INTERVIEW QUESTIONS OF INDUSTRIAL ENGINEERING

1.What is plant organization?

Organization can be termed as distributing functions of a business to a qualified personnel to get the best output. Organization should be built around functions rather than individuals. In the past and to a large extent today, the majority of progressive concerns are organized on a line-and-staff basis. There are two types of organization:

• A line organization comprises those individuals, groups, and supervising employees concerned directly with the productive operation of the business. The paths of authority are clearly defined, as each individual has but one superior from whom he or she obtains orders and instructions.
• A staff organization involves personnel, departments, or activities that assist the line supervisor in any advisory, service, coordination, or control capacity. It should be noted that a staff position is a full-time job and is essentially the work of a specialist.

2.What is process analysis?

 Process analysis is a procedure for studying all productive and nonproductive operations for the purpose of optimizing cost, quality, throughput time, and production output. These four criteria are not mutually exclusive and they are not necessarily negatively correlated. High quality with few if any rejects can result in high production output with low throughput time and cost. All four of these criteria need to be addressed if a facility is going to be a world competitor producing a quality product. In applying process analysis to an existing plant producing a product line, the procedure is first to acquire all information related to the volume of the work that will be directed to the process under study, namely, the expected volume of business, the chance of repeat business, the life of the job, the chance for design changes, and the labor content of the job. This will determine the time and effort to be devoted toward improving the existing process or planning a new process.

3.What is a plant layout?

For a good process to work smoothly, a proper layout is required. The main purpose of a plant layout should be low handling cost and low throughput time. There are two types of plant layout:

• Product or straight-line layouts: In this, minimization of flow from one operation to next for any product class as machinery is located.
• Process, or functional, arrangements: It is the grouping of similar facilities.

4.What are the major disadvantages of product grouping?

The major disadvantages of product grouping are:

• Employee discontent can easily be picked as a broad variety of occupations are represented in a small area.
• The problem of finding competent supervisors is increased due to the variety of facilities and jobs to be supervised.
• Initial investment is more as duplicate service lines such as air, water, gas, oil, and power lines are required.

4.What is total quality control? Mention the technical standards.

The main objective of total quality control is to provide defect free products in 100 percent of the time to meet the complete needs of the customer. It involves all the members in an organization who can affect the quality of the output - a product or service. ISO 9000 is a world standard for quality, it is a quality assurance management system, which is divided into four divisions on the basis of its technical standards:

• ISO 9001 covers procedures from purchasing to service of the sold product.
• ISO 9002 targets towards standards related to processes and the assignment of subcontractors.
• ISO 9003 It is applied to final inspection and test.
• ISO 9004 It is applied to quality management systems.

5.What are the various methods for calculating the cost?

There are two methods for calculating the cost:

• Job-Order Cost Method: This method is used when orders are placed in the factory for specific jobs or lots of product, which can be identified through all manufacturing processes, a job cost system is appropriate.
• Process Cost Method: This product is used when production proceeds in a continuous flow, when units of product are not separately identifiable, and when there are no specific jobs or lots of product, a process cost system is appropriate.

6.What is the purpose of departmental classification?

Departmental classification is required for:

• the segregation of different processes of production
• securing the smoothest possible flow of production
• establishing lines of responsibility for control over production and costs

7.What is Autofacturing?

Autofacturing is a production system that is comprised primarily of automated equipment which is configured as several integrated subsystems, using one common database and computer controls to make, test and transport specifically designed products at high and uniform quality levels meeting flexible specifications with a minimum of human effort. There are many levels of autofacturing from individual cells, all the way up to a complete and integrated system. Most situations are somewhere in between, but progressing toward a total system.

8.What is the difference between productivity and productive system?

Productivity can be defined as the measure of the amount of input required to produce a given output or it can be also be defined as the ratio of output to input, whereas production system can be explained as a system in which a few inputs are given to get the required output through some transformation processes.