Knol and Industrial Engineering

On knol there are many articles on Industrial Engineering.
I wrote many of them.
I categorize the activities of Industrial engineering into three heads.
Human Effort Engineering
System Efficiency Engineering
Systems Engineering (Systems Design Management, systems Installation Management and Systems Improvement Management)

I came across a Forbes.Com article today. The Myth Of Efficiency by Adam Hartung. The criticism of efficiency effort included in this article is totally misplaced. I wrote a comment to that article.

Posted by narayanarao | 01/02/10 04:06 AM EST
Innovations in product and increase in efficiency are two different dimensions. If the functional designers and managers come out with revenue forecast of $100 million and cost of $80 million, and IE department can reduce the cost by say $2 million, the company gains and the innovators also gain. Where is the conflict? Taylor did not say dismiss product designers. Taylor did not say dismiss advertising executives. So why Taylor is being criticized in this article. Why Harvard Professors are being quoted out of context? Industrial Engineering is an important functional area in business organizations like many other functional areas. Dr. K.V.S.S. Narayana Rao, Professor, Industrial Engineering

The link for the original article is
http://www.forbes.com/2009/10/16/efficiency-innovation-change-leadership-managing-taylor.html

The link for various comments is

http://rate.forbes.com/comments/CommentServlet?op=cpage&sourcename=story&StoryURI=2009/10/16/efficiency-innovation-change-leadership-managing-taylor.html