US engineers need to be trained more like Asian and European counterp 11

[GregLocock]

Says Bob Lutz. Well, it is an interesting perspective. I'd add that he should stop letting his managers play at being engineers, but he's the boss, I guess.

I've got no particular objection to the main part of his argument, but I see no benefit in turning every engineer into a CAD user. In general I'll sketch you a solution on a sheet of paper, or a screendump.

Cheers

Greg

http://www.just-auto.com/news_detail.asp?art=47755&lk=rss

Full story follows:

USA: US engineers need to be trained more like Asian and European counterparts – Lutz
13 Apr 2005
Source: just-auto.com editorial team

GM executive Bob Lutz said Tuesday that US carmakers could streamline their design process if American engineers were trained more like their Asian and European counterparts.

"We are actually training our engineers to be managers while the rest of the world trains them to be doers," Lutz said during a speech at the annual conference of the Society of Automotive Engineers in Detroit, according to an AP report.

Lutz said Asian and European engineers are trained in drafting and can draw a new design on the spot when they run into problems, the report said. However, US engineers often need to call in designers to do the drawing and may take weeks to figure out a solution, he said.

"It's somewhat bureaucratized, and it's a slow process," Lutz said. "It's because we don't have the bone-deep understanding of what's in there and the ability to draw and model without pulling in a bunch of specialists."

Lutz said fewer youngsters grow up working on cars and playing with Erector sets, which give them the intuition they can't get from computers or mathematical models.

"Today everything is prepackaged and ready to go," Lutz reportedly said. "Worse yet, a lot of the tinkering that used to be done on cars is now prohibited by federal emissions regulations, in that everything is tamperproof."

Lutz said GM has been trying to combat the problem with a three-year-old program that trains engineers, including some in the middle of their careers, to do their own drafting.

"It's going to take a while to get all our engineers through this program, but believe me, it's going to be worth it," Lutz said, according to the AP report.




Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[ivymike]

However, US engineers often need to call in designers to do the drawing and may take weeks to figure out a solution, he said

hahah... in every job I've had, we "called in the designers" because they were CHEAP relative to our own rates. I can do a pretty darn good job in Pro-E and UG (thousands of hours on each), but you can get a non-degreed designer who is 75%+ as good at either program for 30% of the price. I personally find it much more effective to say "put that over there, and make sure you have enough clearance here" than to spend an hour or two doing it myself. You might have to babysit a bit to make sure the job gets done right, but you can spend the rest of your time making sure you get the darn thing designed right (calculations, simulations, finding suppliers, interpreting test results, etc) while someone else plays with the crayons.

I'd say that every engineer should know what the tools do and what their drawbacks are (in his own neighborhood, anyway), but not everybody should be an expert in using every tool.

 

[BillPSU]

Bob Lutz should also look at the management which drives the engineers. Engineers take on the look of the corporation. The decisions are based on what is in favor at that time in management. The decision to purchase parts is not made by the engineer. Longevity and safety factors for designs come down from above and are sometimes abused.

An organization if it wants to make the highest quality product must have a culture of doing it right the first time and every time. Ask the assembly line worker is his/her job always perfect and meets specifications. Is everybody proud of the product coming off the assembly line? It is not only the shop people but the supervisors, managers, engineers, purchasing agents, and janitors proud of their contribution to making the best car possible.

I would wager manufacturing costs, purchase cost, cars completed, and hours per car are the measurements looked at the most and quality is the last. Every Toyota I have owned has out performed every GM product I have ever owned. By the way I grew loving Chevy's.

Lutz needs to look at the culture at GM and mold it into something it currently is not. Engineers are just part of the equation.

 

[PSE]

Considering GM and others have spent years forcing the design/engineering work down to their suppliers, it is little surprise that they are more in a management role. As BillPSU points out, it is a cultural issue that was created and needs to be addressed or at least balanced.

Regards,

 

[Comcokid]

This GM executive "Bob Lutz" needs to look at the practice of the entire automotive industry the past 70 years - It's been mostly a union environment. Even though the engineers may have not been union, the management approach that will creep through all parts of the system is that a person is to do a certain task and no more.

What Bob Lutz needs to do is create a small-company envrionment. I've been working in the US for over 25 years, and for about 20 of those years at different small companies I've had to do almost all of my own drafting, (bench work, testing, minor parts ordering, etc). Some of these jobs have been at small divisions of Fortune 500 companies - samll companies do exist within large corporations.

 

[dford]

Maybe GM management needs some training as to what the engineers do. (Good luck to the trainers.)

Seems pretty wastefull to train the electronics, software, thermodynamic, metallurgy, aerodynamics, etc., guys to become efficient draftsmen.

Doug

 

[ScottyUK]

Bob Lutz needs to come to Europe! I'm one of the few in my company who aren't employed as designers but can drive AutoCAD to a reasonable standard. Sure, I'm slower than they are, but I can get small mods to drawings done much more quickly than waiting for a slot in the designer's schedule. The majority of my colleagues haven't a clue about AutoCAD: using Draw in MS-Word is about it!

Is Bob interested in buying a British car plant, 5000 workers, recently closed?



----------------------------------

If we learn from our mistakes,
I'm getting a great education!

 

[Ron07663]

Draftsmen-- I remember them! ---And technicians and secretaries! Those were the good old days -when engineers time was valuable and there were support people.
What's next? I'm sure some managers are looking for 'Engineer in a Box' to load into his computer so he can fire the staff.

Ron

 

[HEC]

It is not the drawing or drafting that is the question here. I have had problems with excellent draftsmen who can drive a CAD station but have no concept of size..."I did not think it would be that big/small".. is a typical comment from designers who have only worked on a CAD station and lack a link to the real world. You can easily scale it to any size. The issue is rather the ability to visualise the problems and possible solutions, to think as an engineer not a manager.

"Lutz said fewer youngsters grow up working on cars and playing with Erector sets, which give them the intuition they can't get from computers or mathematical models."

Mark Hutton
hutton4eng@picknowl.com.au

 

[GregLocock]

I must confess I find the whole thing funny, partly because of what ivymike and dford said.

This is how we work.

I do the dynamics of the suspension, establishing loads and geometry and so on. The two next desks to me have the FEA guys, who take those loads and apply them to the structures and arms. The structures and arms are designed by the CAD guys, who work on the three desks opposite ours. So when I want to change the suspension I can immediately get feedback from the people around me. (The feedback tends to be Anglo Saxon).

Also, to be honest I hadn't noticed that European engineers were particularly more or less inclined to go CAD wrangling, that seems to be more of a company cultural thing. Admittedly at the last UK based company I worked at I did do a fair bit of solid modelling, but that was to get the concepts sorted, packaged, and into FEA. We still had CAD guys to pull the solid models apart and make proper drawings of manufacturable parts that would fit together.





Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[buzzp]

That explains why cars cost so much. The guy is clueless.

 

[SnTMan]

I don't know why we shouldn't offshore the CEO's and top managers. We couldn't get worse results and could save tons of money.

 

[BillPSU]

Notice Daimler Chrysler board is made up of mostly Europeans. Notice how some of Chrysler's products have started to improve?

Thoughts to ponder.

 

[SacreBleu]

Sorry, Bob Lutz, last GM vehicle I owned was a 1994 model. Maybe you should study a Honda, a Nissan, and a Toyota really closely (reality check).

 

[GregLocock]

Grim reading for various people (including me) in the JD Power/What Car quality survey.

http://www.whatcar.com/NonCar/134555622.jpg

here's the full report

http://www.whatcar.co.uk/News_SpecialReport.asp?NA_ID=214562&EL_ID=3121175

Note that both Mercedes and Chrysler are getting hammered.

I must admit I struggle a bit with Skoda's position, but have never driven one. VW must have put a ton of money in.

Kia must be scratching their heads, one of their models gets 1 star, another gets 5!





Cheers

Greg Locock

Please see FAQ731-376 for tips on how to make the best use of Eng-Tips.

 

[SacreBleu]

Greg,
I didn't see any GM cars in that list?
I am an ex-GM owner. The last 2 GM cars I owned were apparently designed to be thrown away after only 60,000 miles. By contrast, I had a 1975 Buick Century, which was good for 180,000 miles. The 1994 Buick Century I owned for a short time was a total piece of crap.
The big difference between Japanese small cars and trucks and American small cars (in general): the American ones are the horribly designed and built. The full-size American trucks are pretty decent.
Wake up Detroit.

 

[moltenmetal]

Engineers in general need more hands-on work experience. From what I've seen of our European subsidiary, that's little different in Europe than it is here in Canada. Far too many kids go straight from school into engineering consultancies to become "stationery engineers" (i.e. engineers whose only product is paper, and who virtually never get to witness the efficacy of their design decisions in the field).

 

[ScottyUK]

"I don't know why we shouldn't offshore the CEO's and top managers. We couldn't get worse results and could save tons of money."

Not too far offshore. The continental shelf would suffice...



----------------------------------

If we learn from our mistakes,
I'm getting a great education!

 

[btrueblood]

I'm not that impressed with JD Power's survey (the short time duration of it, particulary), and like the Consumer Reports survey of car reliability for guidance in what vehicle to buy.

That said, our most recent purchase, for the wife's vehicle, was a large SUV. Before I compared reliability ratings, I was fully prepared to go buy a Suburban... you'd think that a vehicle whose basic design hasn't changed in 30+ years would be a pretty bulletproof performer by now... but the Toyota Sequoia beats its pants off, and let's not even talk about the Ford product.

We bought a Toyota.

 

[EddyC]

Looks like Bob Lutz just wants to get rid of some designers/drafters and transfer their workload onto the existing workload of his engineers. Opinions like his make me question the value of modern capitalism. How many of the business leaders of today started out on the shop floor "tinkering" as he describes it? What need do we have for Osama Bin Laden with business leaders like this?