A Textbook of Engineering Economics: The Principles and Applications

Contents: Section – I: Theories and Laws of Economics. 1. Introduction to engineering economics. 2. The basic concepts of economics. 3. Categories of economic system. 4. Laws of demand and supply. 5. Value and equilibrium price. 6. Wealth and time value of money. 7. Cost accounting for engineers. 8. Corporate social responsibilities. Section – II: Principles of Engineering Economics. 9. Principles of management. 10. Factors for production. 11. Cost of production. 12. Economies of scale. 13. Demand forecasting. 14. Decision theory. Section III: Applications of Engineering Economics. 15. Total productive maintenance. 16. Break-even and make or buy analyses. 17. Creativity and kaizen. 18. Material layout planning. 19. Value engineering and engineering economics. 20. Plant location and layout. 21. Scientific inventory control. 22. Machinery replacement analysis.

During most of 20th century, the subject of Economics (or later called engineering economics) was a part of the Department of Humanities and included mostly macro-economics and general economic laws. The micro-economic illustrations were more to suit the trade and commerce fields, rather than manufacturing fields. So, this author who was handling this subject used to add on his own, short introduction on additional topics like make or buy decisions, EOQ, value analysis, Cost/benefit analysis for machinery replacement etc. which are needed for the engineering managerial decisions, and so would be of more interest to the engineering students. Later, while looking into the syllabi of foreign universities, especially of New York Canton University, Texas A&M, and even a Turkish university, he found they covered the manufacturing field oriented economic analysis illustrations which he was actually teaching, more than the macro-economics.  This fact, which concurred with his concept, motivated him to retain all the teaching notes, to be able to write a book on Engineering economics suitable for engineers. The result is this book, ‘A Text Book of Engineering Economics - the Principles and Applications’, highlighting the engineering applications of economic theories for use of the decision makers of the manufacturing sector.