The industrial engineering revolution

Classical industrial engineering was based on five main foundations: the rule of intuition, the philosophy of the one best way, the deterministic system, the principle of simplification and the classical methods of experimentation. Intuition rarely yields satisfactory results in complicated systems and is giving way to operational research techniques. The philosophy of the one best way has been replaced by the philosophy of the better way, and the deterministic methods by statistical analysis. We are increasingly aware of the inadequacy of the principle of simplification and believe that industrial operations are inherently complex and require a new approach to their study. The Hawthorne experiments demonstrated the effect of observation on the observed system and also emphasised the necessity of devising new methods for industrial engineering research and study of administrative behaviour.