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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