Australia's urgent need for Engineering Leadership

Have you noticed lately how every aspect of our infrastructure is at bursting point?

• Public transport is overwhelmed with passengers.
• Roads are clogged most of the time - and the ability to predict travel time from place to place is long gone.
• Whole areas are affected by either severe drought, devastating bushfires - or more recently severe flooding and devastation.
• Our playing fields are either parched and brown and unpleasant to use - or more recently under water.
• Power supplies are stretched during peak load times.
• Hospitals have long waiting list ...need I go on.

I have come to believe that outcomes, both good and bad, are delivered by processes.   I often ponder as to how has this all happened?  What has changed with the underlying processes that we have these issues now - when in the past (in my living memory anyway), we did not?

Well, I have a hypothesis to put forward.

When I was a younger Engineer, there was a number of Engineering Institution that looked after all of these areas of our vital infrastructure.  The Victorian institutions were bodies like The Melbourne and Metropolitan Board of Works (MMBW), the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission (SR&WSC), the Country Roads Board (CRB), the Gas and Fuel Corporation, the State Electricity Commission (SECV) to name the major ones - the so-called Quangos.  There were also Town and City Engineers in each and every municipality or town overseeing the engineering works. 

Engineers were able to just get on and do what they do best - with a minimum of "interference".  To some extent that was also their downfall.  Their desire to have the best "engineering" outcomes - whilst ignoring the wishes of the community and their political overlords resulted in their eventual demise.

Today, those institutions and the associated engineering roles no longer exist.  They have been replaced by a matrix of smaller organisations often headed up by non-engineering skilled managers.  As a consequence the voice of the engineer has been drowned out by a myriad of other, often competing, voices.

I was talking to another Engineer the other day and his thought was that the Consulting Engineering Companies would be able to fill this role.  Not so, in my view... most of the Consulting Companies are bound by confidentiality agreements because they are either working on projects, tendering on projects - or hope to do so as a matter of business.  So they have a conflict.  Do they speak out against poorly conceived projects, and risk legal action or exclusion from Government tenders - or do they keep quiet?  I am not judging them in this - they have a business to run - and shareholders to satisfy.  They cannot be expected to shoulder that responsibility.

So what is to be done?  There is no point in looking back wistfully at the "good old days".  What we have is what we have.

The demands of the current era are different from the past.  The community expects consultation - and rightly so.  There are many competing factors at play now also - sustainability, environmental protection, noise abatement, more complex legal aspects, multiple funding sources and many more factors.  It is up to engineers to rise to this challenge - not sit back and bemoan the loss of identity and influence.  In my view this means that we need to see the role of the Engineer as being way more than the technically competent engineer.

Our forebears like Major General Sir John Monash seem to have had the right idea!  Isn't it time that we took a leaf from their book.

It is what we do next - as a profession - as an Engineering Team - that will count.

I agree that Engineers should be ingenious, AND that tends to take us into a narrowing role of doing things "right". As you would see from my previous comments being a professional engineer needs to involve more - that is to say that we need to take a birds eye view and make sure we are doing the right things. I have heard it said that managers do things right - leaders do the right thing. So I am suggesting that as Engineers and Engineering Leaders we need to ensure that we are doing the right things - and then ensuring that we then do them right. This is all about being a better Engineer in a much broader context - including improved ingenuity, influencing skills, negotiating skills etc per other contributors that have said it better then me. We have avoided the essential engineering leadership role long enough (in my generation anyway). An example of this is set out in this article.  Go to the last few paragraphs for the comments on the (engineering) failures that have contributed to the devastating floods.

It is a sad commentary that a journalist (not an Engineer) can see so clearly what our communities have ignored for too long (in my generation). As a one-time hydrologist in my past career - we know these things. Where is our voice of reason? Why do we build in these areas? Why do we build the way that we do? Why do we not learn more from the past devastations? There is a political storm on the horizon - and it may well be about Engineering Leadership and making sure that we do the right things (not just do things right). We will need to stand up and be counted as a profession to ensure that we do not get pushed to the background by lawyers, accountants and politicians to the narrow world of doing the things that they request in the right way.

I believe that Engineering Excellence is often interpreted in a narrow way focused on just technical excellence. Whilst this is, and always will be, an essential element in being an excellent Engineer there is more involved in becoming a high performing Engineer. You must also encompass practice in management and leadership.

Engineers all work in multi-function teams these days. As a minimum we rely on IT systems and accounting systems to be able to complete projects. It is essential that we can relate to all the team members and create high performing teams to ensure the best outcomes. Deliberate practice in areas such as sound management and business practice, influencing skills, negotiating skills, presentation skills and leadership skills to name just few are essential.

If you would like to know more - please seek out the Centre for Engineering Leadership and Management (CELM) at Engineers Australia. The Engineering Executive competencies provide a balanced view on the areas of practice that anyone wanting to become a high performing Engineer should consider in addition to technical excellence.

If you are interested in coaching and mentoring to become a high performing Engineer - please go to www.viccelm.org.au  (VicCELM is a chapter of CELM at Engineers Australia)

The Deming PDCA is an excellent approach to continuous improvement in business (and in life in general).  There is also a more evolved version that has been expanded out into the (Australian) Business Excellence Framework (BEF). It has as the engine for change the ADRI Cycle. Approach - Deploy - Results - Improvement (similar to PDCA).

The BEF also looks holistically at seven categories...

Category 1: Leadership

Category 2: Strategy & Planning

Category 3: Information & Knowledge

Category 4: People

Category 5: Customer & Market Focus

Category 6: Process Management, Improvement & Innovation

Category 7: Success and Sustainability

If you would like to learn more - you could go here, and obtain a copy of the document - or feel free to contact me as well.

I am a volunteer Evaluator for the Australian Business Excellence Awards which compares the entrant with the best practice as set out in the BEF. The 2010 Excellence Medal and Gold Award went to DORIC Group - a Perth based engineering and construction company.

Engineering is quite unique and underpins much of what we now consider as a civilised society.  Having said that, the world has passed Engineers by in my generation. I could go further and say that my generation of Engineers has failed the profession and the community.

The essential community resources like water, flood mitigation, power, public transport, ports and road networks are all at breaking point because of the lack of Engineering Leadership.  I believe that it is because we have not been able to show leadership in the community - and this needs to be addressed urgently.

I believe that the technical side of Engineering is as high as ever. There are many examples of outstanding Engineering feats (the rectangular stadium in Melbourne springs to mind). And this must not change. Engineering technical excellence is always going to be what defines us as a profession. But in itself it is no longer enough (if it ever was).

As I understand it - people like Sir John Monash were very forceful in putting their Engineering view forward. Our forebears built our nation. Roads, railways, ports, water supply, Snowy Mountain Schemes, Ord River scheme, irrigation schemes etc. Where is that voice today? We have seen the dramatic decline in Australia's infrastructure because Engineering Leaders have not been in the key decision making positions.

Why? Now there is a good question.

I have been active in the Centre for Engineering Leadership and Management for some years now. It is all about developing a listening around some complimentary skills to the important technical competencies of being an Engineer.

For me it is an AND, not an OR, with the technical development. So I see it as technical skills AND business skills AND people skills AND leadership skills. Unfortunately it is interpreted often as technical OR those "other" skills. Worse, if you study the "other" skills then you must leave the engineering profession!

I suspect that it is all part of the denial of the need to change and grow as an Engineering Profession. In 2009 I started up a Coaching and Mentoring Panel for Engineers. That can be viewed at www.viccelm.org.au

The views expressed in this article are entirely those of the author - John McIntosh.   They do not necessarily represent the views of the organisations mentioned: Engineers Australia, the Centre for Engineering Leadership and Management or SAI-Global. You can see more of John's work activities at these websites:

www.mcintoshcoaching.com and www.powerinfluence.com.au

What is it that makes Engineers unique?

I was recently involved in a discussion on LinkedIn about professional Engineering practice which also led to a discussion about what it is that separates Engineers from other professions.

At its most basic level, I think the primary skill we learn as Engineers is to solve problems. This skill is wider than just the use of technology to create better widgets, systems, roads, whatever; but this is primarily where we are taught to use it. And we learn to use measurable outcome tools to do it so we can tell if the results are going to be OK or not. This is why mathematics, scientific method, measuring and reporting, tolerance analysis and simulation feature so heavily in our training and practice. The steps include some of the following:

• What is the problem - is there any real data I can use?
• What data do I need to know and how can I be sure it correlates with the problem?
• What tools and techniques are available to address this problem and derive a solution?
• Do I have the resources to do this or am I missing something I need?
• Is my answer valid?
• What tests, measurements or simulations can I use to increase my confidence that this will work?
• Are there any regulatory or other factors that must also be taken into account?
• How long does the solution have to endure for?

You get the idea I'm sure.

In the case of my company, Successful Endeavours, we develop products for others. It can be hard to get a correct definition of the problem or to confirm that the given starting point will lead to a good destination. But our clients expect a robust outcome that works every time and to deliver that we need to understand the real problem and provide a solution that addresses it. We also provide a design guarantee and so we also want to be sure our solutions are robust.
So getting a clear and agreed understanding of the outcome is very important. And a constant risk we face is that our descriptions are often unintelligible to others. I saw a mug recently that made me laugh. These are from http://www.cafepress.com.au/ and a picture of the graphic on the mug is shown below.

So when we communicate our understanding of the problem to others, it has to be in terms they can understand. The risk of being misunderstood is very real. And psychology has shown that all too often, in the absence of real data people will invent their own.
The other aspect that affects all of this is that there is usually a primary driver for a project. This normally fits into the category of one of:

• Time
• Cost
• Performance

As Engineers we are often focus on performance yet this is not always the primary issue. We recently secured a significant contract because we understood that Time was the primary need. The client had a hard deadline and so needed a solution before that date and was prepared to not accept the lowest bid and trade off features if that is what it took to achieve the timeframe. It still has to work and be standards compliant, but it must be on time.

In our Engineering education we don't learn much about business, marketing, communication, cost management or even leadership principles. And the ability influence decision makers so that a better overall outcome is reached for our company or even society is another valuable skill we don't get taught academically. Yet these all make a difference.

The recent floods in Queensland also show the importance of not only building things well but also managing them well. Goondiwindi did not flood because the levee banks held. Built following 3 major inundations in 1956 and properly maintained since then, the levee banks have prevented flooding for 44 years now. This is an example of getting it right and keeping it right. There are other examples being examined in the aftermath of the flood that were not done as well. These are not all Engineering failures. Poor process, management or neglect can lead to system failure when the original Engineering was well done.

The other aspect of this that came out in the LinkedIn discussion was that of risk, and who is carrying the risk. There is an increasing tendency to push risks down the supply chain. The result of this is that suppliers of goods or services can end up carrying risks they cannot mitigate. The end result is reduced collaboration, an adversarial negotiating environment and usually sub-optimal project outcomes. A recent example of this for us was a client who not only wants us to design a product, but also guarantee that it will meet their projected sales figures. The logic is simple. They have a business plan and it shows an expected sale volume. If we designed the product correctly they would get their sales and make their profits. If it doesn't sell then it must be our inadequate design that is the problem. The reality is that we can't guarantee their sales. That is a business risk. That is their risk to bear. Their plan could be good or it could be fiction. That is not a risk we can bear. Our risk is associated with making sure it works to specification and complies with regulatory requirements. We are also expected to ensure it meets the manufacturing cost target but this is also a grey area. If we can specify the manufacturer, the process and the supply chain then we might be prepared to accept that risk. If the client reserves the right to select any manufacturer, process and supply chain then all bets are off. Design for manufacture implies design for a manufacturing capability and you have to understand the manufacturer and their capability if you are to guarantee that outcome.

So as Engineers we have to solve problems on several levels if we want the project to be a complete success:

• What are the technical requirements and how do we meet them?
• What is the real outcome that is required and what tradeoffs are available in achieving that?
• Who bears what risks and how are those risks managed?
• How do I communicate with the other stakeholders so they understand in their terms?

Take time to regularly practice asking these 4 question and reflecting on how well you think you have answered them, and you should also find that you are becoming a better Engineer.

Ray Keefe is an electrical engineer and company owner who hopes to add significantly to the wealth of Australians through creating better and more successful electronics products. This will boost employment, exports, future opportunities and generally improve everyone's position in Australia. Ray is the founder and owner of Successful Endeavours,producing Electronics Designs and Embedded Software for Australian Electronics Manufacturers.

How do we become the best engineer we can? Is it simply talent or is it something that can be learned?

According to the book "Talent Is Overated: What Really separates World-Class Performers from Everybody Else" by Geoff Colvin, the key is deliberate practice. Research has shown that for all world class performers in areas as diverse as music (performing and composing), golf, chess, football, comedy, acting and artistic painting, the key has simply been practice. But not just any kind of practice: it is something called deliberate practice. Deliberate practice has the following key features:

• It's designed to specifically improve performance: It needs to be an activity that is outside of our comfort zone and focused on areas that have been identified as needing improvement. For example, Tiger Woods would drop a ball in sand trap and then step on them to practice that very specific and difficult shot until he mastered it.
• It can be repeated a lot: To really develop the skill associated with the practice, the practice must be repeated until it is mastered.
• Feedback on results is continuously available: Without feedback we do not know if we have improved or if we reacted in the best way we could. For example, chess players will review chess games played by masters. At each stage, they will think what they would do and then compare their decision with what the chess masters did. If you are faced with a situation where you need to interpret the validity of your results (how well you played a piece of music, went in an interview or made a decision about which machine tool should be purchased), then you need feedback from someone who is objective: someone, like a mentor or manager.
• It is highly demanding mentally: The practice requires concentration because you are actually focusing on making an improvement. For example, if you want to improve your tennis, you don't just hit the ball again and again for an hour or so. You need to analyse each shot to see what needs to be improved. With such concentration you can only last for 1 to 1.5 hours.
• It isn't much fun: We need to do something we are not good at over and over again, with focused concentration and feedback on what we're not doing right so that we can then focus on that. At first this might be depressing, but it does mean that if you are prepared to go down the hard path, then it is unlikely that many will follow you and this will distinguish you all the more.

So if we now adopt this idea that to be great we need to engage in deliberate practice, then questions arise about how we would apply this to ourselves as engineers:

• How do we identify the skills that we need to work on; what are the skills that engineers especially need?
• How do we determine type of practice that we need to engage in; can it be a part of work or de we need to do this outside of work?
• Who can/should we ask for feedback; can it be someone we work with or do we need to look elsewhere; do they need to be another engineer?

These questions were put to a number of engineers who showed that they were active in the engineering community and qualified to consider these questions. The following posts are their responses.

If you have opinions on this, then please add your comments. If you have strong opinions, and can write an entire post on them, then contact us and we'll look at putting your post up.

You can buy the book from most books stores or from Amazon here.

Are you a real engineer?

By Ian Simpson FIEAust CPEng, MASCE

I am among many older engineers who view with growing alarm the idea that technical skills are secondary to "management". When viewed against the collapse three weeks ago of a bridge under construction in Canberra there is urgent need for a different emphasis on how engineering is taught, and how it is learned.

Clint Steele's article in Melbourne's The Age of 26 August drew attention to the reduced level of involvement of young people with things mechanical, such as existed in less affluent times when it was necessary to repair rather than discard faulty items. Consumerist attitudes, rapid obsolescence, and the increasing complexity of modern vehicles and appliances have all worked against the need to innovate to keep such items serviceable.

When not confronted with need, the processes lost are those of enquiry (how does it work?), experiment (what if I just try this?) and experience (well that worked and I know how to fix it next time). These mind processes provide a background reference for further learning: familiar territory is recognized when related subjects are introduced, and that vital attribute of Intuition starts to develop.

In the immediate post-war years and perhaps until the 70's there were relatively large numbers of young people working in the construction industry and government instrumentalities (SEC, Board of Works, Country Roads Board, Telecom etc) who were studying part-time, frequently on cadetships. It wasn't an easy way to go: night and weekend classes after putting in a full week working - typically, on the drawing board as a draftsman, or in the field building transmission networks, sewerage systems, roads. And the Snowy scheme. The skills embedded were priceless.

Then came the discovery by politicians that the annoying problem of being held responsible for competent management of government instrumentalities could be eliminated by the magic of Privatisation. Conventional wisdom was re-shaped to the idea that private ownership is always  the best way to go and would produce the lowest costs for the community for essential services, neglecting to state that the profits necessary to make privatisation work would not necessarily be returned to that community. The pot of gold at the end of the rainbow was the money that would flow from selling the family silver. Control was sold along with it: if it had been otherwise we should now have Hazelwood power station running on gas, if at all, and electricity meters would be something apart from profit-maximisers.

For those of us who did come up through the drawing-board, slide-rule, pencil-and-paper era, the advent of computers was not something to be feared. Suddenly, we could explore many more alternative concepts in a short time and when this was combined with the intuitive processes already in place it seemed like Nirvana. But the training processes of old were disappearing along with the nation's family silver and the new mantra of Management was taking hold, along with the slickly-packaged computer programs that promised to relegate intuitive technical skills to the museum.

For the present-day graduate, reliance on computer programs as the first step in tackling a problem may have inherent dangers. It is conceivable that the Canberra bridge collapse may be related to such an approach and the government-initiated report shows that errors were made in the design and detailing of temporary supporting members. As is frequent in such cases it was not the selection of member sizes that was critical but the details of how the various components went together, and the failure to include all load effects that were present.

Computer programs don't necessarily tell you such things, and (in the case of structural analysis programs) generally assume a certain set of standard conditions for members and joints, to expedite data entry. It should then be the task of the designer to correctly select restraint conditions at each joint and if such modeling is not correctly completed the end result can be seriously in error. The end result should look right: if it doesn't then bells should ring in the back-rooms of the mind and a few rough hand-calculations should be made to get a feel for what may be wrong. To do these things it is necessary to have a basic grasp of the principles involved: it's called Intuition, it comes in part from the things Clint Steele wrote about.

If rudimentary technical skills are not reinforced and developed within the first two years after joining the work force the chances are that they will be lost forever. Pursuing a management-oriented career from the outset can not only inhibit the development of intuitive technical processes, it may lead to a false sense of ability when the occasional need to engage in a design exercise arises. Where Rumsfeldian "unknown unknowns" are present we can make our greatest errors.

Ian

Ian's background is in Structural work and he spent most of my working life with the John Holland group of old, but in the last 15 years he has worked on a variety of projects throughout Australia and South East Asia. His particular interests are in marine works, heavy engineering and temporary works (probably the most dangerous of all engineering). Although partly retired he findd his services are still in demand.

What are your thoughts on this? Leave a comment or take the poll.

Connecting the Industry and Research cultures in Australia

By Richard Manasseh

Since I have over 20 years' experience in R&D for industries in Australia and overseas, I have been asked to comment on any difference in attitudes to R&D between this country and others. Of course, there have been many professional, detailed investigations into the Australian innovation system and underlying attitudes. I do not pretend to be an expert on this, merely to reflect on personal experiences and suggest one improvement.

First, let us check the statistics. It has been remarked for years that we invest proportionally less on R&D than the average industrialised country. The apparent good news is that in recent years this percentage has been climbing, though is still below average [1]. But when it comes to patenting, a key indicator of our interest in developing ideas into money-making technology, we come 20th out of 28 [2]. And although business investment in R&D has recently grown, only 18% of Australian firms actually introduce new-technology products [3], well below average. In Canada, that figure is 77% [4]. My guess is that a lot of the recent growth in Australia's business R&D is thanks to mining-boom profits getting saved from taxation by labelling incremental improvements as R&D [3]. Governments have tightened up on such practices, but it is unreasonable to over-regulate and over-police. On average we should expect that as revenues rise, all associated metrics should rise, including companies' incremental improvement expenditure.

Many reasons have been proposed for the chronically poor levels of Australian business investment in innovation. Many say "Poor incentives", which translates to wanting to pay less tax. Tax concessions have gone up and down over the past 10-20 years: ten years ago only Portugal and Spain were more generous than Australia in their tax incentives for R&D [5]; we have now dropped back.

Another common opinion is "companies have their headquarters overseas so do their R&D overseas". In fact, the largest growth in Australian R&D employment in recent years is thanks to foreign-owned companies [1]. These factors wax and wane over the years. But in my experience, fundamental attitudes to R&D in Australia have not shifted.

My interactions with other engineering cultures have been those of the USA, France, Japan, the UK, and to a lesser extent South Africa and China. It seems that, on average, there are systematic differences in attitudes to R&D in Australia and overseas. Engineers in some countries seem to have a stronger belief in the link between R&D and prosperity. Of course, the existence of this link is quickly acknowledged by Australian engineers. However, to many Australian engineers, the relation between R&D and the advancement of their company's prospects - and of their individual careers - seems remote.

Consequently, research is acknowledged as something that is important to do, but important for someone else to do, and someone else to fund (like the government).

I am not sure from where this cultural difference stems, but it may be a mixture of our education system and the nature of the biggest employment markets for Australian engineers.

Of course, there are many exceptions to my "averaged" opinion. I have encountered companies overseas that will not invest a cent unless there is clear evidence of immediate return. And I have met successful Australian engineers who have sponsored research and reaped the long-term benefits.

Irrespective of government- and corporate-level policies, there remains a ground-level disconnection between practicing engineers and the research community that we should work to fix. Policies come and go and can help or hinder. But technological innovations are not made by government and corporate leaders.

They are made by people like you.

Experiences of my colleagues overseas - and some local experiences of my colleagues and I - shows that a long-term relationship between a research provider and an industry engineer generates long-term benefits. Even if the current project is a failure, both parties have been educated by the process. Sticking with the relationship delivers higher productivity. Faced with a difficult issue, engineers learn "who to call" once they have had detailed interactions with a researcher. Even better, they learn what fundamental questions to ask. And innovation for a new product often comes from putting different heads together.

Most universities run final-year projects where students are sent to industryon placements. I believe that this process, often ignored or wasted by bothsides, presents one mechanism for changing our R&D culture. In particular, I believe it should be viewed as a practical networking mechanism for industry and research providers, as much as a training program for students.

If you are in industry and have a small, practical engineering project that is not critical, get in touch with a local university. Or several. Chat to the academics running research projects. Find one really interested in your industry and its fundamental problems, not necessarily the immediate subject of your project. The academic may work on a topic that seems ridiculously esoteric and specialised. But understand that competition for government research funds is intense, that the international impact rankings of all researchers in the world can be instantly compared, and the only way for them to stay competitive is to focus - and publish - on one or two specialties. You are competing for their attention to make your long-term interests their second specialty - or in the long run, maybe their first. Yes, supervising the student could be time-costly and there is overhead in the paperwork you have to do. But view this relationship as an investment. Make sure the academic supervising the students is involved in your meetings. It may take a couple of years and a few rounds of students, but remember many academics are hungry for industry involvement and it takes time to get the ideas that can really help.

Do not view this relationship as merely something that may be good for your company. View it as good for your career. You just need to sponsor one genuine innovation and your CV will stand out.

If you are in research, likewise view the interaction with industry as an investment in your own career. Yes, the student project the industry wants done is probably dismayingly far from your research topic and probably will not yield the publications you urgently need. And the company is unlikely to give you research cash today. But go to the meetings. Put serious effort into helping your students help the company. Understand that engineers in industry work on much shorter, more tightly programmed time scales than you do, and that they may move jobs much more frequently. Understand that they need confidence that their first investment in your students will not make them look bad. And understand that someone spending time to talk to you means you have struck an exceptional individual. Learn what the industry's needs really are. The idea for an innovation may come next year or later. Once your industry partner understands the benefit you can really offer, small amounts of money to support a PhD or Masters project should not be a problem. The simple fact that you have a relationship with industry can be a surprisingly powerful draw-card attracting good students to you. Students are sensitive to any way they can get an edge in the job market and many are impressed by evidence of industry relevance.

Then, if there is mutual agreement on a potential innovation, look for substantial funding together. The Australian Research Council (ARC)'s Linkage Projects provide government cash for cases where industry genuinely supports a research project. They are competitive, but not so competitive as the academically-driven ARC Discovery projects. If you have an established relationship, you are already ahead in the competition.

Plus, if industry is impressed by one of the students, some of the difficulty of future recruitment is reduced. And further down the track, the former placement student, immediately recognising the value of the experience, in turn sponsors new student projects ... The relationship between the industry engineer and the research academic becomes one of career-long, mutual benefit. I have seen this work. It only needs to work once to change your career.

It is not the only solution to the Australian industry and research disconnection.

But it is one we can implement now.

Disclaimer

This represents my own views and not those or any past or present employer.

References

[1] Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2009,

http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/mf/8104.0/

[2] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Main Science and

Technology Indicators (MSTI): 2010/1 edition",

http://www.oecd.org/document/26/0,3343,en_2649_34451_1901082_1_1_1_1,00.html

[3] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2010,

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/20/57/41557063.pdf

[4] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2010,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/452075145463

[5] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2010,

www.oecd.org/dataoecd/12/27/2498389.pdf

Richard Manasseh is a mechanical engineer by training and was asked to write this blog entry because of his experience in numerous countries. He now works as a lecturer in sustainability engineering.

What do you think about cooperation between industrys and academia in Australia? Take the poll.

The practice of Engineering Research in Australia

By John Jacob

Is this going to be a pointless exercise in navel-gazing? Or is it an opportunity on the cusp of the perfect storm of global crises at which an entire profession can step up and make a difference? Are engineers not in an ideal position to provide humanity with the tools needed to survive the next critical 100 years on earth? What good will treaties, protocols, laws, and political parties be without working technology solutions?

How are nine billion people going to eat? How are they going to shelter from the heat or cold, and how are they going to move about in the vast urban landscapes needed to house them? With cheap energy coming to an end through peak oil and global warming, there will be pressure on agriculture to take up some of the slack with biofuels. An inevitable result of that, compounded with higher transport costs, will be higher food prices. Add to that pain the increases in costs for heating, cooling, power and water, and you have a standard of living that is racing quickly ahead of most humans' ability to pay for it.

One worst-case scenario for the present population is that about a billion people will die from starvation due to floods, fire, famine, drought, or die in wars precipitated by those events. About another billion people will be roaming around the planet looking for someplace to live. Got any extra room at your place? To avoid that scenario, we need more than political, financial and social band-aids. We need engineering.

So what are engineers doing about it? Some of us are busy with administrative functions that are too hard for most clerical staff to handle by themselves. Many of us are doing documentation, writing specs, submitting tenders or writing requests for tenders. Still, some are shopping, but we call it Procurement so it sounds harder. We look for off-the-shelf solutions and figure out how to make them work in a particular industry application. It's important and useful, but is it Engineering?

I attempted to define Engineering for many years. My first degree was in Physics, a pure science with a decidedly arrogant subculture. To physicists, engineers were knuckle-dragging neanderthals who lacked the neural synaptitude to grasp the basics of nature. They can use fire proficiently, but are unable to explain how it works.

I found by personal experience that this was not entirely accurate. Physics could explain a lot of things, but what I wanted was knowledge that would directly benefit me. I wanted to know how to make my car go faster. I therefore went for a Master's degree in Mechanical Engineering.

What I found was a revelation to me. There were fields of serious scientific study within engineering that many Physicists had never heard of. Things like Rheology, Tribology, Metallurgy, Rotordynamics, Structural Mechanics and Vibration, Materials Science, and more. All fascinating, rigorous, difficult, and incredibly useful and practical.

This led me to begin defining the Pure Sciences as the study of naturally-occurring systems. Physics concerns itself with the basic forces and components of the universe, energy and matter; Biology - living systems; Chemistry - systems of elements and compounds of elements.

Engineering on the other hand is best defined as the methodical study of man-made systems. Mechanical engineering is the study of materials (solids, liquids and gases) and systems of materials such as structures, machines, and engines. Electrical engineering is the study of electrical components, materials and systems of electromagnetic fields, flows and charges for practical purposes. Computer engineering comprises the study of processing, data representation and storage, data transmission, software systems, algorithms and the mathematics of information.

The kind of training many engineers receive at university is training from engineering academics, which naturally focuses on research, study, and scientific rigor. But how many of us use even a part of those skills in the workplace? I only became aware upon moving to Australia that as a Research Engineer, I was different from other engineers. I found "normal" engineering incredibly boring, and nobody would hire me to do research. That's the inviolable domain of Academics with PhDs.

But not where I'm from! Back home, engineers are often paid to do research and they are good at it. It's solving problems, inventing stuff, pushing performance to new levels, and creating new businesses and products. It's exciting and fulfilling to see your ideas turn into real, working, useful systems. But doing this kind of work requires a mindset that is against specialization, and that goes against the grain of typical Human Resources administrators and accepted business management.

Some mechanical engineers I've worked with would rather have their eyes put out than have to look at a schematic for an electronic circuit. Good research engineers, however, are unafraid to tackle anything! I am as happy using an oscilloscope as I am a micrometer; as comfortable analyzing statistical data as with paging through my hardbound edition of Roark's Formulas for Stress and Strain. It is this kind of versatility that will allow Engineers to ultimately offer humanity more than politicians can.

How do we make the transition from shopping and drawing pictures to solving global problems? One obstacle to business' utilizing our potential as a profession is a lack of management methodologies capable of making use of that potential. Standard management practice is no use: it is only focused on maintaining profitability and the status-quo. Project Management techniques are focused on tangible outcomes and often miss the point of R&D, which is engineering knowledge relevant to a business plan. What we need is a management methodology that is engineered for the purpose.

Waterfall methodology is the most common approach to R&D. We've all seen Gantt charts. This approach works in deep organizations with plenty of time and lots of financial resources. It is hopeless in small, fast projects in rapidly changing environments. For that, we have Agile Development methodologies. Though invented for software, it can be adapted to any field of innovation and research. The only reason it isn't used more is that Management hasn't figured it out yet. Research by for-profit companies employing non-academic, non-PhD engineers can and does work. It's a matter of organizing it correctly.

I was struck by something I read as a student: "Business failures are seldom the result of bad engineering, yet they are always the result of bad management." That is not a slur against MBA's, but an indictment of engineers focusing too much on narrow specializations and not taking seriously the management of engineering.

We engineers are in a position to make a big difference in the world. We have the knowledge, the skills and the intelligence. That much you knew. Did you also know that engineers are capable of being leaders? That we have the responsibility of organizing and managing our efforts? And that we have what it takes to do so?

John Jacob has a B. S. in Physics from Arizona State University and a Masters in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Utah State University. He has over 25 years' experience working in research and development in a diverse assortment of fields. John writes and speaks on a variety of science and business topics in addition to his work as a consultant in Perth, WA, where he has lived since 2001.

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