Plant Engineering and Management as Integrating Function
To integrate is to join, combine or link together. An important aspect of the function of management of Plant Engineering Department is integration.
To accomplish the objectives of an organisation, management has to establish two types of integration:
External integration means linking the objectives of the organisation to the needs of its external environment consisting of the Production shops, customers/consumers, society, labour, suppliers of materials and equipment, investors and financiers, government and such other bodies on which its survival and growth depends. In order to successfully pilot the aircraft of the organisation, management will involve maintaining good relations with each of the various sections mentioned above and earning their goodwill as also providing tangible and intangible benefits to them so that they continue to provide support and patronage to the organisation. If for example in setting its objectives, the management overlooks payment of fair wages to employees or proper quality of goods and services to consumers or for that matter timely payment of taxes to the government, it will lead the organisation into rough weather.
Internal integration refers to proper management of operations by harmonically working of various departments and linking up the allocation of resources (human as well as physical) with the objectives and priorities set as a result of external integration. A very crucial part of internal integration is the integration of employee efforts into company's plans and programmes. This will involve the linking and reconciliation of individual goals with the organisational goals.
In short, management consists in setting and adjusting the organisational goals to meet the needs and demands of various parties in the environment and achieving these goals by creating the right internal environment for people to make their best contributions.