TAYLOR TO YAMASHINA - EMPLOYEE INVOLVEMENT IN INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING PROJECTS

Employee involvement in improvement activities was planned and executed in an excellent manner in Japanese organizations. Total quality management and total productive maintenance are two broad system level improvement approaches that used employee involvement and provided significant economic benefits. Japanese practices in these improvement techniques were recognized by practitioners as well as scholars of other countries and research studies as well as plant visits by professional executives were undertaken to understand the Japanese practices. Total industrial engineering as a concept was proposed by Yamashina in the Japanese tradition. Employee involvement in industrial engineering was indicated as an activity to be promoted by F. W. Taylor. Mogensen developed the idea further in his 'work simplification'. Yamashina, in developing 'world class manufacturing' approach, introduced the concept 'total industrial engineering'. Total industrial engineering can be explained as enterprise-wide industrial engineering as well as total employee involvement in industrial engineering. The concept has the power to attract the attention of senior management as well as the frontline operators to appreciate the potential of industrial engineering to improve efficiency and productivity. The paper attempts to describe the way employee involvement was advocated and progressed over the period in IE theory and practice.