A plant engineer has the ability to cooperate with others and is well grounded in fundamentals, mentally alert under pressure, and happy with diversified work. A plant is a product of the twentieth century; plant engineers have since evolved into facility managers, engineering directors, chief engineers, operations managers, etc.
The first public recognition of the plant engineering profession was in New England, the cradle of American industry. The story of the Association for Facilities Engineering (AFE) began in Boston, Massachusetts in 1915.
Harry S. Dennison, the president of the Factory Managers Association (FMA), and E. B. Freeman, the FMA's secretary, were instrumental in founding AFE.
They provided a forum to discuss common problems and facilitate the exchange of ideas in order to assist the other members of the FMA. Many members, though well-versed in practices of management, didn't understand how to operate or maintain the production machines; the plant engineers, however, understood these machines and kept them running, allowing the plants to run smoothly and gain profit. Dennison and Freeman realized a factory's success was intrinsically linked to the abilities of these professionals to work together, rather than each member's separate abilities.
Invitations went out to between twenty and thirty mechanical engineers, master mechanics, and chief engineers in plants within metropolitan Boston and the surrounding towns bearing the following message:
"You are invited to a dinner at City Club in Boston on the evening of Friday, 14 May 1915, to discuss the possible formation of a Society oriented towards the technical aspects of operating a plant.
Your Host, Harry Dennison"
A large number of those invited attended the dinner meeting, as they were impressed with the potential for such a society and eager to help in its formation. As a result of this favorable response, a formal meeting was held on 9 June 1915 to approve a draft of the constitution and to elect the officers for the new society, entitled the Plant Engineers Club. The meeting included the society's first tour, a visit to the Charlestown Navy Yard and the USS Constitution.
THE PLANT ENGINEERS CLUB
G. L. Finch was the first president of this club. The members elected other officers and appointed several committees to deal with current issues of importance. The model of the Boston chapter was largely followed in other parts of the country.
Finch served as President for four years (1915-19). Following him were H. C. Eaton (1919-21) and Fred Gibson (1921-25).
During the early formative years, members met regularly to exchange ideas, make plant visitations, and volunteer on technical committees to resolve day-to-day operating problems. Members also spent considerable time and effort preparing codes and standards "so that [they] could all talk the same language and compare results," and "optimize plant performance."
The Care of Steam Boilers and Other Pressure Vessels subcommittee produced a standard for continuous boiler room tests over the course of a five-year effort, notably driven forward by Gibson, W. H. Larkin, H. F. Scott, and J. R. Gill. This committee also produced a clarification of the causes of caustic embrittlement of pressure vessels, and came up with a solution to prevent this issue. These standards proved of such great value that the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) adopted most of them without any major changes.
THE AFFILIATED TECHNICAL SOCIETIES OF BOSTON
Early in 1922, many prominent engineers felt a lack of solidarity within the professional community. This led to a series of meetings between Gibson, Edwin Burnham, and engineers from eight other technical societies, during which the Affiliated Technical Societies of Boston was chartered. This society was intended "to bring the technical societies and their members into closer touch with one another for more effective public service, and for the advancement of scientific investigation, education, and research."
THE ENGINEERING SOCIETIES OF BOSTON
The Affiliated Technical Societies of Boston grew strong as more societies joined in the following years, and its name was changed to the Engineering Societies of Boston.
THE ENGINEERING SOCIETIES OF NEW ENGLAND (ESNE)
As a number of other societies from the New England area joined the affilation, the name was again changed to the Engineering Societies of New England.
The Plant Engineers Club was a charter member of the ESNE throughout its existence. In later years, after the formation of the American Institute of Plant Engineers (AIPE), the New England Region of AIPE also joined the affiliation.
The ESNE published the New England Journal nine times a year. In addition, it co-sponsored the annual celebration of the National Engineers Week every February from 1951 to the present alongside the Massachusetts Society of Professional Engineers, AIPE, ASME, AIEE (American Institute of Electrical Engineers), IRE (Institute of Radio Engineers), the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), and many others.
The ESNE also joined the American Association of Engineering Societies (AAES), a national organization based in Washington, D.C., when it replaced the Engineers Joint Council in 1980. Later, AIPE also joined the AAES.
In 1928, Kenneth Hamilton of the Plant Engineers Club published a document entitled "Principles Governing the Responsibilities of the Plant Engineers" in the Industrial Engineer magazine. In 1955, Hamilton was honored as an AIPE Fellow. In the following year, this document was adopted by AIPE as "The Code of the Plant Engineer."
During World War II, when spare parts and scrap iron became critically needs, the British Government actively sponsored an industry group to act as a clearinghouse for the interchange of these items. At the end of the war, the seven charter members of this British wartime group became the nucleus for the formation of the Incorporated Plant Engineers in 1946, which was later renamed as the Institution of Plant Engineers, with its headquarters in England. The organization had over 10,000 members dispersed throughout the British Commonwealth.
When Gibson retired, he moved to New York, where he interested three plant engineers in the New York area to sponsor and form a similar club. In 1945, a Plant Engineers Association of New York was formed. In Pennsylvania and California, plant engineers had also begun to organize themselves. The Philadelphia group had several informal meetings before forming a single club similar to Boston's. California, on the other hand, decided to interest engineers from various parts of the extensive territory to later serve as starting points for several clubs. Chicago followed the same track, with the Calumet group and the Northern Chicago group both started by the charter members of the Chicago Club. The Rochester New York Club and the Dayton Ohio Club were organized around the same time as the Chicago Club. The Union-Middlesex County group in New Jersey was started by members of the New York Club.
Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Marion, and Cleveland followed in rapid succession in 1952. The Cleveland group was a revival of the Cleveland Engineering Society, which had become inactive during the war. The period from 1945 through 1952 saw the formation of nineteen other plant engineering groups within the United States.
The first coordinated activity involving several clubs was held in Philadelphia and Chicago in 1952. Members of Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Dayton, Calumet, and Northern Illinois clubs hosted a plant engineers team from Great Britain. The group toured in this country for six weeks studying American plant engineering and maintenance techniques. The movement gained momentum in the year 1953, when Milwaukee, Niagara Frontier, Northern New Jersey, Detroit, Indianapolis, Kentukiana, Evansville, and Toledo groups were organized in rapid succession. Continuing interaction between these groups led to a growing movement for a national organization to cater to the needs of the plant engineering profession.
A regional conference was held in Whiting, Indiana on 17 November 1953 with 75 representatives from Northern Illinois, Chicago, Calumet, and Marion, Indiana, where the idea of a national organization was first debated. Later, officers of the three Illinois clubs met to consider the proposal and discuss the type of organization most likely to receive approval of the majority of the clubs already organized. This proposal was followed up with other clubs around the country.
AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF PLANT ENGINEERS (AIPE)
