Where IS Engineering Going? 12

[dozer]

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?

 

[dozer]

Grubbyky, where can I buy a pair of rose-colored glasses like yours? About 15 years ago the managers at the company I worked at introduce us to a quality managment system. One of its tenants was zero defects. Since then, I've seen several quality initiatives come and go. We even got ISO certified. It was all a bunch of BS. There's no subsitute for smart, dedicated, principled people. But the executrons don't get that.

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.

 

[davefitz]

There are multiple issues to be faced with new engineers and with the practice of modern engineering, and some of these new problems include:

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.

 

[Twoballcane]

“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.”

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."

 

[Grubbyky]

Dozer:

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.

 

[regalia]

"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."

Well said Twoballcane. I think this is 100% of the reason that makes engineering kind of a dangerous career.

 

[csd72]

In my profession, I believe fast-tracking of projects is a major cause of problems. Tasks that used to be done one after the other are now being done at the same time.

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.

 

[KENAT]

OK, I've been resisting posting this for weeks but.

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...

 

[prohammy]

Dear disgruntled of CA...

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

 

[0707]

Kenat

Sometimes the senior knowledge bodes the management.

Most of the managers don’t want critic intelligence they just want robots.

Cheers

Luis

 

[csd72]

KENAT,

As discussed in another post, it is lack of respect for technical knowledge that is the problem.

csd

 

[KENAT]

He's the first of approx 40, as far as I know the only one from our department.

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.

 

[csd72]

I have never understood how someone can manage a department without at least a fundamental understanding of what that department does. But it does happen far too often in big companies.

csd

 

[PSE]

csd72, not understanding what a department does is a malady not limited only to big companies. We have lately had a couple of managers who came in (thankfully not into my department), and not bothering to even learn existing procedures, pronounced them worthless and set about implementing something completely different. They then indicated that existing projects were not "grandfathered" to the previous procedures and had to be re-vamped to fit within their new frameworks. Judging from the increased turnover of senior employees within their influence, we are going to be disrupted for quite some time.

Regards,

 

[GrimesFrank]

Kenat,
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.

 

[kenvlach]

To give some proper credit,

Today is gone. Today was fun.
Tomorrow is another one.
Every day, from here to there,
funny things are everywhere.

See 10 more 'Rules for a Perfect Day' at

http://blogs.technet.com/technetwebcasts/archive/2005/08/15/409240.aspx

 

[KENAT]

Grimes, you're right it wasn't my boss. It wasn't even my boss's boss.

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...

 

[Dilbert2]

Good issue to post. The answer is, of course, that engineering will go in the next five years the same as it did in the last hundred years. The particulat data points you describe were bandied about at length during the Frederick Taylor era. To me, the larger issue worth thinking about is - what prime movers are at work that keep engineering in its rut through wars, depressions and the internet age?

 

[dcasto]

It's the Engineering cycle or product cyclce. design, build, operate, improve through design, build operate, ect..

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.

 

[KENAT]

I'd guess nanotechnology was up there.

KENAT, probably the least qualified checker you'll ever meet...