Where IS Engineering Going?
Where IS Engineering Going?
(OP)
Is it just me or is engineering (or those who pretend to be engineers) going downhill. Here are examples over the last year.
Hired a company to design and fabricate some components on a project (details left out to protect the guilty). They had one degreed engineer (but not licensed) who couldn't design his way out of a wet paper bag. We ended up doing much of the design work for them which defeated the whole purpose of us trying to unload some work.
Got anchor bolt reactions from a vendor that were low by a factor of two.
Requested reactions from an equipment skid manufacturer for earthquake loads and was told they really don't understand code requirements for earthquakes and we should figure it out ourselves. (How did they design the supporting structure on the skid if they didn't know seismic loads?)
Asked vendor to provide calcs to justify motor horsepower for a system that is supposed to move over 50 tons. Got an email from him with a one line calc that was wrong.
Another equipment manufacturer framed a T support into a wide flange in such a way that the only moment resistance at the base of the T was through torsion in the beam. You could push on the T with your hand and rock it back and forth. (No , it wasn't supposed to do that.)
These are just a few of the many things I've been seeing. I think one of the problems is vendors who either don't have engineers on staff or their engineers are so specialized they can't do the area that I'm looking out for which is structural.
I realize we're all human and we're going to make mistakes but it has got to the point where I just expect the information I'm getting from vendors to be wrong. Anybody else running up against this?
Hired a company to design and fabricate some components on a project (details left out to protect the guilty). They had one degreed engineer (but not licensed) who couldn't design his way out of a wet paper bag. We ended up doing much of the design work for them which defeated the whole purpose of us trying to unload some work.
Got anchor bolt reactions from a vendor that were low by a factor of two.
Requested reactions from an equipment skid manufacturer for earthquake loads and was told they really don't understand code requirements for earthquakes and we should figure it out ourselves. (How did they design the supporting structure on the skid if they didn't know seismic loads?)
Asked vendor to provide calcs to justify motor horsepower for a system that is supposed to move over 50 tons. Got an email from him with a one line calc that was wrong.
Another equipment manufacturer framed a T support into a wide flange in such a way that the only moment resistance at the base of the T was through torsion in the beam. You could push on the T with your hand and rock it back and forth. (No , it wasn't supposed to do that.)
These are just a few of the many things I've been seeing. I think one of the problems is vendors who either don't have engineers on staff or their engineers are so specialized they can't do the area that I'm looking out for which is structural.
I realize we're all human and we're going to make mistakes but it has got to the point where I just expect the information I'm getting from vendors to be wrong. Anybody else running up against this?





RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Perhaps the rot has to be stemmed at the college level itself,where the teachers refuse to accept facts. Familiarity with a few software skills makes them very knowledgeable and arrogant.
I sent my son to a reputed lab for summer internhip. I thought that he would get an exposure to all the advanced testing machines and facilities. In turn he came back with wrong set of values. Everyday I had to undo whatever he had observed. These are the modern temples of technology and instead of being beacons of knowledge set a wrong trend indulging in petty acts.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Firstly companies now seem obsessed with education, the days are gone when people could work there way through a company, of course you need people that are qualified at the top but we now underestimate the importance of knowledge. Far to many top “engineers” are overlooked for some first or second year grad who knows nothing about what they are doing.
The second thing is arrogance, this was never truer than in the 70’s and 80’s in the UK in the automotive, motorcycle, shipbuilding and precision measuring industries. Japanese products were seen as vastly inferior and not worthy competition, so while we spent the whole time on strike not updating working practices or machinery they just cleared out these industries, we could not have made it easier for them. From a once solid automotive industry we now only produce London cabs and a few quirky sports cars. Having said that most of the F1 and Indy cars are designed and produced around the Oxfordshire/ Northants border, so top end skills still exist. I see the USA going down the same road.
Thirdly is price. I am not saying for one minute companies do not need to be lean and some fail to do this, probably going back to arrogance, but they do need to make a trading profit, if continual price cutting is the order of the day then one of two things happens the company goes bust or standards drop.
How were the companies you used in the examples you give chosen? If it was on ability then it was not a good call from your company was it? If it was on price then maybe you got what you deserved and your company is helping bring down good companies that could have done the job. Sooner or later someone is going to look at this and say if all we are getting is rubbish we might as well pay as little as possible for this rubbish, lets send it to the far east for 1/10th of the cost, it is hard to say they would be wrong.
I think more and more engineering will become a group of smaller niche markets where hopefully they will have a reliable bunch of suppliers around them where all can charge a “fair” price and value is seen as more important than price, did I say think make that hope, the way things are going it does not look good.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Maybe and maybe not. The only way (IMHO) that sloppy, devil-may-care work, both in-house and contracted from outsiders, can be thwarted is if *we* refuse to accept it.
BUT, there's a price: *we* must write scopes of work, contract docs, etc. that adequately lay out the requirements and clearly delineate our expectations. Let the folks know you're going to check their work. Let them know you expect something typed and not in crayon. Let them know, in excrutiating detail, what it is you want.
If you do that and the work comes in not up to snuff, you have complete recourse to throw the work back at them and ask for you money back. If your boss gets upset because you're going to get behind schedule - remind him that it's THEIR fault and, on top of that, OUR reputation will be marred because we have to put our name on this sub's lousy work. The boss might not care, but you're going to protect yourself by writing a memo for the record - that goes in the package - detailing the problems.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Yes, I have seen more of this happening with our vendors. I believe the common denominator for all this was the downsizing and outsourcing of technical expertise within companies starting in the late 1990's to current. Many of the experienced and qualified engineers were displaced to cut costs and rely on fewer, less expierenced engineers remaining in the organization.
I am not that impressed with the technical capability of our so-called qualified vendors. All I know is this, the organization that I work for relies on us “seasoned engineers” to sort out the B--- S--- from vendors.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
I wasn't in on the selection process. As a matter of fact some vendors were chosen before I even started this job. One thing I learned though is that when you're going to have somebody actually design one-off items especially for your project you should do your homework. Get resumes of the key personnel, visit their office/shop. If something seems out of whack, don't just shrug your shoulders and say, "Oh well, they say they know what they're doing. I'm sure it will be fine." You're gut is probably right.
I'm reminded of many years ago a small company I worked at was bidding on a very large structure for a very well know company. The executrons came by our dinky office to see our dog and pony show. The dog had the mange and the pony needed to be shot.
One of the reasons the well know company is successful is because they cared enough to check us out before they invested their money and reputation. They thanked us politely for our time and moved on to the next contractor.
Rather than be offended, I learned an important lesson. We were good at what we did but this project was just too big for us. We (I use the term "we" graciously) didn't realize we would have been in over our head (did somebody mention arrogance earlier?) but the potential client did his homework rather than just awarding to the lowest bidder, probably saving himself a lot of money and headaches.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Tom Rhodes, GDTP-S
QMC LLC; www.qmc.com
Senior Dimensional Management Engineer.
CeTOL 6 Sigma
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Need any more reasons?
...oh yeah- and the other obvious thing: you get what you pay for! Too many years where engineering was a pretty poor gig in comparison to other things that a smart university grad could do to earn a buck. We may have been getting "the best and brightest" into engineering programs in universities, but so many of them are leaving school and NOT entering our profession these days that engineering is now being referred to as "the new liberal arts education". Makes my stomach turn!
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
recent graduation. They are most eager to convince
themselves they understand something, taking a quick
shortcut to really understanding the subject. I have
listened to them describe their understanding of a subject
with glaring logical errors in their description. I can't
wait for them to stop talking so I can ask them
"What about this possibility??"
It is not just laziness in my opinion. They suffer a
insecurity and feel inside there is no way I would ever
really GET IT so it's best try to be close to correct and
just fake it. It is fear of failure that keeps these
people from saying "wait a minuite I really don't get this"
Psychologist say their locus of control is external.
They want acceptance instead of developing a skill set.
Perhaps this is what the famous Danish philosopher
meant when he said.
"ERROR IS COWARDICE"
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
I read your comments, and as a young engineer I feel that I am among the lot contributing to your collective chagrin.
I find that in any given day, there maybe at least 2 work items that I have no proven method of solving (or resolving), so like anybody I venture into the unknown with the basic tools my college provided and a healthy motive to learn more. The old guys that figured these problems out many years ago have all retired or been moved out. So, we must then reinvent the wheel.
It may be the schools, it may be the lack of talent, but more than likely it is just the natural tendancy of the last surviving enwised elders to identify the deficiencies of the up-and-coming slackjawed idiots being rushed out of the engineering schools.
I want to learn, and I want to be good at what I do. I do not want to be considered lower quality just because of the generation I was produced from.
...and I think that most of my fellows feel the same way.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
feel a lesser engineer after reading the above thread. Often times these types of threads are the result of a momentary frustration, or projection on the part of the respondant.
Most people forget how little they knew when they started out. And while many companies are squeezing us to produce more with less (that is the unfortunate economic circumstance we are in) the reality is that the generation before had the same reservations and observations.
This is a problem older than any of us...
Wes C.
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RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
There has been such a industry drive to reduce expenses that the typical engineering staff has become smaller and smaller. Engineers have to become familiar with so many different technical areas that they are no longer experts at anything.
A recent job ad I saw for an "Analog & Hardware" engineer also included experience requirements of:C and C++, RTOS, VHDL, FPGA, UL, CE and FCC, RF design to 2.4 GHz, antenna design, PCB design, switch-mode and off-line power supply design, magnetics, SolidWorks, Matlab, LaBView, with experience in millimeter wave design and measurement desirable. Expereince with custom ASICs a plus.
In technical areas where the "half-life" of knowledge is usually 18-months with new technical areas being developed every few years, you just can't expect an engineer to know everything.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Either you need to be genius material so that you can learn new material and assimilate rapidly, or you need to have no life and spend your hours outside of work studying new material. These are the facts of the modern economy. Hyper competetion is here to stay. At least the best jobs still pay well.
That said, a solid foundation will always serve one well. I think that in many cases universities are wasting their time trying to teach software tools to students. Students need a solid grounding so that they can solve real world problems. Any bright student can learn a software tool. Whether they can use it properly to solve real world engineering problems depends on how well they understand fundamentals.
I do not agree with the statement that this generation is going through the same thing as previous generations. The fact is that telecommunications networks and free trade have essentially removed any notion that you are competing only against those in your country. Companies now compete globally and therefore must have absolutely the best people. That is a lot of pressure on 20 something year olds. The rate of technological change is unprecedented and distractions are everywhere in modern life. Children are depressed in record numbers. There is general disdain for the merit of education outside of preparing one for a vocation. And yet we continue to "innovate" at record pace.
As a relatively young engineering graduate I agree with what others have said about wanting to do well. I do want to learn and understand my field better. But after a 12 hour day I barely want to turn on the TV let alone crack an advanced textbook.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
"Companies now compete globally and therefore must have absolutely the best people."
Not always true.
There are plenty of "bottom feeder" companies that hire employees based upon price and not upon their skills. I have worked for 2 so far and I see many others around me.
When things don't go well financially, companies choose to do bad work using bad staff, rather than voluntarily going out of business.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Engineers can't merely be educated in schools. There's an on-the-job training component as there is in ALL professions. But this is impossible when the experienced people who have the most to offer in terms of mentoring new grads have been "greyed" out of work, or starved out of the profession! It's compounded by the fact that engineering faculty these days are hired on the basis of their ability to generate published papers- industrial experience is entirely secondary and in many (most!) cases, completely absent!
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Regards
StoneCold
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Don't feel too bad. The next generation is always terrible.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
'What we have here is failure to communicate.'
The Procurement Department lives on another planet from the Engineering Department and the Engineering Department lives on another planet from the Operations Department.
The people who have to use a product or service have no say in the spec. The people who have to spec a product or service have no say in the buying. Lowest bidder, the guy who doesn't have any engineering design and support overhead, wins.
LewTam Inc.
Petrophysicist, Leading Hand, Natural Horseman, Prickle Farmer, Crack Shot, Venerable Yogi.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
The engineering and technical school relies on second-hand donations of hardware from local industries.
Correlation? Yeah...
Engineers are like any other segment of the graduating class. There are good ones who went to school to learn the basics of a chosen field, and leave school with a willingness to continue to learn. Others have a diploma and are looking for an office in which to hang it. I like the first type. There are too many of the second, some who graduated in 2006, some who graduated in 1966...
old field guy
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Guess which got done?
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Ed
www.engineerboards.com
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
You get a star from me! I'd give you five stars if the interface allowed.
When I examine the problem I conclude the problem lies in two factors: First, and engineer will slit another engineers throat (figuratively) for five bucks and the global market has exacerbated the whole problem. Second, mostly due to #1 and also due to politics, we have lost control of the decision making and are slaves to procurement and management/administration divisions in our organizations. The golden era of many engineering disciplines has come and gone. Now we are a comodity, or so the managers believe.
I have been fighting this battle since I was three years out of grad school. I work along side engineers that can't do s--t but get paid the same as me. When crunch time comes, the engineer managers came to me to get it finished in time. The engineering managers that thought the same way as me were marked men. They had gone as far as they were going to go in the organization. And they were treated the same way by their managers as I was treated. When a high profile complex project came up, the real engineer managers got the job. And they delivered. But others took the bow, got the handshakes, had the photo with the golden shovel, all that stuff. And these hard working guys (engineering managers) thought they would some day get that promotion they had worked so long to receive. But because they couldn't be trusted to keep their mouth shut about the quality of the work out there, they were ignored for more astute politicians.
I finally saw the light and changed disciplines. I now work closer to the operations side (used to work as a designer and then a design manager) where I can serve as a bridge between the production crowd and the engineer crowd. BTW, the operations guys were weary of me until they decided I wasn't some kind of Ivory Tower idiot.
What do we do about it? Nothing. Lean into the wind and just keep going. If you have the energy, mentor a new engineer now and then and take care of your family.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Many of today’s younger engineers seem to be smarter but not very clever or resourceful. One of my professors’s stressed (pun intended) the need to determine the answer before developing the solution. The younger generation seems to have a difficulty with this. To them everything is build a computer model and perform hundreds analysis, never reaching any conclusion other than more study is needed. We need to emphasize the importance of being able to rationalize a solution to a problem.
Some seem to reinvent the wheel rather than – heaven forbid – copy what was done by someone else. Sometimes, “the way we’ve always did it before” is still the way to do it.
A lot don’t want to get to get their hands dirty – literally and figuratively. Some don’t want to leave the comfort of the office to go to a project site; they don’t realize the value of doing bridge inspection or construction inspection. Some want the jobs that are “nice and clean” – no surprises, no messy problems to deal with.
There’s too much equality in the engineering world; unlike the time when we did what we were told. Enough said about the younger generation.
As far as the industry, I began my career with a public agency and those who had more seniority had real engineering experience. Today, those people are mostly gone, replaced by professional bureaucrats without much real-world design experience. This is a real problem because many just don’t understand what’s on a set of plans and why.
We complain about fees but we’ve always been complaining about fees. Ideally, all clients should award work based on qualifications and negotiate fees rather than bid work. Unfortunately, as a former boss once said, “engineers are like prostitutes fighting over a customer.” How many firms are going to boycott the agency that bids work?
Also, we’re also to blame. I work for a large company and from the way things are run we’re more like an accounting firm that dabbles in engineering. The non-engineers (who run the company) are overly concerned with utilization and complain that we don’t care about budgets. We’re bombarded with weekly & monthly reporting requirements that have to be done on our own time but have to deal with a dysfunctional accounting system to complete them. Enough said; sorry to be so long winded.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Most of the new comers from universities lived in a consumer society, they bought everything already built and without a computer it hard for them to think.
Most of the new engineers arrived has trainees. Now they are in the administration like yuppies assessing the administration rather in management than in engineering.
They really don’t realize the value of doing a turnaround field inspection or revamping construction. Some want the jobs that are “nice and clean” – no surprises, no messy problems to deal with.
During the messy problems when is hard to get solutions most of the times simple workers are the problem solvers.
Regards
Luis
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Can't put that onto the new generation. I've run into many designers of various ages who would love to go out into the real world and see fabrication or construction but aren't allowed to by their employers. Time spent on site visits instead of design isn't considered billable, and there are deadlines to meet. During my brief stint in design, I told my boss I was heading out to the project site to see the structure I would be modifying, and he stopped me and made me come up with a formal justification (which was actually hard to do, because to me it was just so self-evident that I needed to go out there that I had trouble putting it into words).
Hg
Eng-Tips policies: FAQ731-376
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
"Can't put that onto the new generation." You're darned staright there, buddy! I've worked on too many assemblies where it looked like they suspended an electric motor from the ceiling by a rope and then built the unit around it.
SOMEBODY designed it. And SOMEBODY ELSE approved it. And then it got built that way.
And then we get called to fix it, and I'm standing out there looking up at the God-awful location of that motor or gearbox or whatever and trying to figure out the way to get it replaced, and I have expended many prayers that the designer would be dragged out of his ivory tower and be forced to fix that which he designed...
old field guy
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Yet another example of management being penney wise and pound foolish.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
When Design Intent fails in production, both the engineer and designer need to go to the plant. No body knows the design better. All it takes is a few fire fighting plant visits, and the design team understands why we have DFM & DFA. Design function and production requirement is a balancing act.
Tom Rhodes, GDTP-S
QMC LLC; www.qmc.com
Senior Dimensional Management Engineer.
CeTOL 6 Sigma
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
In school from the early 90's, a P.E. was an aspiration point. I left the industry and came back in 2000. Now, the P.E. is just a person that passed the test after a cram course.
After visiting many association meetings and finding basic errors in P.E. stamped work, I wonder if a P.E. is worth the work. The general perception is a P.E. knows everything, even outside of their specialty.
Any inspiration?
In a different industry, they cut costs by hiring 2-year technical grads to do engineering grads work. As the instructor, it took 2x longer to try to teach the same subject and many did not get it. After 2-years of poor results, they went back to engineering grads. Maybe this example is similar engineering wide. Until the problem of incompetency hits the bottom line, nothing gets done.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
So what happens?
During the erection of the plant, construction and field engineers are faced with errors that could be avoided if they were taken into account during the project design phase.
To make a modification or to solve an error during the erection will be an extra work and the final cost of the project will increase proportionally to the number of extra works modifications, which would be irrelevant if included or discovered in the project phase.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
If you take a look at any medium- and large-size engineering company, whether it is a manufacturer or consulting firm, chances are you will see MBA’s, unqualified people, quasi-engineers and non-engineers with very little or “zero” engineering knowledge in the management, project director or group leader positions.
I was not referring to people who handle administrative duties in an engineering organization, I was referring to people who actually make engineering decisions and tell real engineers what to do but don’t even take the responsibility.
* Some state engineering boards in the U.S. want to license all Canadian engineers in the name of license mobility. In Canada, all engineering grads become professional engineers. It is equivalent to grant PE to all engineering grads in the U.S.
* Engineers are cheap and are getting cheaper. I wonder if this is the motive behind the scene for license mobility. Engineers need blame no others but themselves for the woes they are in as our board members are also engineers.
* If you haven’t got you PE yet, don’t hassle with the FE, PE and even the SE exams, apply through a Canadian board, get your P.Eng. in Canada and apply for reciprocity with the U.S. boards.
* It may be too late for you to change your profession, but if you have kids, you can advise them not to choose engineering for their careers. Anyone who has the intelligence to study engineering should be able to make out better in any other fields. And just in case they still want to be an engineer, they can always work as an engineering manager.
* Engineering profession, in my opinion, is a big joke!
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
The current group and trend in engineering is producing people who do not have interest in the real understanding. They are fakers. I imagine in the old days (40 yr ago) that engineers had a certain pride about their ability to do thing and understand why. They kind of embraced the core knowledge of engineering as a key to success. This bunch today are fakers, they above all want to succeed in recognition, but don't want to be bothered with the hard work it takes, even after school, to understand the dynamics of how things work.
In short they discount experiences that reveal their ignorance hoping that it was just an unusual event and next time things won't be so complicated and they will do allright.
It is part of our society change from substance to appearance.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
I think it is about pride, and wanting to do a good job, I have had recent graduates who have been great, and also pretty bad.
I think engineers are too quick to grab at analysis tools when in many cases a pencil and calculator would have been adequate.
Sure, we all know there is a place for FEA, Contact analysis, Adams for dynamics etc, etc, but it just disapoints me when I see engineers grabbing at FEA when a simple bending calculation would have done. Rather like taking a Ferrari to go to the food store.
I have a vision of Newton & Brunnel turning in their graves.
Maybe the best attribute of all is a large slice of common sense.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Engineering isn't the only profession, look at doctors, there is a whole group of "nurse practioners". What are they all about, the same as engineering techs. The only profession that doesn't have semi trained people running amok is lawyers, why? cuase they sue the pants off the fakers!!
My favorite in house story was when they promoted an accountant over engineering and plant operations. The new guy asked me why he needed a chemical engineer (for our chemical process plants) in the headquarters office because he had some civil, industrial, mechanical, and 2 year techs in the field. I asked him why he didn't go to a podiatrist when he had a heart attack.
Needless to say they placed an engineer back in that position within a year.
I'm open to suggestions, but globally we need to enforce local PE's running things.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
I love being an engineer and do not care a fig if management does not appreciate what I do. As an engineer, I feel only slightly underpaid. Its the lawyers and MBAs that are overpaid!
In a similar vein, the NY Times just had an article about doctors leaving their medical practices and joining investment banking firms as consultants, thereby pushing their salaries into the stratosphere.
What will happen to our world when no one can do anything practical anymore? It is going to be interesting!
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
"Some state engineering boards in the U.S. want to license all Canadian engineers in the name of license mobility. In Canada, all engineering grads become professional engineers. It is equivalent to grant PE to all engineering grads in the U.S."
I'm a Canadian P.Eng, and that statement is simply not true. It is true that all fourth year engineering students are given "EIT" status (Engineer In Training), but they can only get to be a P.Eng. IF they follow through with a minimum of 4 years work experience, PLUS write the Professional exams for the Province in which they are practicing. If I want to practice in another Province, I still have to write the exam on their Bylaws and Code of Ethics in order to do so.
But on the Topic at Hand: yes, I agree that the commodification of Engineering is a downhill spiral, and that technical expertise is respected less and less, and being substituted with spreadsheet management and the desire for "instant solutions" instead of good old engineering problem-solving. I keep telling my young designers and newbie P.Eng.'s- a Excel spreadsheets only allow you to make more precise mistakes. I keep telling them to work it out by hand to get a feel for what the numbers mean.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Allow me to cheer you up with some positive examples:
a) The cousin of a close friend left his home country 7 years ago to study engineering in the USA (his home country had a university quota system that shut him out). He got his B.S Industrial Engineering degree and got picked up by a good firm. He worked there for a while and is now involved in a startup company that is working on smart materials.
b) A close buddy of example A also left his home country and came to the USA to study. He is currently pursuing his PHD in Biomedical Engineering and is doing research on new technologies & processes for advanced open heart surgery.
I am very envious of these 2 guys.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Oil, gas and minerals, energy and utilities
Paper and packaging
Defence and aerospace
Electrical and electronics
Transport and automotive
Textiles, footwear and clothing
Engineering and design
New clean energies
Environment engineering
Waste treatment
Water engineering
Petrochemicals and chemicals
Construction and building materials
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Oil, gas and minerals, energy and utilities in few countries only
Paper and packaging
Defence and aerospace in US of course
Electrical and electronics few countries only manufacturing in Asia mainly
Transport and automotive
Textiles, footwear and clothing in Asia only
Engineering and design in few places only as well
New clean energies definetly not in US ( kyoto was not signed yet)
Environment engineering hahahaha
Waste treatment very slow all over the world
Water engineering in 20 years
Petrochemicals and chemicals steady as current
Construction and building materials steady as current
" to be or not to be "
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
There has to be a limit to cost cutting and especially when human safety is at stake. I feel that we may be coming to an end of this era of cost reductions. A lot of the low hanging fruit has already been outsourced. The things that they try to outsource these days often backfire. We have a load of cheap junk at Walmart, but I don't think Walmart will ever be selling aircraft - at least not in my lifetime.
And we can keep in mind that innovative ideas are never a commodity, nor is high-end work. So if we love engineering jobs we may face the reality of needing to keep ourselves in high-end industries.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
I've already worked on one project where CAD files were transferred around the world daily so that we had 16 hours or more of tube-time per day. That's not the usual way we work, it is not especially efficient, but it has its advantages.
Cheers
Greg Locock
Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
If we get to the point where the corporations are truly global and they simply establish offices in the most advantageous areas and hire locally then I can eventually see entire businesses going overseas, but there would still be a period where the new people would need to gain experience, and the businesses would have to adapt to the foreign governments and cultures. There's tremendous uncertainty in those factors.
Even assuming that extreme, I think certain work would remain in the USA where the people don't need to be "inherently" more cost effective they just have to be actually providing something that no one else can more cheaply, or something that nobody else even knows how to provide, or something that is provided to such a limited, custom and specialized market segment that it does not admit to mass, cheap production. We can also consider companies that work for the US government and are not free to outsource, or companies that are privately held and do not have the pressure from Wall Street to maximize short term gains.
Finally, at some point third world countries will start to consume at greater levels, and will need to direct more and more of their production onto themselves instead of exporting the majority of it.
In any case I would not like to be the guy with his head in the sand who ignores these trends. I am working on an MBA, and if I begin to see my work under credible pressure from outsourcing I will definently consider options. But like I said, so far any outsourcing in my area has backfired, and pretty badly.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
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RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
1.) I am responsible for engineering design. At my previous job I did alot of management stuff because the Supervisors were incapable/unmotivated. I learn more here because I am able to concentrate on Engineering not teaching Lean Manf. to Hourly Production Workers. My experience wasn't unique.
2.) The Principle Engineers/Project Managers really check my work. They are the boss and they take the time to look at what I send out and find my errors. I don't care what anyone says, -until you make some mistakes it is difficult to see exactly how to go about fixing them.
The only major problem I really see is our customers have the wrong idea about how long things will take.
My most recent example: I needed a P&ID to start the piping design. Designer in Europe was working on it and was very late getting it to me. He did on the 22nd of Dec. Mr. Idiot (name changed to protect the stupid) decided he needed to go to bid with the Mechanical Drawings on the 3rd of Jan.
I explained to him that this wasn't going to be any help what so ever, but he did not seem to understand that the contractors would not have an accurate price with imcomplete or incorrect drawings. But he didn't care or understand. Needless to say I have been answering a multitude of questions for 2 weeks now because they don't understand the drawings. It is total crap. All this distraction also hasn't helped finish any of the work.
I also have often turned to doing things slowly on paper, before jumping on the computer, for calcs and drawings. I find that the slower process helps my mind keep up and avoids distraction of the bright shiny lights this seems help me focus. Then I get to the PC to do the "mass production"
-dave
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
many out there claim to be doing engineering work, many will choose to hire a technician, a tradesman to do engineering work ie is cheaper.
compare it with doctors and lawyers
nurses will not do doctors work, they could though
paralegals will not do lawyers work either
engineers are usually a commodity.
my kids will probably not go engineering
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Cheers
Luis
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
I guess they could always vent their spleens in the "Professional Ethics" forum.
Engineering pays well enough for most of us. Who needs status?
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Status is one thing, but satisfaction and enjoying the end product of your efforts is also important.
Oh, and as per StompingGuy's comment, the money ain't a bad side-effect either.
Kevin Hammond
Mechanical Design Engineer
Derbyshire, UK
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
After things got done, our company thought the engineering manager was a good engineer.
To facilitate standardization and quality control of engineering design, our corporate engineering manager hired a quality control engineer to review and oversee standardization, engineering design, and details. There is one problem, however, the quality control engineer is also a non-engineer with ‘zero” engineering knowledge. So the real engineers underneath the quality control engineer had to step in to fix the mess he created in “quality control.” Otherwise, jobs would not get done.
After things got fixed, our company thought the quality control engineer was a good engineer.
Two projects collapsed in the past two years - fortunately no one was hurt. Many problems or mistakes were caught and fixed by real engineers in time before constructions were completed.
What a # joke engineering profession is!
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
It is intereesting that many of your experiences mirror my own in large companies.
I worked for an acquisition, design, construct company in the UK and I had a meeting with one of the directors once. In the space of half an hour I knew beyond a doubt that he had no idea what acquisition, design or construction did. On what was he basing his management decision?
This same company we saw more and more middle management pour into the company while the engineering was reduced from 16 to 4 (largely from people giving up and leaving).
They are reluctant to spend money on experienced engineers, but they have no reluctance to spend it on (more expensive) middle management staff.
My solution to the issue:
1. Dont work for big companies that are run by non-engineers.
2. At interviews I will judge my employer as much as they judge me. If they are not still knowledgable and in touch with the profession then I will choose not to work for them.
3. I always try and work at places that check their work. I have checked work for engineers with 30 plus years of experience and I always find something (usually small with the experienced ones).
4. I always treat deadlines as secondary to the adequacy of the design. You can always get another job, but culpability for poor design stays with you.
As per the original question, I believe that the poor quality of work from graduates is largely due to four things:
1. poor salaries in many disciplines - this means that the smartest students will usually go to another better paid (and probably easier) profession. somtinguy and prohammy, you come from some of the better paid disciplines so you probably get paid better than most.
2. Engineering courses are trying to become too 'all inclusive' if you learn only 10% of what you need at university why reduce by replacing some of the courses with management. If we want to be managers when we graduate we should have done management, if we want to become managers 5 years after, we would have forgotten most of it anyway.
3. Lack of respect for the value of experienced engineers to remain in design. I recently worked for a sole practitioner who said that he was looked down upon by many of his peers because he was still 'doing numbers'. Becoming a hands on 'Technical manager' should be seen as a valid career path of its own, not a dead end for those who dont make management.
4. lack of on the job training- I was working for 6 years before someone actually sat me down and showed me a proper way of designing a building, I was basically self taught before then. My wife is in a far less technical profession and she goes to so many training courses she is sick of them!
But on the other side even graduate engineers that fully understand the principals of engineering should not be expected to know how to be an engineer, that has to be learnt on the job.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
My wost one had a VP that did regulated utility engineering (gas). The company ended up with a non regulated enity that had contracts with time deadlines, fixed budgets, non-perscriptive standards, wierd chemistry, and complex thermodynamics. After I came in 15 days late, the projrct was studied for 15 months before I was called in, 15% over my budget, but 45% under the studied budget, I was told I was a bad engineeer because I didn't study the problem and write out more specific documents and involve more vendors or internal people.The guy was promoted and I was given a $500 bonus.
Good engineers become tools. Put into a box oiled up and thrown to fix something broke. The person hasn't a clue how to fix or what the tool does, but last time he had a similar proplem he got a raise.....
Signed,
Just a tool in the box
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
I think it is kind of like comparing apples to oranges. Times have changed and engineering has changed with it. Young engineers have much more to digest than their older counterparts did. For example, look at current codes they are much larger than they were. Wind or Sesmeic loads for example take quite a bit of calculation time, I mean there is a whole bunch of stuff to calculate just to get the loads you need. It used to be 25 or 30 psf and you are done. The first AISC code was 12 pages and now it is over 300. But young engineers should be expected to know all these things when our counterparts were not because they were not known at the time.
Also things are getting more complicated. It used to be do some moment distribution and call it a day, and now it is use some 3-d FEM program to get your answers. Since things are more complicated it is harder to get a good feel for what you are doing. Sometimes those simple methods will only get you half way there. So many of the projects I work on have very complicated geometries and conditions that you could spend all day designing one detail.
Lastly, there is the time involved. Projects that used to take months now take weeks, so no time can be spent looking at the project. They seem to just flash before my eyes and they are gone.
Experience is so important, and I would like the older engineers to remember that there is more to know now and less time to know it in, so please give me a hand.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
My criticism was aimed at the industry in general and not at individual graduates.
I believe it is the industry that lets you down, not the other way around.
Regards
CSD
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
In the next 5 years, there could be a greater focus on the quality of work and greater awareness of professionalism. This will cull out the underperforming plan stampers or force them to change their ways. A larger portion of engineering work will be to go back and fix the mistakes made now. To support this view, I will use myself: I am freshly out of engineering school, and I have already seen some very bad practices such as PEs without much reasoning ability, but able to copy specs from a book onto a drawing, an "engineering" firm with stakes in two other "engineering" firms where the first firm has 1.5 engineers and the other two have none, the engineers are plan stampers for the other two, and a structural design I hired a firm to do for my project where an EIT used a stamp of the PE's signature to wet seal the set of drawings. This is a lot of poor practice to see in about one year, and I promise myself that I won't allow myself to practice in that way. I would like to think that the other engineering school grads that I had professionalism and ethics class with learned the same things in it that I did.
In five years, we will be creating solutions to problems that are being recognized by the few who will take a couple of years to convince the many that there is a problem.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
It sounds like you've tied into to fairly unscrupulous folks. That's unfortunate, but rest assured, lip service to quality is nothing new. It's good to hear your dedicated to integrity and professionalism and I applaud you. But I question why you think things are going to turn around in 5 years. Like I said, I've been hearing it for years. The only thing we can do is be personally accountable and encourgage our fellow engineers to practice competently and professionally.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
a) 30+ yrs ago, few engineering problems were solved primarily via computer models or computer simulations. Most problems were broken down into smaller problems that could be solved using correlations that were directly obtained from operating data, research data, or first principles, which could be grasped by a single , qualified engineer. Today's we depend almost entirely on computerized solutions; while this provides extraordinary technical improvements in some areas, it divorces the engineer from the solution process, and it tends to increase the reliance on faith as opposed to analysis , and gives a false sense of confidence. It also introduces risk in that the user of the program usually has no knowledge of the limitations of the assumptions built into each computer program.
b)The "good will" of an engineering company includes the knowledge retained by its old timers plus propretary test/ research data plus proprietary design methods or standards. This "good will" unfortunately is only monetized during a corporate buyout and not realized by the bean-counters during normal business practice. As a result, modern business management practice has evolved to the point of absolutely minimizing R+D for practical engineering problems. The lack of a fixed pension scheme and the use of transportable 401K's and IRA's has led to a loss of "old timers" and corporate loss of their knowledge. And availibility of universal computer programs has devalued proprietary design methods. As a result, we will always be "reinventing the wheel" since knowledge of the last time the same problem was faced is no longer retained by corporations.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Sorry to break it to you but that is a fantasy. For quality of work, there is a reason why we have Engineering Change Orders (ECO), an engineer will eventually make a mistake. It is not “if” but “when”. For yourself, I hope you do make mistakes, a good few of them, so you can learn what to do and what ‘not” to do. If an engineer ever told me that he never made mistakes he is a liar.
For professionalism in industry (where a PE is not required and I would stab at 75% of Engineers reside), it is 1/10th person and 9/10ths the company you work for. In industry companies own the Engineering Title and can hire anybody (college grad, engineer tech, high school grad, guy off the street…etc) they want to fill the job. Because of this, you will have people who do not understand or conceive the importance of their actions.
Tobalcane
"If you avoid failure, you also avoid success."
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
If I don't try to stay optimistic, I would probably have to go on some sort of anti-depressant- I don't want to do that.
There are a lot of doom and gloom predictions, and to get a more accurate over all picture of the future there needs to be some optimism. The future will probably be about the same as it is now- not Hell, not Heaven, just Earth.
I'll still stick with my view of a lot of the work to be done will be to fix others' mistakes, and that we will be creating solutions to problems just being recognized now.
Where do I get the thought that professionalism/ethics problems might be changed? This forum. A number of engineers recognizing the problems is the first step to solving them. Also, people eventually get what's coming to them; hopefully their replacements will take heed of lessons learned by their predecessor.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Well said Twoballcane. I think this is 100% of the reason that makes engineering kind of a dangerous career.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
The result is that you spend so much time keeping up with the changes that you dont have sufficient time for coordination, checking e.t.c.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
DOWN THE PAN
I post this after learning that they are laying off the most senior guy in our section. He's the only one that really understands GD&T and the like. In a company that produces precision measuring equipment I can't help thinking that's a problem. From a personal point of view I'm annoyed because he's one of the only people around here I’ve been able to learn much from.
Maybe it’s not Engineering itself that’s the problem but managers/corporate culture etc.
Disgruntled of CA...
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Watch thy back....If the most senior person in a dept. is being laid off, there are generally only one of two reasons. One he did something majorly wrong or two he's the first of many....
I too have been resisting posting to this thread for while. My fear is that Engineering is on its way out to the merry old Far East and such low cost areas. The sooner all the engineers out there get a grip and start demanding higher wages, the better for us all
Kevin
“Insanity in individuals is something rare, but in groups, parties, nations and epochs it is the rule” Nietzsche
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Kenat
Sometimes the senior knowledge bodes the management.
Most of the managers don’t want critic intelligence they just want robots.
Cheers
Luis
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
As discussed in another post, it is lack of respect for technical knowledge that is the problem.
csd
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
If they need to lay people off so be it, but he wouldn't have been my choice from this department (hell from a business point of view they'd have been better off getting rid of me).
I know manager don't have to be great engineers etc to be good managers but in this case I can't help but think if they at least vaguely understood the design process and people working for them then they'd have made a different choice.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
csd
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Regards,
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Your boss didn't make the decision, the bean enumerator (I don't think he actually counts them, just numbers them, they have another guy to count them) above him said the most objective method to obtain 'black' quarterly was to 'package' this one senior employee off then to layoff more than him in equivalency then have to rehire multiple new guys at higher starting salary (complacent employees you can pay less) due to attrition......its voodoo economics....
Today is gone. Today was fun.
Tomorrow is another one.
Every day, from here to there,
funny things are everywhere.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
See 10 more 'Rules for a Perfect Day' at
h
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
It was a VP from a completely different department who until a few months ago was in marketing not Engineering.
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
Then every so often we get a new industry, computers, ect.. I'm slow today, but what is the newest industry... I would not classify green energy because its just a redesign, solar cells, wind turbines have been around a long time (windmills almost forever). Biofuels, nothing new here either.
RE: Where IS Engineering Going?
KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...