1.0 FUNDAMENTALS OF ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT

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1 1.0 FUNDAMENTALS OF ENGINEERING MANAGEMENT 1.1 INTRODUCTION TO MANAGEMENT In most aspect of our lives we are member of one organization or another a college, a sport team, a musical, religions or theatre groups, a branch of the armed forces, professional-body, social club or even a business concern. These organizations differ from one another. The army or business groups may be well organized whereas a basket ball team of club may be casually structured. However, all organizations have several basics things in common. Perhaps, the most obvious common element our organization will have is goal or purpose. Again, the goals will differ to win a league championship, win a war, to entertain the audience, to sell a product. Hence, no organization can exist without a goal. Our organizations will also have some programmed or method for achieving their goal to manufacture and make profit, to advertise a product, to win a certain number of times to be the leader in businesses all the time. Finally, our organization will have leaders or managers responsible for the organization to achieve their goals. There is no human endeavor that does not require proper functioning. All types of organizations, business enterprises, hospital, cooperatives, churches, mosques, whether profit making or non-profit making, require good management to function effectively. Managing is one of the most important human activities that permeate all organizations. Whenever people work together for attainment of a predetermined objective, there is a need for management that is charged with the responsibility of ensuring that aims and objectives of the organizations are realized. It is the management s responsibility to ensure that every member of the groups contributes his best. To get people put in their best efforts, the manager has to understand peoples, their emotional, physical and intellectual needs. He has to appreciate that each member of the groups has his own personal needs and aspirations and that these are influenced by such factors as the ethnic, social, political, economic and the technological environment of which he is a part. 1.2 DEFINING MANAGEMENT Different meanings have been attributed to the word Management. Some people see it as referring to a group of people. They think of a management team or groups of individuals in an organization. Management is also seen as a process demands the performance of a specific function. Here management is a profession. To a student, management is an academic

2 discipline. In this instance, people study the art of managing or management science. Here are some of the definitions given by authority in management science: To manage is to forecast and plan, to organize, to command, to coordinate and to control. H. FAYOL (1916) Management is used to designate either a group of functions or the personnel who carry them out; to described either an organizations official hierarchy or the activities of men who compose it to provide autonomy labor or ownership. AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT (1957) Management is a social process the process consist of planning, control, coordination and motivation. E.F.L BRECH (1957) Managing is an operational process initially best dissected by analyzing the managerial functions The five essential managerial functions are: planning, organizing, staffing, directing and leading, and controlling. KOONT Z AND O DONNELL (1984) Five areas of management constitute the essence of proactive performance in our chaotic world: (1) an obsession with responsiveness to customers, (2) constant innovation in all areas of the firm, (3) partnership the wholesale participation of and gain sharing with all people connected with organization, (4) leadership that loves change (instead of fighting it) and instills and shares an inspiring vision, and (5) control by means of simple support systems aimed at measuring the right stuff for today s environment. T. PETERS (1988) Management is the art of getting things done through people. C.C. NWACHUKWU (1988) It can be more scientifically defined as the coordination of all the resources of an organization through the process of planning, organizing, directing, and controlling in order to attain

3 organizational objectives. Management is the guidance or direction of people towards organization goals or objective. It can also be seen as the supervising, controlling and coordinating of activity to attain optimum results with organizational resources. As will be used most commonly in this course, management is the process of reaching organizational goals by working with and through people and other organizational resources. A comparison of this definition with the definitions offered by several contemporary management thinkers shows that there is broad agreement has the following three main characteristics: i) It is a process or series of continuing and related activities. ii) It involves and concentrates on reaching organizational goals. iii) It reaches these goals by working with and through people and other organizational resources. The need for management arises when a group of people tackle tasks that are too large or complex for any one individually to cope with. When faced with such situations people soon discover that they need to define tasks and allocates roles in order to develop a solution. The process of breaking tasks or problems down into key elements has traditionally involved the classic management practices of Planning, Organizing, Staffing, Directing, Coordinating, Reporting and Budgeting. These activities make-up the essential elements of most traditional management roles and can be defined as the classic functions of management. The four basic management functions as follows: PLANNING Planning involves choosing tasks that must be performed to attain organizational goals, outline how the task must be performed and indicating when they should be performed. Planning activities focuses on attaining goals. Through their plans, managers outlined exactly what organizations must do to be successful. Planning is concerned with organizational success in the near future (long term). Planning is intended to provide a strong focus for any project or task. It comprises the following elements: i) Establishing objectives: Establishing the outputs or results that have to be achieved. For example, increase production sales, profitability by x%. Increase customer response times by y. ii) Establishing procedure: Developing and applying standardized methods and processes for conducting the work. For example, what project management or process control systems will we use?

4 iii) Decision making: Arriving at the right findings, conclusions and recommendations, and making appropriate decisions in a timely manner. iv) Forecasting: Estimation of organization future needs and requirements. For example, markets share, profit and revenue streams, return on investment. v) Scheduling: Establishing the priorities and sequence of actions to achieve the objectives. What is the order in which things need to happen? vi) Budgeting: Allocating the resources necessary people, equipment and finance- to achieve the objectives. For example, a financial budget of $1.5 million and a project team of 10 people supported by 3 contract workers ORGANIZING Organizing can be thought as assigning the tasks developed under the planning function to various individual or groups within the organization. Organizing, then, creates a mechanism to put plan into action. People within the organization are given work assignments that contribute to company s goals. Tasks are organized so that the output of individuals contributes to the success of departments, which, in turn contribute to the success of divisions, which ultimately contributes to the success of the organization. It also includes the selection and training of people to deliver the necessary results. The function comprises of the following: i) Selecting people: Identifying the right people with the appropriate skills for the tasks or roles to be performed. ii) Delegation: Allocating the necessary levels of responsibity, authority and accountability to complete work. iii) Establishing working relationships: Create the right atmosphere and climate for effective team working and the development of strong and productive working relationship INFLUENCING Influencing is another basic function within the management process. This function -also commonly referred to as leading, directing, or actuating- is concerned primarily with people within organizations. Influencing can be defined as guiding the activities of organization members in appropriate directions. An appropriate direction is any direction that helps the organization more toward goal attainment. The ultimate purpose of influencing is to increase productivity. Human-oriented work situations usually generate high level of production over the long term than do task-oriented situations, because people find the letter type of situations

5 distribution. This function involves getting people to take action and comprises the following elements: i) Communication: Creating a shared understanding of the goals and objectives through the use of a range of effective communications channel. ii) Motivating people: Energizing people and encouraging them to deliver high levels of performance. Maintaining a strong willingness to deliver at all times regardless of temporary setbacks and disappointments. iii) Developing people: Guiding and advising people on how best they can develop skills and realize their full potential CONTROLLING Controlling is the management function for which managers: 1. Gather information that measures recent performance within the organization. 2. Compare present performance to pre established performance. 3. From the comparison, determine if the organization should be modified to meet pre established standards. Controlling is an ongoing process. Managers continually gather information, make their comparisons, and then try to find new ways of improving production through organizational modification. This function involves the followings: i) Establishing performance standard: Establishing the criteria by which work processes and results will be assessed and measured. ii) Measuring performance: Recording and reporting on work in progress to see if it meeting the required quality and performance levels. iii) Evaluating performance: Evaluating and appraising the work results. iv) Correcting performance: Taking timely and corrective action to improve working methods and performance results.

6 ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS PLANNING INFUENCING CONTROLLING ORGANIZING Figure 1: Interrelations of the Four Functions of Management to Attain Organization Goals 1.3 TYPES OF LEVELS IN MANAGEMENT One way to grasp the complexity of management is to see that managers can practices at different levels in an organization and with different ranges of organizational activities: MANAGEMENT LEVELS i) First-Line Managers: Manager who are responsible for the work of operating employees only and do not supervise other managers, they are first or lowest level of managers in the organizational hierarchy. Examples of firs-line managers are the foreman or production supervisor in a manufacturing plant, the technical supervisor in a large office. First-line managers are often called supervisor. ii) Middle-Manager: Managers in the mid-range of the organizational hierarchy; they are responsible for other managers and sometimes for some operating employees; they also report to more senior managers. Middle managers principal responsibilities are to direct the activities that implement their organizations

7 iii) policies and to balance the demands of their managers with the capacities of their employers. Top Manager: Managers who are responsible for the overall management of the organization; they establish operating policies, and guide the organization s interaction with its environment. These people chief executive, president, and vice-president FUNCTIONAL AND GENERAL MANAGERS Another major classification of managers depends on the scope of activities they manage. Organizations are often described as a set of functions. A function, in this sense, is a collection of similar activities. The marketing function, for example, commonly consists of sales, promotion, distribution, and market research activities. At foundry shop, the marketing is responsible for TV ads and the research and development function is responsible for developing new components while production function is to produce castings. i) Functional Manager: A manager responsible for just one organizational activity, such as finance, human resources management, production, or marketing. ii) General Manager: The individual responsible for all functional activities, such as production, sales, marketing and finance, for an organization such as a company or a subsidiary. A small company may have only one general manager its president or executive vice-president- but a large food company for example; there may be a grocery-products division, a refrigerated-products division, and a frozen foodproducts division, with a different general manager responsible for each. Like the chief executive of a small company for all the activities. It is important to remember that functional and general managers alike plan, organize, lead and control relationships over time. The difference, again, is the scope of activities that they oversee. 1.4 MANAGERIAL ROLES By the definition of management whenever people work together, there is generally a need for the coordination of efforts in order to attain expected results in reasonable time, and minimum amount of money, discomfort or energy. All people who oversee the function of people who must work in subordinate position are manager. Managers are people who primarily responsible for the organizational goals.

8 This indicates that managers use all the resources of the organization its finances, equipment, materials and information as well as its people to attain their goals. Essentially the role of managers is to guide organizations toward goal accomplishment. All organizations exist for certain purposes or goals, and managers are responsible for combining and using organizational resources to ensure that their organization achieved their purposes. No modern management pyramid can be built without the support of system as well as competent manager. We have discussed management in terms of four broad functions. We can look beyond these functions to identify a number of specific roles that managers may fill at various times. You are already familiar with some of the crucial roles required of managers because you are already a veteran of many different relationships that have evolved over your life thus far! In your ties with your family, friends, classmates, and co-workers, sometimes you lead, sometimes you act as a go-be-between or liaison, and sometimes other look to you as a symbol of some worthwhile trait or honesty or willingness to work hard. In these same relationships, you monitor what is going on outside the relationships, share information with your partners as a spoke person for them. Furthermore, you sometimes take the initiative, sometimes handle disagreements, sometimes allocate resources such as money, and sometimes negotiate with your collaborators. Hence, the manager s agenda consisting of precisely the ten activities underlined above. The first three can be refer to as interpersonal roles of manager, the next three as informational roles, and the final four as decisional roles. Each of these roles requires specific skill, knowledge as well as carrying out the following typical functions: I) Manager works with and through other people: Here the terms people include not only subordinates and supervisors but also other manager in the organization. People also include the individuals outside the organization customers, clients, suppliers, union representatives and so on. These people and others provide goods and services or use the products and services of the organization. Managers then work with anyone at any level within or outside their organizational goals within the organization. II) Managers are responsible and accountable: They are in charge of seeing that specific tasks are done successively. They are also responsible for action of their subordinates. The success or failure of their subordinates is a direct reflection of managers success. III) Manager balance competing goals and priorities: At any time manager faces a number of organizational goals, problems and needs all of which compete for the manager s time and resources (both human and materials). Because such resources are always limited, a manager must decide who is to perform a particular task and

9 must assign work to the appropriate subordinates. The key thing is to identify priorities. IV) Manager must think analytically and conceptually: To be an analytical thinker, a manager must be able to break a problem down into its components; analyze those components and then come up with a feasible solution. But it is ever more important for a manager to be conceptual thinker, able to view the entire task in the abstract and relate it to other tasks. V) Managers are mediator: Organizations are made up of people and they disagree a lot. Dispute lower morals, productivity, and are unpleasant. Settling quarrels need skill and tactics. Managers should handle these carefully. VI) Managers are politicians: This means that manager must build a good relationship and use persuasion and compromise in order to promote some organization goals just as politicians do to move their programs forward. Managers must win support for proposals or decisions or gain cooperation in carrying out major activities and objectives. VII) Managers are diplomats: They serve as official representatives of their work units at organizational meetings. They may represent the entire organization as well as a particular unit dealing with clients, customers, contractors, government official or personnel of other companies or organization. VIII) Managers make difficult decision: No organization run smoothly all the times. There is almost no limit to the number and types of problems that may occur: financial difficulties, problems with employees, differences of opinion on organizational policy etc. manager must come to all times.