ADMINISTRATION Outline Notes on the Administrative and Business F. P. WOY. REVISED. Copyright 1923 by F. P. Woy. Wahr 5-12-25 11826 PREFACE These notes on Engineering Administration are compiled as an outline text to be used by the engineering student in conjunction with lectures on the business phases of his prospective employment, to serve as a reminder to the junior executive in the field of the broader phases of his work, to place emphasis on the ultimate effect of his activities on the corporate welfare, and to assist in his preparation for advancement to the job higher up. The assistant is coming into contact daily with the technical phases of his work which occupies his working hours and due to its confining nature, restricted field, and limited contact with the general problems of the business, fails to receive the opportunity for expanded vision, analysis of effects, and preparation to assume those larger responsibilities when opportunity arrives. In the practice of his profession, the engineer or executive is almost constantly called upon to take into consideration the restrictions, influences and requirements imposed by others upon his technical activities. These obligations are of a moral, legal, financial, commercial and economic nature so extensive as to involve, under the diversity of engineering functions, the entire scope of commercial or business relations. It is therefore obvious that no one text may aspire to satisfy this need. In the compilation of these notes on "Engineering Administration" the author has endeavored to present those fundamental principles which serve as a basis of relations for the engineering administrator in the practice of his profession, in order to develop a broader conception of the interdependence of technical and commercial activities, emphasize characteristic fundamental influences, enumerate representative conditions, and direct the attention to the broader consequences effecting the ultimate constructive result. It is not the intent to present complete conclusive summaries of all conditions to be encountered in diversified engineering work, but rather to present representative alternatives, examples, reminders, and sequential deductions which may permit the user to expand these elementary suggestions into a solution of his local problem, direct his reasoning within more distinctly defined channels, or guard his conclusions against lateral, derogatory influences. This series of notes is selected by the author from his engineering files and memoranda which were assembled during his twenty years of professional engineering work in construction, operation, and consulting practice, and comprises a skeleton outline of one hundred lectures given before the senior classes of the Engineering College of the University of Wisconsin. The tabular outline form adopted is a detriment to the user of limited experience, but to expand into descriptive form would vastly increase the volume, making it prohibitive in con venience and cost. It is reported by students using the preliminary edition of these notes, which was issued two years ago, that they serve as a handbook nucleus about which may be assembled subsequent data on experiences, localized to state laws and to the particular field of technical activity finally adopted by the young engineer, thus creating an asset which enhances in value for the engineer and which is readily and quickly available for liquidation in similar subsequent work and new endeavors. It is not intended that these notes should serve as a "court of last resort" in problems involving professional subjects only co-operatively related to engineering. The principles outlined are not intended to cover the professional field of the attorney, accountant, patent counsel, etc. Their object is to picture the battlefield of the engineer, fill in the gaps between technical and administrative functions, point out the defences to be erected, indicate the courses to be followed in engineering work in order to plan the campaign for more assured success, present different points of view in order to prevent flank attacks and crystalize the experiences and views of others in order to speed the action. Counter arguments, advantages and disadvantages, and sequential developments are presented solely to reflect the attitude and point of view of contending claimants. They are not intended to express opinions but rather, by enumeration of facts, to permit the reader broader viewpoints. emphasize engineering functions, develop possible solutions of administrative problems, and show that partisan engineers may at times logically occupy diametrically opposing positions in engineering administrative controversies. The experience of the author, verified by that of many others, is that the assistant engineer, officer, manager, superintendent, department head or foreman, because of too restricted vision, often lacks logical reasoning, fails to consider the effect of his acts on others, is unable to interpret his work in terms of ultimate unit costs and frequently fails in discretion, diplomacy and anticipation of effects on the larger problem of ultimate corporate welfare. No two problems of an engineering administrative nature will involve similar solutions, although each new experience and each acquisition of facts will assist in the simplification of subsequent endeavors. Brief outlines of reports, surveys, analyses, and other engineering products are incorporated with actual estimates, figures and facts taken from specific experiences in order to furnish examples, methods of solution, and principles involved as a guide which may be modified, revised or expanded to suit the local application desired as both space and diversification of conditions prevents these notes from incorporating more than a brief outline of elementary principles governing the details of this subject. The text has been subdivided into six parts in order to combine those subjects sequentially which involve related principles governing engineering activities in public utilities and other industries. Part I includes a general outline of the engineer's professional relations to his employer, client and co-workers and in associated legal and accounting professions. It is impossible to incorporate anything more than brief legal relations to exemplify the text as these differ under the respective state laws, and limited accounting relations sufficient to show the principles of recording of business transactions, their use in cost analysis and their measure of corporate conditions for use in engineering investigations, studies, and report writing. Part II outlines the engineer's relations in construction work including organization work, patents, land probiems, structural costs and post-construction values including those business relations during construction more commonly encountered in this field of engineering work. Part III analyzes the engineer's relations to the fixed property charges introducing a condensed review of corporation finance, financing functions as they exist and influence the engineer's activities today and his technical relationship to the future stable financial status of the undertaking both under successful and receivership conditions. Part IV analyzes the engineer's relations during operation with particular reference to management functions, executive policies, administrative duties of the sub-executive and outlines principles of "Scientific Management", scheduling, planning, dispatching, and operation analysis for industries and utilities. Part V includes the engineer's analysis of cost from the broader corporate and administrative vantage points in industry, expanding the subject to include detail cost analysis, problems of purchase and storage of materials, labor wage principles, industrial relations, the engineer's labor survey and overhead burdens including technical engineering sales work, the engineer's work as insurance rater and the influences of fixed and variable costs on units and results. Part VI applies the above engineer's analysis of cost to the various utility fields, analyses the controlling engineering problems of cost for each respective kind of industry, and develops the principles of utility rate analysis for Electric, Gas, Street Railway, Water, Telephone and Steam Railroad Utilities. The engineer's problems of traffic flow, service at cost principles, transportation functions, etc., are included in their respective sections to assist the engineer in blending and amalgamating all related influences into a successful unit. In rewriting these notes the author has, in the limited time which he could devote to the revision, endeavored to overcome some of the defects experienced by students and by industrial and public utility engineers who have used them. Examples, statistical records and alternative arguments have been added, together with more elaborate outlines of reports, surveys and analyses using repetition in the sequential enumeration of the engineering administrator's development of the problems. The restricted size of the work prevents anything more than an elemental outline of many of the subjects but it is hoped that it may at least prove useful in broadening the functions and enlarging the beneficial activities of the Engineering Administrator. F. P. WOY. Madison, Wisconsin. |