems where the water is collected and transferred to a water treatment plant.[35]
Once water arrives at a plant it undergoes a pre-treatment process where water is passed through screens, such as passive screens or bar screens. Primarily to stop certain kinds of debris from entering equipment further down the facility that could damage it.[36] After that, a mix of chemicals is added using either a dry chemical feeder, or solution metering pumps. To prevent the water from being unusable or damaging equipment. These chemicals are measured using a electromechanical chemical feed device, to ensure the correct levels of chemicals in the water are maintained.[37] Corrosive resistant pipe material such as PVC plastic, aluminum and Stainless steel are used to transfer water safely due to increases in acidity from pre-treatment.[38] Coagulation is usually the next step, in which salts, such as Ferric Sulfate are used to destabilize organic matter in a mixing tank. Variable-Speed paddle mixers are used to identify the best mix of salts to use for a specific body of water being treated.[39] Flocculation basins use temperature to condense unsafe particles together.[40] Setting tanks are then used to perform sedimentation, which removes certain solids using gravity so that they accumulate at the bottom of the tank. Rectangular and center feed basins are used to remove the sediment which is taken to sludge processing centers. Filtration then separates larger materials that remain in the water source using; pressure filtration, diatomaceous earth filtration and direct filtration.[41] Water is then disinfected where it is then either stored or distributed for use.[42]
Plant responsibility
Stakeholders have different responsibilities, for the maintenance of equipment in a water treatment plant.[43] In terms of the distribution equipment to the end user, it is mainly the plant owners who are responsible for the maintenance of this equipment. An Engineers role is more focused on maintaining the equipment used to treat water.[44] Public regulators, are responsible for monitoring water supply quality, ensuring it is safe to drink.[44] These stakeholders have active responsibility for these processes and equipment. Manufacturers primary responsibility, is off site, providing quality assurance of equipment function prior to use.[45]
HVAC
HVAC plant usually includes air conditioning (both heating and cooling systems and ventilation) and other mechanical systems. It often also includes the maintenance of other systems, such as plumbing and lighting. The facility itself may be an office building, a school campus, military base, apartment complex, or the like. HVAC systems can be used to transport heat towards specific areas within a given facility or building.[46] Heat pumps are used to push heat in a certain direction. Specific heat pumps used vary, potentially including, solar thermal and ground source pumps.[46] Other common components are finned tube heat exchanger and fans; however, these are limited and can lead to heat loss.[46] HVAC ventilation systems primarily remove air-borne particles through forced circulation.[47]
See also
- Activity relationship chart
- Building information modeling
- Computerized maintenance management system
- Property maintenance
- 1:5:200, an engineering rule of thumb.
- Property management
Footnotes
- Jouhara, H & Yang, J 'Energy efficient HVAC systems'. Energy and Buildings, vol. 179, 2018, p. 84.
References
- Ahmad Anas, S 2012, 'Hybrid fiber-to-the-x and free space optics for high bandwidth access networks' Photonic Network Communications, vol. 23, no. 1, pp. 33–39, doi: 10.1007/s11107-011-0333-z.
- Bingley, WM 1972, 'Responsibility for Plant Operations' Journal ‐ American Water Works Association, vol. 64, no. 3, pp. 132–135, doi: 10.1002/j.1551-8833.1972.tb02647.x.
- Fritzmann, C., Löwenberg, J., Wintgens, T. and Melin, T., 2007. State-of-the-art of reverse osmosis desalination. Desalination, 216(1-3), pp. 1–76. [1]
- 2010. NSW Telecommunications facilities guidelines including Broadband. [ebook] New South Wales. Department of Planning, NSW Telecommunications Facilities Guideline Including Broadband. Available at: <https://www.planning.nsw.gov.au/-/media/Files/DPE/Guidelines/nsw-telecommunications-facilities-guideline-including-broadband-2010-07.pdf
- www-pub.iaea.org. 2007. Nuclear Power Plant Design Characteristics. [online] Available at: <https://www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/publications/pdf/te_1544_web.pdf>
- Henthorne, L. and Boysen, B., 2015. State-of-the-art of reverse osmosis desalination pretreatment. Desalination, 356, pp. 129–139.Taylor, JJ 1989, 'Improved and safer nuclear power' Science, vol. 244, no. 4902, pp. 318–325, doi: 10.1126/science.244.4902.318.
- Jouhara, H & Yang, J 2018, 'Energy efficient HVAC systems' Energy and Buildings, vol. 179, pp. 83–85, doi: 10.1016/j.enbuild.2018.09.001.
- Spellman, FR 2013, Handbook of Water and Wastewater Treatment Plant Operations, Third Edition., 3rd ed., CRC Press, Hoboken.
- Tanji, H 2008, 'Optical fiber cabling technologies for flexible access network. (Report)' Optical Fiber Technology, vol. 14, no. 3, pp. 177–184, doi: 10.1016/j.yofte.2007.11.006.
- New South Wales. Department of Planning 'NSW Telecommunications facilities guidelines including Broadband.'. 2010, p. 178.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_plant
Liquid metal cooled reactor
A liquid metal cooled nuclear reactor, or LMR is a type of nuclear reactor where the primary coolant is a liquid metal. Liquid metal cooled reactors were first adapted for breeder reactor power generation. They have also been used to power nuclear submarines.
Due to their high thermal conductivity, metal coolants remove heat effectively, enabling high power density. This makes them attractive in situations where size and weight are at a premium, like on ships and submarines. To improve cooling with water, most reactor designs are highly pressurized to raise the boiling point, which presents safety and maintenance issues that liquid metal designs lack. Additionally, the high temperature of the liquid metal can be used to drive power conversion cycles with high thermodynamic efficiency. This makes them attractive for improving power output, cost effectiveness, and fuel efficiency in nuclear power plants.
Liquid metals, being electrically highly conductive, can be moved by electromagnetic pumps.[1] Disadvantages include difficulties associated with inspection and repair of a reactor immersed in opaque molten metal, and depending on the choice of metal, fire hazard risk (for alkali metals), corrosion and/or production of radioactive activation products may be an issue.
Design
Liquid metal coolant has been applied to both thermal- and fast-neutron reactors.
To date, most fast neutron reactors have been liquid metal cooled fast reactors (LMFRs). When configured as a breeder reactor (e.g. with a breeding blanket), such reactors are called liquid metal fast breeder reactors (LMFBRs).
Coolant properties
Suitable liquid metal coolants must have a low neutron capture cross section, must not cause excessive corrosion of the structural materials, and must have melting and boiling points that are suitable for the reactor's operating temperature.
Liquid metals generally have high boiling points, reducing the probability that the coolant can boil, which could lead to a loss-of-coolant accident. Low vapor pressure enables operation at near-ambient pressure, dramatically reducing the probability of an accident. Some designs immerse the entire core and heat exchangers into a pool of coolant, virtually eliminating the risk that inner-loop cooling will be lost.
| Metal Coolant | Melting point | Boiling point |
|---|---|---|
| Sodium | 97.72 °C, (207.9 °F) | 883 °C, (1621 °F) |
| NaK | −11 °C, (12 °F) | 785 °C, (1445 °F) |
| Mercury | −38.83 °C, (−37.89 °F) | 356.73 °C (674.11 °F) |
| Lead | 327.46 °C, (621.43 °F) | 1749 °C, (3180 °F) |
| Lead-bismuth eutectic | 123.5 °C, (254.3 °F) | 1670 °C, (3038 °F) |
| Tin | 231.9 °C, (449.5 °F) | 2602 °C, (4716 °F) |
Mercury
Clementine was the first liquid metal cooled nuclear reactor and used mercury coolant, thought to be the obvious choice since it is liquid at room temperature. However, because of disadvantages including high toxicity, high vapor pressure even at room temperature, low boiling point producing noxious fumes when heated, relatively low thermal conductivity,[2] and a high[3] neutron cross-section, it has fallen out of favor.
Sodium and NaK
Sodium and NaK (a eutectic sodium-potassium alloy) do not corrode steel to any significant degree and are compatible with many nuclear fuels, allowing for a wide choice of structural materials. NaK was used as the coolant in the first breeder reactor prototype, the Experimental Breeder Reactor-1, in 1951.
Sodium and NaK do, however, ignite spontaneously on contact with air and react violently with water, producing hydrogen gas. This was the case at the Monju Nuclear Power Plant in a 1995 accident and fire. Sodium is also the coolant used in the Russian BN reactor series and the Chinese CFR series in commercial operation today.[citation needed] Neutron activation of sodium also causes these liquids to become intensely radioactive during operation, though the half-life is short and therefore their radioactivity does not pose an additional disposal concern.
There are two proposals for a sodium cooled Gen IV LMFR, one based on oxide fuel, the other on the metal-fueled integral fast reactor.
Lead
Lead has excellent neutron properties (reflection, low absorption) and is a very potent radiation shield against gamma rays. The high boiling point of lead provides safety advantages as it can cool the reactor efficiently even if it reaches several hundred degrees Celsius above normal operating conditions. However, because lead has a high melting point and a high vapor pressure, it is tricky to refuel and service a lead cooled reactor. The melting point can be lowered by alloying the lead with bismuth, but lead-bismuth eutectic is highly corrosive to most metals[4][5] used for structural materials.
Lead-bismuth eutectic
Lead-bismuth eutectic allows operation at lower temperatures while preventing the freezing of the metal coolant in a lower temperature range (eutectic point: 123.5 °C / 255.3 °F).[4][6]
Beside its highly corrosive character,[4][5] its main disadvantage is the formation by neutron activation of 209
Bi (and subsequent beta decay) of 210
Po (T1⁄2 = 138.38 day), a volatile alpha-emitter highly radiotoxic (the highest known radiotoxicity, above that of plutonium).
Tin
Although tin today is not used as a coolant for working reactors because it builds a crust,[7] it can be a useful additional or replacement coolant at nuclear disasters or loss-of-coolant accidents.
Further advantages of tin are the high boiling point and the ability to build a crust even over liquid tin helps to cover poisonous leaks and keeps the coolant in and at the reactor. Tin causes any reactor type to be unusable for normal operation. It has been tested by Ukrainian researchers and was proposed to convert the boiling water reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster into liquid tin cooled reactors.[8]
Propulsion
Submarines
The Soviet November-class submarine K-27 and all seven Alfa-class submarines used reactors cooled by lead-bismuth eutectic and moderated with beryllium as their propulsion plants. (VT-1 reactors in K-27; BM-40A and OK-550 reactors in others).
The second nuclear submarine, USS Seawolf was the only U.S. submarine to have a sodium-cooled, beryllium-moderated nuclear power plant. It was commissioned in 1957, but it had leaks in its superheaters, which were bypassed. In order to standardize the reactors in the fleet,[citation needed] the submarine's sodium-cooled, beryllium-moderated reactor was removed starting in 1958 and replaced with a pressurized water reactor.
Nuclear aircraft
Liquid metal cooled reactors were studied by Pratt & Whitney for use in nuclear aircraft as part of the Aircraft Nuclear Propulsion program.[9]
Power generation
The Sodium Reactor Experiment was an experimental sodium-cooled graphite-moderated nuclear reactor (A Sodium-Graphite Reactor, or SGR) sited in a section of the Santa Susana Field Laboratory then operated by the Atomics International division of North American Aviation.
In July 1959, the Sodium Reactor Experiment suffered a serious incident involving the partial melting of 13 of 43 fuel elements and a significant release of radioactive gases.[10] The reactor was repaired and returned to service in September 1960 and ended operation in 1964. The reactor produced a total of 37 GW-h of electricity.
SRE was the prototype for the Hallam Nuclear Power Facility, another sodium-cooled graphite-moderated SGR that operated in Nebraska.
Fermi 1 in Monroe County, Michigan was an experimental, liquid sodium-cooled fast breeder reactor that operated from 1963 to 1972. It suffered a partial nuclear meltdown in 1963 and was decommissioned in 1975.
At Dounreay in Caithness, in the far north of Scotland, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) operated the Dounreay Fast Reactor (DFR), using NaK as a coolant, from 1959 to 1977, exporting 600 GW-h of electricity to the grid over that period. It was succeeded at the same site by PFR, the Prototype Fast Reactor, which operated from 1974 to 1994 and used liquid sodium as its coolant.
The Soviet BN-600 is sodium cooled. The BN-350 and U.S. EBR-II nuclear power plants were sodium cooled. EBR-I used a liquid metal alloy, NaK, for cooling. NaK is liquid at room temperature. Liquid metal cooling is also used in most fast neutron reactors including fast breeder reactors such as the Integral Fast Reactor.
Many Generation IV reactors studied are liquid metal cooled:
References
- Ashley, R.L.; et al. (1961). SRE Fuel Element Damage, Final Report of the Atomics International Ad Hoc Committee (PDF). NAA-SR-4488-supl. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-04-10.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liquid_metal_cooled_reactor
Factory
A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. They are a critical part of modern economic production, with the majority of the world's goods being created or processed within factories.
Factories arose with the introduction of machinery during the Industrial Revolution, when the capital and space requirements became too great for cottage industry or workshops. Early factories that contained small amounts of machinery, such as one or two spinning mules, and fewer than a dozen workers have been called "glorified workshops".[1]
Most modern factories have large warehouses or warehouse-like facilities that contain heavy equipment used for assembly line production. Large factories tend to be located with access to multiple modes of transportation, some having rail, highway and water loading and unloading facilities.[2] In some countries like Australia, it is common to call a factory building a "Shed[3]".
Factories may either make discrete products or some type of continuously produced material, such as chemicals, pulp and paper, or refined oil products. Factories manufacturing chemicals are often called plants and may have most of their equipment – tanks, pressure vessels, chemical reactors, pumps and piping – outdoors and operated from control rooms. Oil refineries have most of their equipment outdoors.
Discrete products may be final goods, or parts and sub-assemblies which are made into final products elsewhere. Factories may be supplied parts from elsewhere or make them from raw materials. Continuous production industries typically use heat or electricity to transform streams of raw materials into finished products.
The term mill originally referred to the milling of grain, which usually used natural resources such as water or wind power until those were displaced by steam power in the 19th century. Because many processes like spinning and weaving, iron rolling, and paper manufacturing were originally powered by water, the term survives as in steel mill, paper mill, etc.
History
Max Weber considered production during ancient times as never warranting classification as factories, with methods of production and the contemporary economic situation incomparable to modern or even pre-modern developments of industry. In ancient times, the earliest production limited to the household, developed into a separate endeavor independent to the place of inhabitation with production at that time only beginning to be characteristic of industry, termed as "unfree shop industry", a situation caused especially under the reign of the Egyptian pharaoh, with slave employment and no differentiation of skills within the slave group comparable to modern definitions as division of labour.[4][5][6]
According to translations of Demosthenes and Herodotus, Naucratis was a, or the only, factory in the entirety of ancient Egypt.[7][8][9] A source of 1983 (Hopkins), states the largest factory production in ancient times was of 120 slaves within fourth century BC Athens.[10] An article within the New York Times article dated 13 October 2011 states:
"In African Cave, Signs of an Ancient Paint Factory" – (John Noble Wilford)
... discovered at Blombos Cave, a cave on the south coast of South Africa where 100,000-year-old tools and ingredients were found with which early modern humans mixed an ochre-based paint.[11]
Although The Cambridge Online Dictionary definition of factory states:
a building or set of buildings where large amounts of goods are made using machines[12]
elsewhere:
... the utilization of machines presupposes social cooperation and the division of labour
— von Mises[13]
The first machine is stated by one source to have been traps used to assist with the capturing of animals, corresponding to the machine as a mechanism operating independently or with very little force by interaction from a human, with a capacity for use repeatedly with operation exactly the same on every occasion of functioning.[14] The wheel was invented c. 3000 BC, the spoked wheel c. 2000 BC. The Iron Age began approximately 1200–1000 BC.[15][16] However, other sources define machinery as a means of production.[17]
Archaeology provides a date for the earliest city as 5000 BC as Tell Brak (Ur et al. 2006), therefore a date for cooperation and factors of demand, by an increased community size and population to make something like factory level production a conceivable necessity.[18][19][20]
Archaeologist Bonnet, unearthed the foundations of numerous workshops in the city of Kerma proving that as early as 2000 BC Kerma was a large urban capital.[21]
The watermill was first made in the Persian Empire some time before 350 BC.[verification needed][22] In the third century BC, Philo of Byzantium describes a water-driven wheel in his technical treatises. Factories producing garum were common in the Roman Empire.[23] The Barbegal aqueduct and mills are an industrial complex from the second century AD found in southern France. By the time of the fourth century AD, there was a water-milling installation with a capacity to grind 28 tons of grain per day,[24] a rate sufficient to meet the needs of 80,000 persons, in the Roman Empire.[25][26][27]
The large population increase in medieval Islamic cities, such as Baghdad's 1.5 million population, led to the development of large-scale factory milling installations with higher productivity to feed and support the large growing population. A tenth-century grain-processing factory in the Egyptian town of Bilbays, for example, produced an estimated 300 tons of grain and flour per day.[24] Both watermills and windmills were widely used in the Islamic world at the time.[28]
The Venice Arsenal also provides one of the first examples of a factory in the modern sense of the word. Founded in 1104 in Venice, Republic of Venice, several hundred years before the Industrial Revolution, it mass-produced ships on assembly lines using manufactured parts. The Venice Arsenal apparently produced nearly one ship every day and, at its height, employed 16,000 people.[verification needed][29]
Industrial Revolution
One of the earliest factories was John Lombe's water-powered silk mill at Derby, operational by 1721. By 1746, an integrated brass mill was working at Warmley near Bristol. Raw material went in at one end, was smelted into brass and was turned into pans, pins, wire, and other goods. Housing was provided for workers on site. Josiah Wedgwood in Staffordshire and Matthew Boulton at his Soho Manufactory were other prominent early industrialists, who employed the factory system.
The factory system began widespread use somewhat later when cotton spinning was mechanized.
Richard Arkwright is the person credited with inventing the prototype of the modern factory. After he patented his water frame in 1769, he established Cromford Mill, in Derbyshire, England, significantly expanding the village of Cromford to accommodate the migrant workers new to the area. The factory system was a new way of organizing workforce made necessary by the development of machines which were too large to house in a worker's cottage. Working hours were as long as they had been for the farmer, that is, from dawn to dusk, six days per week. Overall, this practice essentially reduced skilled and unskilled workers to replaceable commodities. Arkwright's factory was the first successful cotton spinning factory in the world; it showed unequivocally the way ahead for industry and was widely copied.
Between 1770 and 1850 mechanized factories supplanted traditional artisan shops as the predominant form of manufacturing institution, because the larger-scale factories enjoyed a significant technological and supervision advantage over the small artisan shops.[30] The earliest factories (using the factory system) developed in the cotton and wool textiles industry. Later generations of factories included mechanized shoe production and manufacturing of machinery, including machine tools. After this came factories that supplied the railroad industry included rolling mills, foundries and locomotive works, along with agricultural-equipment factories that produced cast-steel plows and reapers. Bicycles were mass-produced beginning in the 1880s.
The Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company's Bridgewater Foundry, which began operation in 1836, was one of the earliest factories to use modern materials handling such as cranes and rail tracks through the buildings for handling heavy items.[31]
Large scale electrification of factories began around 1900 after the development of the AC motor which was able to run at constant speed depending on the number of poles and the current electrical frequency.[32] At first larger motors were added to line shafts, but as soon as small horsepower motors became widely available, factories switched to unit drive. Eliminating line shafts freed factories of layout constraints and allowed factory layout to be more efficient. Electrification enabled sequential automation using relay logic.
Assembly line
Henry Ford further revolutionized the factory concept in the early 20th century, with the innovation of the mass production. Highly specialized laborers situated alongside a series of rolling ramps would build up a product such as (in Ford's case) an automobile. This concept dramatically decreased production costs for virtually all manufactured goods and brought about the age of consumerism.[33]
In the mid - to late 20th century, industrialized countries introduced next-generation factories with two improvements:
- Advanced statistical methods of quality control, pioneered by the American mathematician William Edwards Deming, whom his home country initially ignored. Quality control turned Japanese factories into world leaders in cost-effectiveness and production quality.
- Industrial robots on the factory floor, introduced in the late 1970s. These computer-controlled welding arms and grippers could perform simple tasks such as attaching a car door quickly and flawlessly 24 hours a day. This too cut costs and improved speed.
Some speculation[34] as to the future of the factory includes scenarios with rapid prototyping, nanotechnology, and orbital zero-gravity facilities.[35]
Historically significant factories
- Venetian Arsenal
- Cromford Mill
- Lombe's Mill
- Soho Manufactory
- Portsmouth Block Mills
- Slater Mill Historic Site
- Lowell Mills
- Springfield Armory
- Harpers Ferry Armory
- Nasmyth, Gaskell and Company also called the Bridgewater Foundry
- Baldwin Locomotive Works
- Highland Park Ford Plant
- Ford River Rouge Complex
- Hawthorne Works
- Stalingrad Tractor Plant
Siting the factory
Before the advent of mass transportation, factories' needs for ever-greater concentrations of labourers meant that they typically grew up in an urban setting or fostered their own urbanization. Industrial slums developed, and reinforced their own development through the interactions between factories, as when one factory's output or waste-product became the raw materials of another factory (preferably nearby). Canals and railways grew as factories spread, each clustering around sources of cheap energy, available materials and/or mass markets. The exception proved the rule: even greenfield factory sites such as Bournville, founded in a rural setting, developed their own housing and profited from convenient communications systems.[36]
Regulation curbed some of the worst excesses of industrialization's factory-based society, labourers of Factory Acts leading the way in Britain. Trams, automobiles and town planning encouraged the separate development of industrial suburbs and residential suburbs, with labourers commuting between them.
Though factories dominated the Industrial Era, the growth in the service sector eventually began to dethrone them:[verification needed] the focus of labour, in general, shifted to central-city office towers or to semi-rural campus-style establishments, and many factories stood deserted in local rust belts.
The next blow to the traditional factories came from globalization. Manufacturing processes (or their logical successors, assembly plants) in the late 20th century re-focussed in many instances on Special Economic Zones in developing countries or on maquiladoras just across the national boundaries of industrialized states. Further re-location to the least industrialized nations appears possible as the benefits of out-sourcing and the lessons of flexible location apply in the future.[verification needed]
Governing the factory
Much of management theory developed in response to the need to control factory processes.[verification needed] Assumptions on the hierarchies of unskilled, semi-skilled and skilled laborers and their supervisors and managers still linger on; however an example of a more contemporary approach to handle design applicable to manufacturing facilities can be found in Socio-Technical Systems (STS).
Shadow factories
A shadow factory is one of a number of manufacturing sites built in dispersed locations in times of war to reduce the risk of disruption due to enemy air-raids and often with the dual purpose of increasing manufacturing capacity. Before World War II Britain had built many shadow factories.
British shadow factories
Production of the Supermarine Spitfire at its parent company's base at Woolston, Southampton was vulnerable to enemy attack as a high-profile target and was well within range of Luftwaffe bombers. Indeed, on 26 September 1940 this facility was completely destroyed by an enemy bombing raid. Supermarine had already established a plant at Castle Bromwich; this action prompted them to further disperse Spitfire production around the country with many premises being requisitioned by the British Government.[37]
Connected to the Spitfire was production of its equally important Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, Rolls-Royce's main aero engine facility was located at Derby, the need for increased output was met by building new factories in Crewe and Glasgow and using a purpose-built factory of Ford of Britain in Trafford Park Manchester.[38]
Gallery
Zeche Ewald in Herten, exterior (2011)
Zeche Ewald in Herten, interior (2011)
Coldharbour Mill textile factory, built in 1799.
Adolph von Menzel: Moderne Cyklopen
New Lanark mill
Workers in the fuse factory, Woolwich Arsenal late 1800s
The assembly plant of the Bell Aircraft Corporation at Wheatfield, New York, United States, 1944
Interior of the Rouge Tool & Die works, 1944
Hyundai's Assembly line (about 2005)
Danisco Sweeteners factory in Kotka, Finland (2015)
First stages of Saturn V rockets being manufactured at the NASA Michoud rocket factory in the 1960s
Space station modules being manufactured in the Space Station Processing Facility
A ladle pouring molten steel into a Basic Oxygen Furnace for secondary steelmaking, inside a steel mill factory in Germany
Airplanes being manufactured at the Boeing Everett Factory assembly line
.jpg)
See also
Notes
- Pugh 2000, pp. 192-198.
References
- Needham, Joseph (1986). Science and Civilization in China: Volume 5, Part 1. Taipei: Caves Books, Ltd.
- Thomas, Dublin(1995). "Transforming Women's Work page: New England Lives in the Industrial Revolution 77, 118" Cornell University Press.
- Price, Alfred. The Spitfire Story: Second edition. London: Arms and Armour Press Ltd., 1986. ISBN 0-85368-861-3.
- Pugh, Peter. The Magic of a Name – The Rolls-Royce Story – The First 40 Years. Cambridge, England. Icon Books Ltd, 2000. ISBN 1-84046-151-9
- Thomas, Dublin(1981). "Women at Work: The Transformation of Work and Community in Lowell, Massachusetts, 1826–1860: pp. 86–107" New York: Columbia University Press.
- Biggs, Lindy (1996). The rational factory: architecture, technology, and work in America's age of mass production. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 978-0-8018-5261-9.
Further reading
- Christian, Gallope, D (1987) "Are the classical management functions useful in describing managerial processes?" Academy of Management Review. v 12 n 1, pp. 38–51
- Peterson, T (2004) "Ongoing legacy of R.L. Katz: an updated typology of management skills", Management Decision. v 42 n10, pp. 1297–1308
- Mintzberg, H (1975) "The manager's job: Folklore and fact", Harvard Business Review, v 53 n 4, July – August, pp. 49–61
- Hales, C (1999) "Why do managers do what they do? Reconciling evidence and theory in accounts of managerial processes", British Journal of Management, v 10 n4, pp. 335–50
- Mintzberg, H (1994) "Rounding out the Managers job", Sloan Management Review, v 36 n 1 pp. 11–26.
- Rodrigues, C (2001) "Fayol's 14 principles then and now: A plan for managing today's organizations effectively", Management Decision, v 39 n10, pp. 880–89
- Twomey, D. F. (2006) "Designed emergence as a path to enterprise", Emergence, Complexity & Organization, Vol. 8 Issue 3, pp. 12–23
- McDonald, G (2000) Business ethics: practical proposals for organisations Journal of Business Ethics. v 25(2) pp. 169–85
External links
- . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 18 (11th ed.). 1911.
- Uhl, Karsten (2 May 2016). "Work Spaces: From the Early–Modern Workshop to the Modern Factory". European History Online. Mainz: Leibniz Institute of European History (IEG).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factory
Category:Industrial buildings and structures
Subcategories
This category has the following 37 subcategories, out of 37 total.
*
- Lists of industrial buildings (5 C, 9 P)
A
B
- Brickworks (4 C, 9 P)
F
- Foundries (9 C, 17 P)
G
- Grinding mills (8 C, 53 P)
I
- Incinerators (2 C, 19 P)
L
- Liquefied natural gas plants (1 C, 23 P)
M
- Mill architecture (12 P)
N
- Nuclear facilities (5 C, 4 P)
O
- Oil refineries (2 C, 17 P)
P
- Pulp and paper mills (1 C, 25 P)
S
- Sugar refineries (7 C, 40 P)
T
- Tobacco buildings (4 C, 15 P)
W
- Windmills (8 C, 33 P)
Pages in category "Industrial buildings and structures"
The following 24 pages are in this category, out of 24 total. This list may not reflect recent changes.
F
H
R
U
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Industrial_buildings_and_structures
Industrial railway
An industrial railway is a type of railway (usually private) that is not available for public transportation and is used exclusively to serve a particular industrial, logistics, or military site. In regions of the world influenced by British railway culture and management practices, they are often referred to as tramways (which are distinct from trams or streetcars, a passenger technology).[citation needed] Industrial railways may connect the site to public freight networks through sidings, or may be isolated (sometimes very far away from public rail or surface roads) or located entirely within a served property.[1]
Overview
Industrial railways were once very common, but with the rise of road transport, their numbers have greatly diminished.[1]
An example of an industrial railway would transport bulk goods, for example clay from a quarry or coal from a mine, to an interchange point, called an exchange siding, with a main line railway, onwards from where it would be transported to its final destination.
The main reasons for industrial railways are normally for one of two reasons:
- Onsite shunting and consolidation: part-finished products or goods require movement between different parts of the process site to enable them to be manufactured, or made-ready for shipment. Moving relatively small amounts of goods over short distances is expensive if undertaken by mainline railway operators, who make money for charging for the shipment of goods over long distances in bulk
- Control of manufacture: Many industrial lines only operate for short periods of time, requiring the shipment of time-sensitive goods to the factory or processing point, over relatively short distances. These are mainly food products, often operating on narrow gauge lines to enable closer access to the originating point
Resultantly, most industrial railways are short, usually being only a few miles/kilometers long. While these types of lines most often at some point connect via exchange sidings or transfer sidings to bulk mainline shipping railways, there are notable exceptions which are hundreds of miles long, which include the iron ore-carrying railways in Western Australia, or in China to transport coal, while in Canada there are the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway and the Cartier Railway. These lines can be thought of as dedicated shipment routes, where only the products of that industry require shipment between those two points, and hence a dedicated line makes more economic sense with only limited possibility of consolidation of shipment with other industries.
Industrial railways serve many different industries. In both Australia and Cuba a large number of industrial railways serve the sugarcane industry. In Colorado, the Coors Brewing Company uses its own industrial railway at the brewery both for the delivery of raw materials and for shipping the finished product.[citation needed]
Military railways
Some industrial railways are military in purpose, and serve ammunition dumps or transportation hubs and storage facilities. The world's largest industrial railway serves the Baikonur Cosmodrome, and has been long operated by a military rail unit of the Russian Armed Forces. The railway closely participates in space launches, transporting space vehicles to their immediate launch pads.
Gallery
An SW1500 hauls NASA equipment cars along the NASA Railroad in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
A display of a narrow gauge industrial sand train at Leighton Buzzard Narrow Gauge Railway.
An open-cast iron mining industrial railway in Hibbing, Minnesota, circa 1906.
Steam-powered logging train in Comandău, Romania.
See also
- British industrial narrow gauge railways
- British narrow gauge railways
- British quarrying and mining narrow gauge railways
- Decauville
- Forest railway
- Light railway
- Mine railway
- Minimum gauge railway
- Other railways for the transport of goods
- Queensland sugar tramways
- S. D. Warren Paper Mill
- Short-line railroad
- Taiwan Sugar Railways
References
- Krause, John (1978). American Narrow Gauge. Golden West Books. p. 51. ISBN 0-87095-059-2.
External links
| Authority control: National |
|---|
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_railway
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_transport
The Industrial Revolution was a period of global transition of human economy towards more efficient and stable manufacturing processes that succeeded the Agricultural Revolution, starting from Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840.[1] This transition included going from hand production methods to machines; new chemical manufacturing and iron production processes; the increasing use of water power and steam power; the development of machine tools; and the rise of the mechanized factory system. Output greatly increased, and a result was an unprecedented rise in population and in the rate of population growth. The textile industry was the first to use modern production methods,[2]: 40 and textiles became the dominant industry in terms of employment, value of output, and capital invested.
| Industrial Revolution | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| c. 1760 – c. 1840 | |||
 A Roberts loom in a weaving shed in 1835 | |||
| Location | |||
| Key events |
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Ethernet
Industrial engineering
 | This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (January 2017) |
Industrial engineering is an engineering profession that is concerned with the optimization of complex processes, systems, or organizations by developing, improving and implementing integrated systems of people, money, knowledge, information and equipment. Industrial engineering is central to manufacturing operations.[1]
Industrial engineers use specialized knowledge and skills in the mathematical, physical and social sciences, together with the principles and methods of engineering analysis and design, to specify, predict, and evaluate the results obtained from systems and processes.[2] There are several industrial engineering principles followed in the manufacturing industry to ensure the effective flow of the systems, processes and operations.[1] This includes Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, Information Systems, Process Capability and Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control (DMAIC). These principles allow the creation of new systems, processes or situations for the useful coordination of labor, materials and machines and also improve the quality and productivity of systems, physical or social.[3][4] Depending on the subspecialties involved, industrial engineering may also overlap with, operations research, systems engineering, manufacturing engineering, production engineering, supply chain engineering, management science, management engineering, financial engineering, ergonomics or human factors engineering, safety engineering, logistics engineering or others, depending on the viewpoint or motives of the user.
History
 |
Origins
Industrial engineering
There is a general consensus among historians that the roots of the industrial engineering profession date back to the Industrial Revolution. The technologies that helped mechanize traditional manual operations in the textile industry including the flying shuttle, the spinning jenny, and perhaps most importantly the steam engine generated economies of scale that made mass production in centralized locations attractive for the first time. The concept of the production system had its genesis in the factories created by these innovations.[5] It has also been suggested that perhaps Leonardo da Vinci was the first industrial engineer because there is evidence that he applied science to the analysis of human work by examining the rate at which a man could shovel dirt around the year 1500. Others also state that the industrial engineering profession grew from Charles Babbage’s study of factory operations and specifically his work on the manufacture of straight pins in 1832 . However, it has been generally argued that these early efforts, while valuable, were merely observational and did not attempt to engineer the jobs studied or increase overall output.[6]
Specialization of labor
Adam Smith's concepts of Division of Labour and the "Invisible Hand" of capitalism introduced in his treatise The Wealth of Nations motivated many of the technological innovators of the Industrial Revolution to establish and implement factory systems. The efforts of James Watt and Matthew Boulton led to the first integrated machine manufacturing facility in the world, including the application of concepts such as cost control systems to reduce waste and increase productivity and the institution of skills training for craftsmen.[5]
Charles Babbage became associated with industrial engineering because of the concepts he introduced in his book On the Economy of Machinery and Manufacturers which he wrote as a result of his visits to factories in England and the United States in the early 1800s. The book includes subjects such as the time required to perform a specific task, the effects of subdividing tasks into smaller and less detailed elements, and the advantages to be gained from repetitive tasks.[5]
Interchangeable parts
Eli Whitney and Simeon North proved the feasibility of the notion of interchangeable parts in the manufacture of muskets and pistols for the US Government. Under this system, individual parts were mass-produced to tolerances to enable their use in any finished product. The result was a significant reduction in the need for skill from specialized workers, which eventually led to the industrial environment to be studied later.[5]
Pioneers
Frederick Taylor (1856–1915) is generally credited as being the father of the industrial engineering discipline. He earned a degree in mechanical engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology and earned several patents from his inventions. His books, Shop Management and The Principles of Scientific Management, which were published in the early 1900s, were the beginning of industrial engineering.[7] Improvements in work efficiency under his methods was based on improving work methods, developing of work standards, and reduction in time required to carry out the work. With an abiding faith in the scientific method, Taylor did many experiments in machine shop work on machines as well as men. Taylor developed "time study" to measure time taken for various elements of a task and then used the study observations to reduce the time further. Time study was done for the improved method once again to provide time standards which are accurate for planning manual tasks and also for providing incentives.[5]
The husband-and-wife team of Frank Gilbreth (1868–1924) and Lillian Gilbreth (1878–1972) was the other cornerstone of the industrial engineering movement whose work is housed at Purdue University School of Industrial Engineering. They categorized the elements of human motion into 18 basic elements called therbligs. This development permitted analysts to design jobs without knowledge of the time required to do a job. These developments were the beginning of a much broader field known as human factors or ergonomics.[5]
In 1908, the first course on industrial engineering was offered as an elective at Pennsylvania State University, which became a separate program in 1909 through the efforts of Hugo Diemer.[8] The first doctoral degree in industrial engineering was awarded in 1933 by Cornell University.
In 1912, Henry Laurence Gantt developed the Gantt chart, which outlines actions the organization along with their relationships. This chart opens later form familiar to us today by Wallace Clark.[citation needed]
With the development of assembly lines, the factory of Henry Ford (1913) accounted for a significant leap forward in the field. Ford reduced the assembly time of a car from more than 700 hours to 1.5 hours. In addition, he was a pioneer of the economy of the capitalist welfare ("welfare capitalism") and the flag of providing financial incentives for employees to increase productivity.
In 1927, the then Technische Hochschule Berlin was the first German university to introduce the degree.[9] The course of studies developed by Willi Prion was then still called Business and Technology and was intended to provide descendants of industrialists with an adequate education.
Comprehensive quality management system (Total quality management or TQM) developed in the forties was gaining momentum after World War II and was part of the recovery of Japan after the war.
The American Institute of Industrial Engineering was formed in 1948. The early work by F. W. Taylor and the Gilbreths was documented in papers presented to the American Society of Mechanical Engineers as interest grew from merely improving machine performance to the performance of the overall manufacturing process, most notably starting with the presentation by Henry R. Towne (1844–1924) of his paper The Engineer as An Economist (1886).[10]
Modern practice
From 1960 to 1975, with the development of decision support systems in supply such as material requirements planning (MRP), one can emphasize the timing issue (inventory, production, compounding, transportation, etc.) of industrial organization. Israeli scientist Dr. Jacob Rubinovitz installed the CMMS program developed in IAI and Control-Data (Israel) in 1976 in South Africa and worldwide.
In the 1970s, with the penetration of Japanese management theories such as Kaizen and Kanban, Japan realized very high levels of quality and productivity. These theories improved issues of quality, delivery time, and flexibility. Companies in the west realized the great impact of Kaizen and started implementing their own continuous improvement programs. W. Edwards Deming made significant contributions in the minimization of variance starting in the 1950s and continuing to the end of his life.
In the 1990s, following the global industry globalization process, the emphasis was on supply chain management and customer-oriented business process design. The theory of constraints, developed by Israeli scientist Eliyahu M. Goldratt (1985), is also a significant milestone in the field.
Comparison to other engineering disciplines
Engineering is traditionally decompositional.[citation needed] To understand the whole of something, it is first broken down into its parts.[citation needed] One masters the parts, then puts them back together to create a better understanding of how to master the whole. The approach of industrial and systems engineering (ISE) is opposite; any one part cannot be understood without the context of the whole system. Changes in one part of the system affect the entire system, and the role of a single part is to better serve the whole system.
Also, industrial engineering considers the human factor and its relation to the technical aspect of the situation and all of the other factors that influence the entire situation,[4] while other engineering disciplines focus on the design of inanimate objects.
"Industrial Engineers integrate combinations of people, information, materials, and equipment that produce innovative and efficient organizations. In addition to manufacturing, Industrial Engineers work and consult in every industry, including hospitals, communications, e-commerce, entertainment, government, finance, food, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, sports, insurance, sales, accounting, banking, travel, and transportation."[11]
"Industrial Engineering is the branch of Engineering most closely related to human resources in that we apply social skills to work with all types of employees, from engineers to salespeople to top management. One of the main focuses of an Industrial Engineer is to improve the working environments of people – not to change the worker, but to change the workplace."[11]
"All engineers, including Industrial Engineers, take mathematics through calculus and differential equations. Industrial Engineering is different in that it is based on discrete variable math, whereas all other engineering is based on continuous variable math. We emphasize the use of linear algebra and difference equations, as opposed to the use of differential equations which are so prevalent in other engineering disciplines. This emphasis becomes evident in optimization of production systems in which we are sequencing orders, scheduling batches, determining the number of materials handling units, arranging factory layouts, finding sequences of motions, etc. As, Industrial Engineers, we deal almost exclusively with systems of discrete components."[11]
Etymology
|
Etymology
While originally applied to manufacturing, the use of industrial in industrial engineering can be somewhat misleading, since it has grown to encompass any methodical or quantitative approach to optimizing how a process, system, or organization operates. In fact, the industrial in industrial engineering means the industry in its broadest sense.[12] People have changed the term industrial to broader terms such as industrial and manufacturing engineering, industrial and systems engineering, industrial engineering and operations research, industrial engineering and management.
Sub-disciplines
Industrial engineering has many sub-disciplines, the most common of which are listed below. Although there are industrial engineers who focus exclusively on one of these sub-disciplines, many deals with a combination of them such as supply chain and logistics, and facilities and energy management.[13][14]
Methods engineering
Facilities engineering & energy management
Financial engineering
Energy engineering
Human factors & safety engineering
Information systems engineering & management
Manufacturing engineering
Operations engineering & management
Operations research & optimization
Policy planning
Production engineering
Quality & reliability engineering
Supply chain management & logistics
Systems engineering & analysis
Systems simulation
Related disciplines
Organization development & change management
Behavioral economics
Education
Industrial engineers study the interaction of human beings with machines, materials, information, procedures and environments in such developments and in designing a technological system.[15]
Industrial engineering degrees accredited within any member country of the Washington Accord enjoy equal accreditation within all other signatory countries, thus allowing engineers from one country to practice engineering professionally in any other.
Universities offer degrees at the bachelor, masters, and doctoral level.
Undergraduate curriculum
| 2022 U.S. News undergraduate rankings[16] | |
|---|---|
| University | Rank |
|
| |
| Georgia Institute of Technology | 1 |
| Purdue University | 2 |
| University of Michigan | 3 |
| Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | 3 |
| Cornell University | 5 |
| Pennsylvania State University | 6 |
| University of California, Berkeley | 7 |
| University of Wisconsin, Madison | 8 |
| Northwestern University | 9 |
| Stanford University | 10 |
In the United States, the undergraduate degree earned is either a bachelor of science (B.S.) or a bachelor of science and engineering (B.S.E.) in industrial engineering (IE). In South Africa, the undergraduate degree is a bachelor of engineering (BEng). Variations of the title include Industrial & Operations Engineering (IOE), and Industrial & Systems Engineering (ISE or ISyE).
The typical curriculum includes a broad math and science foundation spanning chemistry, physics, mechanics (i.e., statics, kinematics, and dynamics), materials science, computer science, electronics/circuits, engineering design, and the standard range of engineering mathematics (i.e., calculus, linear algebra, differential equations, statistics). For any engineering undergraduate program to be accredited, regardless of concentration, it must cover a largely similar span of such foundational work – which also overlaps heavily with the content tested on one or more engineering licensure exams in most jurisdictions.
The coursework specific to IE entails specialized courses in areas such as optimization, applied probability, stochastic modeling, design of experiments, statistical process control, simulation, manufacturing engineering, ergonomics/safety engineering, and engineering economics. Industrial engineering elective courses typically cover more specialized topics in areas such as manufacturing, supply chains and logistics, analytics and machine learning, production systems, human factors and industrial design, and service systems.[17][18][19][20][21][22]
Certain business schools may offer programs with some overlapping relevance to IE, but the engineering programs are distinguished by a much more intensely quantitative focus, required engineering science electives, and the core math and science courses required of all engineering programs.
Graduate curriculum
| 2019 U.S. News graduate rankings[23] | |
|---|---|
| University | Rank |
|
| |
| Georgia Institute of Technology | 1 |
| University of Michigan | 2 |
| Northwestern University | 3 |
| University of California, Berkeley | 4 |
| Virginia Tech | 4 |
| Pennsylvania State University | 6 |
| Purdue University | 6 |
| University of Wisconsin–Madison | 6 |
| Cornell University | 9 |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | 9 |
The usual graduate degree earned is the master of science (MS), master of science and engineering (MSE) or master of engineering (MEng) in industrial engineering or various alternative related concentration titles.
Typical MS curricula may cover:
- Manufacturing Engineering
- Analytics and machine learning
- Computer-aided manufacturing
- Engineering economics
- Financial engineering
- Human factors engineering and ergonomics (safety engineering)
- Lean Six Sigma
- Management sciences
- Materials management
- Operations management
- Operations research and optimization techniques
- Predetermined motion time system and computer use for IE
- Product development
- Production planning and control
- Productivity improvement
- Project management
- Reliability engineering and life testing
- Robotics
- Statistical process control or quality control
- Supply chain management and logistics
- System dynamics and policy planning
- Systems simulation and stochastic processes
- Time and motion study
- Facilities design and work-space design
- Quality engineering
- System analysis and techniques
Differences in teaching
While industrial engineering as a formal degree has been around for years, consensus on what topics should be taught and studied differs across countries. For example, Turkey focuses on a very technical degree while Denmark, Finland and the United Kingdom have a management focus degree, thus making it less technical. The United States, meanwhile, focuses on case studies, group problem solving and maintains a balance between the technical and non-technical side.[24]
Practicing engineers
Traditionally, a major aspect of industrial engineering was planning the layouts of factories and designing assembly lines and other manufacturing paradigms. And now, in lean manufacturing systems, industrial engineers work to eliminate wastes of time, money, materials, energy, and other resources.
Examples of where industrial engineering might be used include flow process charting, process mapping, designing an assembly workstation, strategizing for various operational logistics, consulting as an efficiency expert, developing a new financial algorithm or loan system for a bank, streamlining operation and emergency room location or usage in a hospital, planning complex distribution schemes for materials or products (referred to as supply-chain management), and shortening lines (or queues) at a bank, hospital, or a theme park.
Modern industrial engineers typically use predetermined motion time systems, computer simulation (especially discrete event simulation), along with extensive mathematical tools for modeling, such as mathematical optimization and queueing theory, and computational methods for system analysis, evaluation, and optimization. Industrial engineers also use the tools of data science and machine learning in their work owing to the strong relatedness of these disciplines with the field and the similar technical background required of industrial engineers (including a strong foundation in probability theory, linear algebra, and statistics, as well as having coding skills).
See also
Related topics
- Engineering economics
- Engineering management – Overview of management in engineering
- Enterprise engineering
- Environment, health and safety – Balance of occupational safety and environmental protection
- Human factors and ergonomics – Designing systems to suit their users
- Industrial and production engineering – Branch of engineering
- Industrial design – Process of design
- Maintenance engineering
- Manufacturing engineering – Branch of engineering
- Occupational safety and health – Field concerned with the safety, health and welfare of people at work
- Operations engineering – branch of engineering
- Operations research – Discipline concerning the application of advanced analytical methods
- Outline of production – Overview of and topical guide to production
- Overall equipment effectiveness – Measure of how well a manufacturing operation is utilized
- Process engineering – Study of making products from raw materials
- Product design – Process of development of new products
- Product engineering – Process of designing & developing devices, formualtions or systems for sale
- Production engineering – Branch of engineering
- Project management – Practice of leading the work of a team to achieve goals and criteria at a specified time
- Project production management
- Quality engineering – Principles and practice of product and service quality assurance and control
- Reverse engineering – Process of extracting design information from anything artificial
- Safety engineering – Engineering discipline which assures that engineered systems provide acceptable levels of safety
- Sales process engineering – Systematic design of sales processes
- Sociotechnical system – Organizational work design recognizes interaction between people & technology in workplace
- Statistical process control – Method of quality control
- Systems engineering – Interdisciplinary field of engineering
- Toyota Production System – System developed by Toyota
- The Toyota Way – Set of managerial and production principles
- Fordism – Ford's assembly-line mass production and consumption manufacturing system
Associations
- Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineers – Professional society for the support of the industrial engineering profession
- Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) – Academic association dedicated to operations research
- Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES)
- American Society for Engineering Education – US professional organization for engineering education
- American Society for Quality – Knowledge-based global community of quality professionals
- European Students of Industrial Engineering and Management (ESTIEM)
- Indian Institution of Industrial Engineering
- Washington Accord
- Engineering Council of South Africa
Notes
- Oanca, Alexandra. "What is Industrial Engineering and Why Should I Study It?".
Further reading
- Badiru, A. (Ed.) (2005). Handbook of industrial and systems engineering. CRC Press. ISBN 0-8493-2719-9.
- B. S. Blanchard and Fabrycky, W. (2005). Systems Engineering and Analysis (4th Edition). Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0-13-186977-9.
- Salvendy, G. (Ed.) (2001). Handbook of industrial engineering: Technology and operations management. Wiley-Interscience. ISBN 0-471-33057-4.
- Turner, W. et al. (1992). Introduction to industrial and systems engineering (Third edition). Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-481789-3.
- Eliyahu M. Goldratt, Jeff Cox (1984). The Goal North River Press; 2nd Rev edition (1992). ISBN 0-88427-061-0; 20th Anniversary edition (2004) ISBN 0-88427-178-1
- Miller, Doug, Towards Sustainable Labour Costing in UK Fashion Retail (February 5, 2013). doi:10.2139/ssrn.2212100
- Malakooti, B. (2013). Operations and Production Systems with Multiple Objectives. John Wiley & Sons.ISBN 978-1-118-58537-5
- Systems Engineering Body of Knowledge (SEBoK)
- Traditional Engineering
- Master of Engineering Administration (MEA)
- Kambhampati, Venkata Satya Surya Narayana Rao (2017). "Principles of Industrial Engineering" IIE Annual Conference. Proceedings; Norcross (2017): 890-895.[1]
External links
Media related to Industrial engineering at Wikimedia Commons
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_engineering
Category:Industrial engineering
Subcategories
This category has the following 10 subcategories, out of 10 total.
A
- Industrial automation (8 C, 101 P)
C
- Computer-aided engineering (5 C, 37 P)
D
- Decomposition methods (8 P)
I
- Industrial engineers (1 C, 12 P)
O
- Optimal scheduling (23 P)
T
- Transportation engineering (7 C, 67 P)
Pages in category "Industrial engineering"
The following 70 pages are in this category, out of 70 total. This list may not reflect recent changes.
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