The Industrial Engineering Option Enters a New Era

The General Engineering Department was created in 1937 and was headed by Charles W. Beese. Beese had a rich background in industrial engineering and administration. Prior to coming to Purdue from the Armstrong Cork Company, he had been head of Industri al Engineering at Pennsylvania State College. The General Engineering Department at its outset contained the courses introduced in the 1920's inder Dean A.A. Potter, namely, engineering problems, engineering administration, accounting, technique of invent ion, and advance management problems. When the Department of Practical Mechanics was discontinued in 1938, General Engineering took on its staff and courses, along with the courses in the production management (industrial engineering) option in Mechanical Engineering. General Engineering suddenly became a large department with a staff of about 50 and more than 9000 students in its courses. The department occupied all of Michael Golden, as well as much of Heavilon Hall.

The stated policy of General Engineering was not to teach manual skills in shop work, but to provide a basic understanding of the capabilities, limitations, and practical engineering characteristics of modern production equipment in all shop areas - ma chine shop, welding shop, heat-treating room, and foundry. There was less change, however, than appeared on the surface. Furtherm for Beese and General Engineering, very difficult times lay ahead. Progress was made in the introduction of graduate work and the establishment of first-class welding laboratories, but time was fast running out as World War II approached. In 1940, Beese entered Engineering Defense Training, using the staff in General Engineering as the nucleus of his program. He expected to giv e training to about 3000 workers, but the program kept expanding and by 1943 there were Engineering-Science-Management War Training Centers in 25 of Indiana's largest cities. Before the end of the war 60,000 had been enrolled. In "Mike's Castle," the shop s and drawing rooms were invaded by hundreds of young women sent for training as engineering aides.

General Engineering began as an organization composed of three groups: Industrial Engineering (including accounting), Manufacturing Processes, and Engineering Drawing. Although the department did not have an undergraduate curriculum, it offered service courses for the production management option of Mechanical Engineering, for trade and industrial education, and for a few other departments. Further, it initiated graduate work and, as early as 1939, John T. Elrod received the forst master's degree submi tting a thesis entitled "Materials Handling in Industry." In 1942, A. Pemberton was entitled "The Relationship of Test Scores to Scholastic Achievement for 244 Engineering Freshmen Entering Purdue University in 1939."

One of the initial staff members, who was appointed an assistant professor in 1938, was H. Barrett Rogers. He previously had been supervisor of time study at Westinghouse Electric Company and was well qualified to teach courses in motion and time study and other areas. His stay at Purdue was limited and he left in 1942 to join faculty at Northwestern University. Another staff member appointed to the faculty in 1938 was Professor Halsey F. Owen. Owen, who had had many years experience as a product and t ool designer at Logansport Machine Company and the George D. Roper Company, joined the faculty as an assistant professor of engineering shop practices. Between 1938 and 1944, he assisted Beese in various ways: as administrative head of engineering drawing and descriptive geometry, as supervisor of machine shop instruction, and so forth. A serious-minded, practical engineering, he made several significant contributions to the General Engineering and Industrial Engineering Departments during his 25 years of tenure. He was, in addition, chiefly responsible for the early development of courses in the production and tool engineering areas.

Leo Plgage was another early staff appointee in 1941. He taught courses in the management and wage administration area until 1947 when he left Purdue to join the engineering faculty at the University of Illinois.

In 1942, the department was further increased by appointments of Robert W. Field, Marvin E. Mundel, and Orville D. Lascoe, each of whom played an important role in the development of the industrial engineering program. Field had been chairman of the De partment of Business Management at the University of Oaklahoma and was qualified to handle instruction in the personnel and management areas. His expertise made him a natural to teach management classes in Purdue's V-12 Program for the Navy. In 1946, when Harold Bolz became head of General Engineering, Field was selected as chairman of the management courses and instructional work.

Mundel came to Purdue from Bradley University. He had studied under David Porter at New York University and Ralph M. Barnes at the University of Iowa, two pioneers in motion and time study. A staunch and energetic supporter of Purdue's war efforts, Mun del prepared many training gilms, conducted countless classes, and pursued an active research program in motion and time study. The motion and time study laboratory became, under his direction, a beehive if activity. By the end of World War II both Mundel and Purdue had acquired a national reputation in motion and time study (one of the classic areas of industrial engineering).

Before World War II, and even during the war, the machine shop had not been kept up to date because of a lack of funds. The machines in the rear of "Mike's Castle" were still run by overhead line shafts and leather belts and the primary illumination co me from skylights and windows. The shop was ready for renovation and Professor Orville D. Lascoe was apparently the man to do it. Replacing "Deacon" Turner as director of the shop toward the close of World War II, Lascoe redesigned the entire laboratory. He traveled about 40,000 miles in search of suitable equipment for the laboratory and was very selective about picking machines that were available from government war surplus. He picked only the best for his laboratory. It has been estimated that he secu red about $2,500,000 worth of tools and equipment. When the remodelling of the laboratory was completed in 1946, Purdue had the finest machine tool laboratory of any university in the United States. In addition to the machine tool laboratory, a precision measurement laboratory (Naval Gage Laboratory) had been equipped with instruments provided by the U.S. Navy. The new gage laboratory was to be supervised by Anthony (Tony) Vellinger until his retirement.

At the same time that the machine tool laboratory was undergoing renovation, modernization of the equipment in the wood shop, the forge, and the foundry was also undertaken. The foundry, in particular, was extensively remodeled and eventually included modern sand handling equipment, modern furnaces, and a cupola.

In 1945, following the passage of the GI Bill of Rights, providing educational benefits for veterans of World War II, an unprecedented number of engineering student began to enrall at Purdue. In the fall of 1948, for example, there were about 2109 stud ents in Mechanical Engineering, at least 25% of whom were in the industrial engineering option. The General Engineering staff aslo grew during those postwar years until there were about 100 staff members and 80 different courses.

As an outgrowth of its statewide activities during the war, Purdue had set a precedent for many things that followed. The Technical Extension Division, formed under the direction of Beese in 1942, began a program that eventually led to the establishmen t of regional campuses in Hammond, Michigan City, Fort Wayne and Indianapolis. Beese relinguished his position as head of General Engineering in 1946 because of his ever expanding extension duties, and was replaced by Professor Harold A. Bolz. Bolz, who h ad been on the staff in the School of Mechanical Engineering, was a mechanical engineer and had limited knowledge of industrial engineering. Nonetheless, he entered into his new assignment with great enthusiasm and began to tackle the many problems associ ated with the ever increasing student load in General Engineering. One of his foremost priorities was that of finding faculty members.

Under Bolz, in 1946, the General Engineering Department continued to be organized in three sections, namely, Industrial Engineering (chaired by Robert W. Field), Manufacturing Processes (chaired by Roy W. Lindley), and Engineering Drawing. (chaired by J. Howard Porsch). Mundel was chairman of the Graduate Study and Research Committee. The industrial Engineering Section included not only typical industrial engineering courses (motion and time study, plant layout, production control, wage incentives, job evaluation, industrial organization and management, and so forth) but also accounting, sales engineering industrial safety and industrial relations. Many of the courses had several divisions (twelve, for example, in beginning motion and time study during the peak years), which required a significant increase in the staff. Among Bolz's early appointees in 1946 were Harold T. Amrine, who had been on the faculty at Ohio State University, and Colonel Oliver S. Hulley, who had been on the staff of the U.S. Ar my's Field Artillery School. Amrine joined forces with both Mundell and Fieldin teaching courses in motion and time study and industrial organization and management. He later became chairman of Industrial Engineering in 1952 and head of Department of Indu strial Engineering in 1955. Hulley joined Owen in teaching in the production engineering area. Because of his extensive experience in the furniture and metal working industries, Hulley was able to bring much practical experience into the classroom and bec ame a very popular teacher. Still further additions to the staff in 1946 were Elwood G. Kirkpatrick, and F.D. Moore. Kirkpatrick came from Case Institute and initially was on the staff in Engineering Drawing. He bacame a member of the faculty in Industria l Engineering in 1955. F.D.Moore, who came from Ohio University, joined the faculty in accounting.

Bolz appointed seceral more industrial engineering faculty over the next few years: James H. Greene (1948) from the University of Iowa in production control; Wallace Richardson (1949) from the U.S. Navy in motion and time study; Ralph E. Balyeat (1949) from Toledo in personnel management and labor relations; and an outstanding group of young instructors composed of Phillip J. Thorson (1949), Clyde P. Smith (1950), Seymour Tilles (1950), Richard W. McDowell (1952), Robert J. Wimmert (1953), Raymond C. St okes (1953), and Andrew P. Radkins (1954). Further, many of the graduate students during the period of 1946 to 1952 (e.g., John Dizer, Carl Kromp, Robert Lehrer, Robert Lewellyn, Elmo Lindquist, Donald Malcolm, James Marks, Donald Metz, Gerald Nadler, Ray mond Pajkowski (now Page), and so forth), joined the staffs of other universities and made their own contributions to engineering education. Purdue was acquiring a reputation as one of the primary sources of outstanding industrial engineering faculty memb ers.

In 1950 Marvin Mundel replaced Robert Field as chairman of the Industrial Engineering group. Field resigned soon thereafter to join a management consulting group in New York. During Mundel's tenure as chairman, considerable pressure was exerted on both Bolz as head of General Engineering and Dean Potter to establish a separate industrial engineering program. Dean Potter's firm stand on making no change led to much tension among some of the members of the Industrial Engineering group. In spring of 1952, Mundel took a leave of absence to direct the U.S. Army's Ordnance Management Engineering Training Program, and he chose not to return to Purdue. Harold Amrine, who was an associate professor at that time, was appointed to suceed Mundel as chairman. Walla ce Richardson, P.J. Thorson, and Seymour Tilles also resigned in 1952, leaving big voids in the staff. Fortunately, John A, Ritchey H. Young (from the Thompson Products Company) were appointed during the suceeding year and helped fill some of the gaps.

In 1953 Dean Andrey Potter reached retirement age and George A. Hawkins, who had been a professor in Mechanical Engineering, replaced him as dean of Engineering. As the new dean of Engineering, Hawkins entered the office just as the movement toward sci entifically oriented curricula was being accelerated into high gear. He did not oppose it and began to make several changes in the structure of the Schools of Engineering. One of his initial actions led to the establishment of the Department of Freshman E ngineering in 1953. Hawkins was an outstanding dean and his years were characterized by the advancement of science oriented engineering programs.

Early in his tenure as dean, Hawkins began to look into the need for programs in the industrial engineering and management on the Purdue campus. This led to much study by the Industrial Engineering Section, preparation of a proposed curriculum in indus trial engineering, consideration of how the Manufacturing Processes Section should tie in with the new Department or School of Industrial Engineering, and several other pertinent items. In reply to Hawkins' request, Bolz submitted a report to him in Octob er 1953 entitled "An Analysis of the Place and Scope of Industrial Engineering in the Management of Industry." This report emphasized the importance of industrial engineers to industry and tried to diffrentiate between "industrial engineering" and "indust rial management." The report also stressed the scope of industrial engineering and the essential elements that should be included in the education of industrial engineers. Pointing out the sizable array of specialty courses currently being offered in Gene ral Engineering, Bolz concluded that "There [was] a possibility that certain of these courses, for instance accounting, industrial and labor relations, should be taught in some department other than Industrial Engineering since fundamentally they are not engineering subjects."

It should be pointed out that all of the accounting and personnel management courses at Purdue were taught in the General Engineering Department. The accounting courses, for example, were taught by a staff of accountants that included: Professor F.D. M oore, John F. Krueger, and William F. Vendley (with Vendley as supervisor). In view of Bolz's report to Hawkins, it is not surprising that action was taken on July 1, 1954, to transfer the accounting staff and courses to the Department of Economics.

A rare and communal photograph of most of the staff and graduate students in the Industrial Engineering Section was taken in May 1954, a few months before the accounting staff change. One of the big losses from this group later in 1954 was the resignat ion of O.S. Hulley, who joined the Manufacturing Services Division of the General Electric Company. When Hulley left Purdue, Bolz stated: "Professor Hulley is one of out Department's most versatile and most popular teachers."

Despite the encouraging actions that seemed to be leading to the establishment of a separate industrial engineering program, certain events were to take place that slowed down the process. In October 1954, Bolz left Purdue to become associate dean of E ngineering at Ohio State University, and Paul C. Chenea (associate dean of Engineering at Purdue) became acting head. Chenea continued in this position only until February 1955 when the General Engineering Department was discontinued. The three groups tha t made up the department were transferred to three of the Schools of Engineering: Industrial Engineering and some of the manufacturing processes laboratories to Mechanical Engineering; engineering graphics to Civil Engineering; and the foundary, welding a nd heat treating laboratories to Metallurgical Engineering. Hawkins guaranteed to Amrine at the time that "under no circumstances would the Industrial Engineering Section be broken up," but it was nevertheless discouraging for the industrial engineering f aculty to suddenly find themselves inder the wing of a large and long-establish school. Fortunately, changes continued to take place very rapidly and, in the spring of 1955, plans were formulated to establish a new School of Industrial Engineering and Man agement.