Do you educate yourself or pay experts, if your project has a problem related to other field? 1

[NewEngineer652]

Hello All,
I am a fresh Engineer with about a year experience in pressure vessel and mechanical components. I must say that my field, mechanical engineering, is very challenging and I am liking it very much. Everyday when I am driving home, I have a new problem to think about at night and I wonder if there will come a time when I will have solutions to problems right away. Anyway, As of now, I am having a magnetic problem at work. I have to do some calculations for force and torque for some magnetic assemblies. I think simulation is the best solution here. I can either find books, online sources, readings, and this group to educate myself or I can pay the experts to do these calculations and simulations for us. I think my boss is ready to pay but I personally would educate myself and do it myself rather than paying someone else.

My question is, when you face a problem in your project that is not related to your field and you hardly know anything about it, would you try to educate yourself and solve the problem yourself or would you pay the experts and they do it for you?

Thanks

 

[robertib]

Personally I think it depends on the situation - is it critical to a final product, is it a potential problem on a final product, is it for a prototype, etc...
This would give me an idea of how important it is to get it right first time. If it is essential to get it right, I would pay an expert. If it is only for a prototype, and you expect to iterate it a few times, I would do it myself.

Either way, I would educate myself - if I pay an expert, I would use their results to check my learning.

 

[CheckerHater]

Time is money. Do you always have time to educate yourself?

Doesn't mean you cannot analyze the problem after it is solved.

"For every expert there is an equal and opposite expert"
Arthur C. Clarke Profiles of the future

 

[moltenmetal]

Vendors can be a wealth of specialist information, if you know how to interpret and use their information properly.

robertib had it right: if it has to be right first time, or it will hurt people if you get it wrong, then yes you should obtain advice from skilled specialists. But you should ALSO educate yourself so you can be a knowledgeable consumer of the expert advice given.

 

[zdas04]

I always ask myself "which path is best for the project?" and "will I ever use this information again?".

When I had a site stability issue on a compressor I hired a geotech expert and bought some books because I figured that I had to know if he was blowing smoke up my pants leg. I knew that I could get to be a geotech expert in a couple of years of study and 20 years of experience, but my project had a month. In a month I could learn enough terminology to BS my client, but not to determine how to fix the problem.

When I needed to design a custom thermocompressor for a client I looked into experts and found them to be scarce on the ground and really expensive. I also thought that it was a skill that I could use again, so I bought some software and dug into the subject. The first design was kind of weak, but it got better with experiments. I've used that skill on a dozen projects since.

When I needed to do the code calcs on a pressure vessel, I priced software ($20 k and up), looked at doing manual calcs in MathCad (probably a month's work to set it all up), or hiring a local guy that had the software and some dead time for $800. Kind of a no brainer.

When I needed a CFD model developed for an invention, I looked into purchasing CFD software and learning its quirks, or hiring an expert. The expert was by far the best for the project.

David Simpson, PE
MuleShoe Engineering

In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual. Galileo Galilei, Italian Physicist

 

[Jboggs]

I have always been one that enjoys learning new things, but I am old enough to understand that all knowledge about a topic cannot be written in a book. No matter how much reading one might do in a new field, one is still a neophyte making rookie errors. If you are willing to absorb the costs of those potential errors, go for it, do it yourself. In fact I encourage it. If however those potential costs are unacceptable in terms of schedule, budget, performance, or above all human safety, then consult an expert. Pay for it if you have to, but often you don't have to, especially if the "expert" is in the form of an application engineer for the product/system you are considering using. Remember this: Your boss isn't paying you for your knowledge. He is paying you for the results of your work. He really does not care how you get results, just get results.

 

[SNORGY]

It depends on the sophistication of the employer or client.

Until recently, at least, when something I have not done before or out of my realm of familiarity comes up and I suggest a better resource, I always seem to end up with the ones that say, "What the heck did I hire YOU for? Are you an engineer or not?".

As a contractor now, I can politely make a gracious exit from such situations. When it was the classic "boss-employee" relationship, most often I was just left to figure it out on my own.

In the end, that made me a much better engineer, which is why I contract now.

I would ask your boss if there is enough time and budget for you to meet both objectives, namely, get the task done PLUS be the one who learns it and does it, getting guidance from others as appropriate. Especially with young engineers these days, I find that they can climb learning curves that are very steep (otherwise they couldn't have survived the academic rigor of getting their degree), and I have seldom - if ever - been disappointed by the results I have seen from the trainees I have been involved with.

I view this as an opportunity for both you and your boss. Have a back-up plan, but otherwise, go for it.

 

[SNORGY]

I would temper my last post with a statement of the obvious: I wouldn't undertake to do electrical engineering or PLC programming if I was from a completely different discipline like Mechanical or Civil.

 

[KENAT]

Some good points above.

Even if you go with the 'expert' it's worth trying to learn enough on the topic so you understand roughly what they're doing and have some chance of telling if what they've done is meaningful etc. You may even be able to learn a bit from the expert themselves so next time you make an initial stab at the issue.

More specifically on your magnet issues, I work with a former magnetician (now working in our tech pubs) and occasionally dabble in simple magnet applications myself and I've learned from him that magnetics is a fairly poorly understood field by most folks (including me).

Some of the low/mid range magnetic analysis packages aren't that good - e.g. another colleague of mine tried using an ANSYS module for some relatively simple simulation and it apparently wasn't really up to it.

My magnetician colleague still consults on the side on magnetics and uses a highly customized simulation tool (he appears to know what he's doing & he actually wrote the code for some early magnetic simulation SW back in his hard disk development days.)

Despite his PHD, years of experience etc. he's often unable to answer what appear to be simple questions off the top of his head and often says things like 'that's actually quite a complex issue I'd need to do some simulation to get a good answer'.

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[lacajun]

Even as an EE, there are topics within EE I will not tackle such as power generation and distribution. I took those courses but did not enjoy them enough to enter that field. I leave that to the experts. But, like others have posted, it depends on the situation, too. Learning or refreshing one's knowledge is always healthy.

Pamela K. Quillin, P.E.
Quillin Engineering, LLC

 

[rotw]

I just attended a technical training which I paid by myself and which I booked on my holliday time...
I will use that training to fix my company problem soon and also as an knnwoledge investment for me, later on... I dont advertise internally about what I did, and I will not ask for refund (I evolve in a sort of broken organisation, can't fix it immediately (I work towards it but my learning regime shall never slowdown at any cost...).

"If you want to acquire a knowledge or skill, read a book and practice the skill".

 

[cdxx139]

If its new, then pay a consultant the first time, learn from it, and you may be able to handle it the second time. To many unknowns to go at it on your own the first time.

knowledge is power

 

[GregLocock]

Incidentally if it is genuinely new, or rarely known, beware of the consultants who are just one page ahead of you in the literature search, BTDT got the T shirt. Any report you get should be fully documented so that you can replicate the work, no black boxes or proprietary solutions allowed. This will need to be written into the contract as a deliverable.

Cheers

Greg Locock


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[zeusfaber]

Amen to what Greg just said. I first discovered Eng Tips by Googling a particularly interesting problem. The first link brought me to a new post on Eng Tips, where my Contractor's expensive Consultant had just asked exactly the same thing.

A.

 

[ARenko]

Also agree with what Greg said. I had a project that was unique and I sought experts who worked on similar systems, but I found in the end that I was providing all the engineering decisions and designs and they just became a CAD contractor.

Still we do often use experts - there is often not the time to learn on your own. I'll always try to learn at least enough to ask the right questions of the experts.

 

[IRstuff]

It's an interesting conundrum. Experts need to be constantly fed to keep them happy and sharp; this is likewise the case for anything you learn. We've not been able to retain some of our experts because there just isn't enough work to keep them busy and productive. We do lean on a cadre of retired engineers who don't mind leaving their retirement for brief stints at their old jobs.

Some of the things that I've learned on my own are only refreshed here, by attempting to answer questions.

TTFN
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Of course I can. I can do anything. I can do absolutely anything. I'm an expert!
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[KENAT]

Ex - has been
Spurt - drip under pressure

Draw your own conclusions

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[enderlord]

I guess it is a cost/time vs. importance/urgency issue. Whenever faced with something similar, I tried to educate myself either by talking with my mentor, or other experienced engineers. This forum is also a source of high quality information coming from experienced engineers.