This may seem an oxymoron and perhaps it is. At any rate here is an assortment of stuff I have collected from the larger world that has something, however peripheral, to do with Industrial Engineering.
Explores the challenges of ensuring security on the waterfront. Another in a fine series of articles in this magazine devoted to logistics.
Describes a visit to one of the largest package sortation centers in the world.
A description of coal trains out of the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. McPhee is such an enjoyable read: Lucid prose, strong sense of place, fascinating story: "Over the hundred and eight miles between Bailey Yard and Gibon Junction, Nebraska, more than two hundred miles of freight trains are in motion every day. While the advent of the Powder River coal trains has doubled the volume, it has more or less quadrupled the viscosity. The hot intermodals, the high-priority perishable services--the shooters--are not what they used to be. Commonly, they average eighteen miles an hour on the Triple-Track Main."
A very interesting glimpse into the world of an independent trucker who hauls dangerous chemicals. McPhee quotes the trucker: "...Without tank washings, tankers would roll loaded one way, then go back to the origin to load again. In the old days it was all dedicated runs. Now, due to the widespread existence of interior tank washes, we can move around, taking different things." There are some wonderful miscellaneous observations. For example, did you know that some tank washes that service food vessels are kosher? A rabbi is present to supervise the washing of the tank. Also, hazardous materials are graded by their risk, so that flammable materials are assigned a higher grade of risk than merely combustible materials (depending on flashpoint). A tanker full of Beefeater is technically more hazardous than a tanker full of The Glenlivet.
From the cover: "How the shipping container made the world smaller and the world economy bigger". It is difficult to appreciate how thoroughly the world was transformed by standardization on the 20-foot and 40-foot shipping containers. The cost per ton for unloading was reduced by a factor of at least 30; ships spent less time in port; old break-bulk ports like London, New York, and San Francisco, faded and new container ports like Seattle, Elizabeth, NJ, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Shanghai, grew. Tens of thousands of stevedore jobs vanished. Because transport was cheap, factories moved further from consumption, to where labor was less expensive, such as Asia. Ships capable of carrying 10,000 containers are under construction and the Panama Canal may be widened to accomodate them.
Did you know that to truck a container overland the 215 miles from Durban, South Africa to Maseru, Lesotho costs three times as much as it does to ship that container by sea from Baltimore to Durban?
A fascinating book: It explains how cotton is grown in west Texas; spun, woven, and sewn in China; sold and worn in the US; and, finally, worn again in Africa (where it enters a free market for the first time). This book expands in many interesting ways, including the history of cotton technology and apparel manufacture, its role in industrialization, and its use as a political instrument. Highly recommended.
This book presents story of a grand feat of engineering, that required monumental accomplishments in both medicine (controling yellow fever and malaria) and civil engineering (almost every aspect of the construction was an order of magnitude larger than had ever been attempted previously). The result was to significantly speed commerce and to connect the east and west coasts of the US. A bit plodding, and disappointingly devoid of technical details, but still worth the read, at least for the significance of the events described.
Fear and loathing on the assembly-line. The humor is bitter and effective. Hope this guy is not working on your line.
A look at the operations of A-P-A, a Less-than-TruckLoad (LTL) freight company in the northeastern US. The writing can be quite good; similar to the measured, clear prose of John McPhee. But the first few and last few chapters make you wonder whether the subject of the book funded its writing. The author's mindless worship of his subject can be a bit hard to take but the middle portions seem genuinely interested in LTL operations.
An important book about the roots of Industrial Engineering. Much of what Frederick Taylor did has been so absorbed into our lives that it is hard to recognize how revolutionary it was at one time. A serious and rewarding read, even if the author tends to dwell excessively on tangential details.
A memoir about growing up in the family of Frank and Lillian Gilbreath, spiritual heirs of Frederick Taylor (see book above) and immediate grandparents of Industrial Engineering. Makes concern for efficiency cute. This is the other side of the universe from Rivethead (see book above). Seems to have been the inspiration for the TV sitcom "The Brady Bunch" but it is really better than that. You might pick up the book expecting to make fun of it but the Gilbreths were effective and likeable.
Simply a great movie. See what a great comic genius thinks of reducing work to task primitives. The scenes of him at work with a wrench are priceless.