Industrial Engineering
Examples
Walton Hancock
1/6/2010
Examples’ Span of Time
1952 to !954 – Masters and Dr. of
Engineering
 !954 to !956 - Lieutenant, U.S.Airforce
 1956 to 1959 – Manager of Industrial
Engineering and Manager of Quality
Control
 1959 to 1996 – Prof. of Industrial
Engineering and Prof. of Hospital
Administration
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1.Printing Plant Lubrication Program
MS in Eng. Thesis
 New Plant, Printing presses had 300
lubrication points.
 Selected lubricants, trained crews and
implemented system.
 No bearing failures in six years
 Perceived as a difficult problem by
management so received brownie points
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2. Color Control System
Color variation on supermarket shelves a
major issue.
 Dr. of Eng. Thesis
 Learned color physics, designed the
electronic equipment to measure color in
real time, Implemented system and
trained operators.
 Now color could be measured. Color
variation decreased.
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Color Control System
Perceived as a major contribution to
printing.
 Published papers and thesis was
published as a book.
 Had 52 people working for me upon
graduation.
 Company maintained salary when
drafted.
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3.Production Methods classes- Ford
Taught foremen about methods
improvements.
 Final exam was presentation to Plant
Manager.
 Average real savings was $10,000 each
for 87 students plus $1,500,000 personal
effort
 Always buy the product of who you are
working for or you can get fired!
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4. MTM Association Research
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MTM was widely used in US and Western
Europe foe establishing production standards.
Developed some of the systems and improved
older ones. Built a special purpose computer
to collect in plant human performance data.
Improved MTM-1, MTM-2 and MTM-3.
Systems used in US and western Europe.
Approached to be Technical Director of Postal
Service.
Expert witness on numerous labor productivity
arbitrations
Human Factors Laboratory

Started the Human Factors Laboratory
which is now the Center for Ergonomics
5.Employee Heat Stress Allowances

Car Company was designing a new foundry
and wanted a scientific method of determining
the heat stress allowances for employees
exposed to red hot metal.
 Designed workstations so that no allowances
were necessary with proper training.
 Resolved a large labor issue and reduced
costs.
Major Quality Problems Efforts
Because of Heat stress solution, retained
by President as his personal consultant
on major quality problems.
 Company supported my students
working on these efforts.
 Was a teenager car nut. Overhauled car
engine at 12, built motor bike at 13,
electric car at 14 and first car at 15. I
was in seventh heaven!
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6. Engine Hot Test System
Was teaching Quality control course, so
as a project the class designed the first
computer aided hot engine test system.
 Set up lab, obtained 6 engines, broke the
engine into seven subsystems and then
designed tests to work at three per
minute.
 System is still in use.
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7. Assembly Plant Quality Control
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Each car had inspection ticket. Worked only on
defects occurring over 10% of time.
 Divided plant into 5 zones.
 A team of three- an IE under 30, a plant
engineer and a plant foreman to determine
root causes and eliminate defects.
 Teams solved three per week with a new one
occurring for a net solution rate of two per
week.
Assembly Plant Quality
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Quality of cars greatly improved. Major issue
was the body quality.
 This effort was an experiment. Was not
deemed OK because I used my engineering
skills to solve the quality problems.
 Repeated experiment in another plant without
using my engineering. Solved all of the
problems.
 Quality Control Department had 300
employees!! We had 16!!
Assembly Plant Quality
Offered an assembly plant, but full time.
No thanks.
 Everyone on team was promoted.
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8. Door Locking Sounds
Malen’s thesis was to make all GM cars
doors closing sound like Mercedes at no
increase in cost.
 Collected all competitive cars and
analyzed door amplitude vs. frequency.
 Analyzed using finite element for one car
(ME Method)
 Achieved result by redesigning lock for
all cars with less cost
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9. Engine Compression Variation
Kawlra’s thesis was to reduce between
cylinder compression ratio variation to
reduce vibration, improve fuel mileage
and emissions.
 Did variation simulation analysis on all
components affecting compression
ratio(41)
 Eliminated four major machining
processes.
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Compression Ratios
Tightened four processes specs
 Loosened a number of specs
 Achieved desired result for several
engines
 First year savings -$40,000,000.
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10. Axiomatic Analysis
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Hired by Institute for Social Research to help
them prove that favorable worker attitudes
produce higher productivity.
Worked with a 600 employee design
engineering group at TVA.
Designed a small difference questionnaire to
be filled in by everyone.
Questions like “You should have all the
information you need when you start a design
– Do you and how often?
Converted results to economics.
Axiomatic Analysis
Negative responses were that they did
not have the necessary info which
caused redesign 30% of the time and
that the environmental review group
refused to publish their criteria causing
redesign.
 Situations corrected - Output went up by
12%!
 Used in production plants with good
success
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11. Process Control
Big problem in implementing Lean is that
processes have to produce high quality
first.
 Most process control tools help examine
a particular process not the whole
system process capability.)
 Used step wise and ridge regression to
reduce co linearity.
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Process Control- Ridge Regression
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Cut the implementation of new starter motor
line from 3 years to three months. Identified 4
of 72 processes that caused defects.
 Identified the poor processes in a casting line.
Once identified were fixed with great
improvement in quality
 Did not identify poor processes in another
casting processes because the standard
tests(32) were not significant. Problem solved
by looking elsewhere which would not have
happened without knowing that tests were OK.
12. Lean Systems
Started teaching Lean in 1985.
 Implemented flow lines and cells
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Reduced delivery from 30 days to 5
(computer chip manufacturing.)
 Reduced manufacturing space by 67%
(custom doors.)
 Reduced clean room space by 67% (filters)
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Lean Systems
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Selected a machine and used it to
demonstrate the improvements.
Die casting machines- increased
productivity and quality.
 Large stamping press – greatly reduced set
up and down time. Out produced every
other press in the company.
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12. Lean- Six Sigma Systems
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Taught a Lean-Six Sigma industrial course
One week per month over 4 months.
 Students worked on an important problem
over four months using Six Sigma method of
selection.
 Gave students “maturity” by visiting every
week.
 Average savings were $400,000 per student.
13. Hospital Systems
Obtained NIH grant to develop better
hospital operational systems.
 Inpatient admissions, Operating room
scheduling, nurse staffing and
assignment, ancillary staffing, and
outpatient scheduling systems were
developed and implemented.
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Hospital Savings
Typical Hospital
Savings
%
Inpatient Admissions
$17,453,072
16.5%
Operating Rooms
$5,166,720
4.9%
Nurses Using Aides
$5,752,728
5.4%
Nurses Reorganized
$3,794,175
3.6%
Ancillary Services
$2,539,360
2.4%
Totals
$34,706,055
32.8%
Hospital Budget
$105,776,192
Hospital Systems
The key to most savings is the inpatient
admissions system(ASCS). This system
maximizes and stabilizes occupancy.
Enables the stabilization of nursing, OR
and ancillary services.
 Installed ASCS in 19 hospitals with
forecasted success.
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14.Uof M Hospital Design
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Used technology to do the design of the
size and configuration of U of M Main
Hospital. Built to our design with
forecasted results achieved.
15. Company
Because NIH had no method of
promoting new systems, formed a
company at their suggestion.
 President for 10 years. Either had to quit
being a Professor or dissolve company.
Dissolved company.
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16. Patient Waiting Times
Yuli Huang (PhD student) reduced the
waiting time of outpatient clinics by 50%.
 No money saved except the elimination
of need to expand waiting rooms, but still
a good idea.
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17. Operating Room Scheduling
Wrote an OR computer aided scheduling
system that enabled procedures to start
on time.
 Implemented in 6 hospitals. Increased
utilization by 20%, reduced overtime by
90%.
 Started on time 95% of the time.
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18. Other Hospital Efforts
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New company “Lean Care Systems” with
5 colleagues to continue implementation
efforts.
Academic Output
35 PhD Students chaired or co-chaired
 89 papers
 16 Monographs
 4 books
 And a lot of fun!
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