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Dear Colleagues,

How many times have you been involved in an engineering meeting and wished you had more influence on the outcome? Often your opinions simply get ignored - even when you (and some of the others) know it is probably the best solution.

Influencing people is part of leadership. However, you don’t suddenly become influential. It takes time and inevitably - work. And a change to your way of thinking if you are not a particularly influential person.

You may ask the usual question which is: Why bother? Well, being able to influence a decision or person is likely to bring a more satisfactory outcome to a project and indeed, improve your current job.

Communications is one of the keys –but not the only one
One of the key elements of being influential is being able to communicate well and passionately. This gives others a reason to listen to you. Reinvigorating a discussion with a passionate and thoughtful outlook always draws people.

Listening Carefully is another key Technique
It is vital to listen carefully to others and then to mesh your ideas in with their approach. I am staggered by how often people often suggest very similar approaches to solving a problem but an argument arises - as no one has actually listened carefully enough to each person’s position (which is identical to theirs).

‘Disengage mouth’ and listen carefully and then talk. People value you when they know you are listening carefully to them.

The Influential Toolbox
A few suggestions on boosting your influence (for the good) in your firm or at home.

• Show energy and passion and volunteer to take ideas on board and drive them within your company or group.
• Research the idea or approach and ensure that you are prepared and 100% technically familiar with the proposal or concept.
• Listen carefully to the others in your group and get their opinion before formulating and then communicating a strong position.
• Avoid negativity in discussions. Encourage debate and dissent. Be clever about understanding the other person’s position and getting to the best overall solution. People will respect you more if you can draw on them and build on their approaches as well. Avoid compromising for the sake of peace. It is always best to come up with the best long term solution.
• Don’t worry about people who attack your approach with vigour. You will naturally feel defensive. But encourage alternative views and listen carefully to craft the best possible approach. It is good that one has dissent and disagreement about working out the best approach to follow. This allows you to look at other (often) unpalatable and painful approaches which may yield the best result.

Thanks to Susan de la Vergne of the IEEE for an interesting article on this topic.

Always avoid falling into trap first put forward by John F. Kennedy: No matter how big the lie; repeat it often enough and the masses will regard it as truth.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Statistically, when considering airplane accidents, engineering causes are very low on the list. I know this is poor comfort when you are bouncing around on a difficult landing or with severe turbulence, but the causes of airplane accidents are: flight crew (66%); aircraft (7%), maintenance (6%), environmental (4%), air traffic control (2%) and other (2%) and undetermined (13%).

Engineering (Maintenance) is a small part of the overall cause (6%).

There are many examples backing up this claim. You only need to consider maintenance in a plant for a quick justification of this assertion.

Mundane Engineering Maintenance
As a plant engineer for a mineral ore processing plant, I came across many issues which initially appeared to be engineering related but were really fixable in other areas.

This ranged from massive conveyer belt damage which was caused by lack of training in the mining team who should have been more careful about screening out sharp steel fragments from the ore (thus ripping the belt when our tramp iron magnets didn’t pick the steel fragments up). Or the penchant for operators to start and stop pumps repeatedly so that they were eventually damaged. Training of the operators could have reduced this damage to the pumps.

Other typical problems which required engineering repairs were operating equipment over their design limits or simply unacceptable damage by poor operation (mixing incorrect quantities of reagents and thus damaging process equipment such as pipes). Most of this could be rectified by high quality training or use of personnel who are attuned to running a plant properly and avoiding these problems.

The Moral of the Story is ….
Thus, when someone claims that something is an engineering problem requiring an engineering fix; carefully reflect on the real causes and what the long term solution is.

You may find that a long term solution has no engineering involved whatsoever.

Thanks to 101 Things I learned in Engineering School by John Kuprenas with Matthew Frederick.

A positive take on problems comes from John W. Gardner: We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

As engineering professionals, I believe we all think of inventing the next dream machine which will change human history. However, life is considerably more prosaic than this, isn’t it?

There is the odd exception of a device created which is totally new and takes the world by storm. But even these are often arrived by looking at other similar examples.

Great Inventions Don’t Arise Overnight
Thus it is reasonably safe to generalise that most great inventions are really arrived at by inching forward (hopefully with improvements) in tiny steps from previous creations.

Think of the famous ‘zipper’ invented in 1917 by Gideon Sundback. He drew on earlier successful devices such as the ‘clasp locker’ developed at the end of the nineteenth century and the ‘Automatic, Continuous Clothing Closure’ developed four decades earlier.

The same applies to Thomas Edison’s invention of the light bulb in the late 1800s. Already some hundred years earlier, in 1800, Davy had invented a light with a platinum filament. And you can bet your bottom dollar that the latest incarnations of lights based on LEDs are also developed to some degree from these original inventions.

The Tricky and Wrinkly Bit
Most of us are working on designs which represent improvements on something we had done before. And surely, every great design and product is replaced by another one in due course. I only need to think of the iron ore processing plant I helped design and build. Although it was cleverly designed and innovative, it was based around earlier designs and has now been replaced by something even faster and cheaper to operate today.

As you well know (especially by looking at software); a later version of a product or service doesn’t necessarily mean an improvement. You could be going back in terms of performance, reliability and quality.

The other point to observe is the first to market with a product is not necessarily the one who reaps the rewards. Think of the first software spreadsheet conceptualised and developed by Dan Bricklin (VisiCalc). This was arrived at after Dan observed a table with rows and columns manually updated on a whiteboard. This original success was quickly eclipsed by incrementally improved products such as Lotus 123 and now Excel.

Above all, you can be sure of one thing: nothing stays the same.

Thanks to 101 Things I learned in Engineering School by John Kuprenas with Matthew Frederick.

On the topic of creating something revolutionary, Honore de Balzac remarked: Necessity is often the spur to genius.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Unbelievably, inspecting an item considerably more times as against fewer times than required will both result in more errors being identified.

What are the Statistics here?
When inspecting two types of errors to avoid are a type 1 error where an actual part that is not defective is assessed defective (a Type 1 False Positive Error). Or a Part which is actually defective and which is assessed as not defective (a Type 2 False Negative Error).

In other words, in inspecting items of engineering equipment one can reject a good item (False Positive) or miss a defective item (False Negative).

A False Positive is not too Critical
This is perhaps not too bad apart from the cost and effort of replacing a defective item.

But a False Negative Could be Catastrophic
However, a false negative has to be avoided like the plague. Your critical piece of equipment has been inspected and signed off as acceptable when it is actually defective. This would result in failure during service with often horrible consequences.

Going Berserk with More Inspections to find errors is not the answer
Theoretically, doing a huge number of inspections could result in nearly every item being inspected being found defective for some reason or other. So, simply increasing the number of inspections is not necessarily the best answer. One has to look elsewhere for solutions here – such as improving (or even in changing) the manufacturing process for the equipment.

The optimum number of inspections is a balancing act between a high level of inspections (Costing a lot) against a minimal number where you may fail to uncover real errors (and thus resulting in a major failure of an item of equipment during service).

Thanks to 101 Things I learned in Engineering School by John Kuprenas with Matthew Frederick.

Although not necessarily good for equipment; this probably applies well to good engineering professionals – thanks to Jenni Rivera for a good quote: Thank you for accepting me as I am, with my virtues and defects.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

We often incorrectly figure that equilibrium means a static ‘we-have-arrived-in-a-state-of-peace’ state. Nothing could be further from the truth. Equilibrium represents an active and dynamic balancing act. At all times. This came home to me in a recent study on thermodynamics I did with an object in a heat bath. Although both object and heat bath seem to be in equilibrium at the same temperature, they are nonetheless still exchanging heat with each other.

Think of Chemicals
When two chemicals are mixed (and react) forming a new product, the reaction may appear to come to an end after a while. We think of this final state as equilibrium. But often the mixture remains active where portions of the product ‘uncombine’ back into reactants and reactants continue to combine into the new product. There is a constant movement between the reactants.

Structural Equilibrium
Similarly with structural equilibrium where everything is deceptively unmoving. The structural element works continuously and vigorously in dealing (‘resolving’) the various forces impacting on it to produce an overall (resultant) force of zero. Without a neat zero resultant force, the object will move - often with disastrous results. You only need to think of the recent mudslides where everything was happily in equilibrium for thousands of years and now has decided to move.

What Is the Take Home Message from All this?
When you look at something in equilibrium – no matter whether it is a structural element or chemical or even people seemingly in equilibrium – remember that it is a dynamic state and always consider what could cause the equilibrium to be disturbed.  You may be horrified to find that seemingly stable systems in equilibrium are very close to breaking away from equilibrium with disastrous consequences.

Thanks to 101 Things I learned in Engineering School by John Kuprenas with Matthew Frederick.

Mark Z. Danielewski remarked: “Physics depends on a universe infinitely centred on an equals sign.”

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues

Conventional traffic intersections with traffic lights (or stop lights) are mainly used in the USA; whereas roundabouts (or traffic circles) are favoured in Europe and indeed, Australia. What baffles me is that roundabouts are clearly simpler, safer and far better and yet traffic light-based ones are still the main choice in the ‘Land of the Free’ – the USA. Quite bizarre.

For some unaccountable reason, the KISS (Keep it Stupid and Simple) principle has obviously not been applied to the use of intersections with traffic lights. The US-based Myth Busters recently assessed the two types of intersections and confirmed the assertions above.

A Roundabout is Safe and Efficient
Statistics clearly show that where roundabouts replace conventional intersections, traffic delays have been reduced by 90% and accidents by up to 80%.

A conventional intersection has 32 vehicle ‘conflict points’ against that of only 8 for a roundabout. The lane capacity for a roundabout is a significant 1800 per hour (against that of a conventional intersection of 1300 to 1500 per hour).

As you could probably visualize, the angle of collision for a roundabout is fairly low (thus lower impact) as compared against that for a conventional intersection where it is 90 degrees (thus far higher impact accentuated by higher speeds).

Consider this on your Next Approach to a Roundabout
You are approaching a far simpler and indeed safer traffic connection. The return on investment for roundabouts simply based on the massive reduction in accidents is huge (estimated up to eightfold).

Interestingly, crossings with flashing lights are apparently one of the most dangerous intersections types with accident rates five times greater than for a roundabout.

Thanks to 101 Things I learned in Engineering School by John Kuprenas with Matthew Frederick.

Christina Baldwin words are probably relevant to changing from the one traffic system to the other: Change is the constant, the signal for rebirth, the egg of the phoenix.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

We all do design engineering at some time or other. Whether you are an electrician undertaking a rework of the wiring for a switchboard or designing a state-of-the-art oil refinery.

Who is a designer today?

In the twenty first century, perhaps someone who wears bright clothes, speaks French, has a gigantic beard, easily rejigs the interior decoration of a home, sports a tattoo and drives a MG sports car to work?

Or designs integrated circuits, diesel locomotives or the grille for a new car?

Probably all of the above and a lot more.

The critical issue is to know your field of engineering very, very well. You have to especially know all the old designs extraordinarily well. What worked well, what and when they failed.

Engineering School is too Superficial for a Good Designer
One thing is for sure at engineering school at college or university – generally you don’t learn much in detail on a particular topic. You probably cover a wide area of engineering but nothing much in-depth.

Fascination is the Key
Certainly, you have to be absolutely fascinated and interested in the field you design in to plumb the depths of your subject. Almost like the most enthusiastic hobbyist. So that you can decide when to use an old circuit design or when to pioneer new areas when the old ways of doing things simply won’t stack up. As a result you become intuitively good and don’t need to rely on gut feeling only or a computer analysis only. You also need to draw on the expertise of your colleagues and competitors.

A designer mustn’t only think of the specifications. Although that is obviously important in today’s legal contract focussed world. She has to think like the customer – what would make her happy – deliriously happy, in fact and to avoid like the plague - things which the customer would become distressed and irritated by.

You also have to put your marketing director hat on and think of features that would make the customer ecstatic. And naturally, the design has to be economically viable and easily able to be made in production. And which is safe under all conditions. Even stressful conditions where your design is pushed to the limit.

You also have to learn from your mistakes. Regard these as an opportunity to learn more to improve your next design.

Bold, Self-Reliant, Arrogant and Overbearing
Recently, some outstanding engineers were described by the publication American Heritage of the Invention & Technology as: bold, self-reliant, independent, secure, powerful, daring, resolute, and sometimes, arrogant and overbearing.

There is nothing new there about designers.

Thanks to the fabulous analog design engineer Bob Pease of Electronic Design for one of his well-written articles: What’s All This Designer Stuff, Anyhow? RIP Bob.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

As you all know – reliability is a highly sought after (especially in engineering) measure of how long a product or system functions correctly. The ultimate goal is always a reliability of 1 or 100% reliability with no failure over the life of the product. Reliability of 0 refers to immediate failure and should obviously be avoided.

You may recall the old ‘bathtub curve’ of reliability. At the beginning of a product’s life there is a heightened probability of failure. Subsequently, during the product’s life time this drops to a hopefully very much lower probability. Near the end of the product’s lifetime (as it wears out); there is again a heightened probability of failure (as you would expect). Hence the reference to a bathtub curve.

I am sure you have become irritable when a product fails soon after purchase. Or immediately after the warranty period has expired (e.g. phones).  Leading many cynics to refer to the vendor’s (often unethical?) ‘planned obsolescence’ of a product where it fails after a given planned time. It fails so that you are forced to upgrade or buy a new one.

100% is Crucial for Safety
The target reliability of a pacemaker has to be 1 because failure may result in loss of a life. Similarly with a bridge or other critical elements in our lives.

Cost Plays a Key Role in Reliability
However, most consumer products (e.g. a toy, radio or dishwasher) most decidedly do not have a reliability of 1. Designing for perfect reliability would result in a very expensive product resulting in loss of competitive advantage to the manufacturer.

Oddly enough, some aircraft parts are not 100% reliable as weight has to be minimised.  This shortcoming is dealt with by a rigorous inspection regime (e.g. for cracks) and regular replacements of parts. The growth in (often illegal) second hand defective parts for aircraft is thus of major concern as their reliability would be unpredictable and certainly not what the manufacturer originally anticipated.

An interesting take by Orison Swett Mard on success: Success is not measured by what you accomplish, but by the opposition you have encountered, and the courage with which you have maintained the struggle against overwhelming odds.

Thanks to 101 Things I learned in Engineering School by John Kuprenas with Matthew Frederick.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues

You have probably heard of the age-old instruction to break step to a squad of soldiers marching across a bridge so as to prevent a collapse. This is because the rhythm of marching can match the natural frequency of the structure – thus causing the bridge to collapse.

Natural frequency is a key part of all our lives and is thus worth briefly considering.

Natural Frequency
The natural (or resonant) frequency of a structure is the time taken to complete one full cycle when disturbed. Hence, when a force acts on this structure at the same interval as the natural frequency, it will tend to reinforce the movement thus possibly eventually damaging it (or indeed, destroying it).

Effects can range from humming to strong oscillations to total collapse. I remember being somewhat alarmed working on a new iron ore processing plant when the shaking of the mechanical jigs (used to separate out the ore) caused the structure of the entire plant to vibrate – both significantly and loudly. Although the structural consultants indicated there was nothing to fear; it was of concern to everyone (in line with the wariness of experienced plant engineering staff to external consultants). However a simple (?) stratagem of changing the weight distribution of the plant, fixed the problem, resulting in minimal vibration and noise.

The Uncontrollable Shaking of the London Millennium Bridge
You may recall that the London Millennium Bridge had to shut down shortly after opening in 2000 when the rhythm caused by the thousands of pedestrians walking across matched the natural frequency of the structure.

But Galloping Gertie Was Not Due to Natural Frequency
However, as I always remark - The devil is in the detail. The recently built (1940) Tacoma Narrows suspension bridge in Washington State (Galloping Gertie) began to oscillate wildly when a driver crossed resulting in the bridge collapsing (resulting in the loss of car, dog and bridge – the driver managed to bolt in time).

Apparently this was not due to the rhythmic wind gusts matching the natural frequency of the bridge but aerolastic flutter (response to air movement seen on aircraft wings) leading to torsional flutter (repetitive twisting). Yes, indeed.

The replacement bridge (Sturdy Gertie) used far wider open web stiffening trusses and has been problem-free.

Nikola Tesla makes a good comment: If you want to find the secrets of the universe, think in terms of energy, frequency and vibration.

Thanks to 101 Things I learned in Engineering School by John Kuprenas with Matthew Frederick.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues

We suffer a ferocious amount of damage to our equipment when it is transported to various training locations around the world. When I see the damage to the shipping case (and the contents); I often refer to this delicate equipment being subjected to the ‘Airline Drop Test’.

I am always amazed at the massive dent marks in our robust steel cases or what appears to be a pick axe that has been wielded repeatedly (normally very effectively) against the side of the case. Naturally, the courier company will deny all knowledge of damage and insurance is a joke (often so expensive that you might as well laugh it off).

Materials that Give Way are often Better
In this context, bear in mind that the case materials should ‘give’ when subjected to an impact and plastic is often better than a firmer steel or wooden trunk. When force is applied to the plastic exterior of a case; it is better that it gives slightly and thus the damage can be minimised. Although, in using these very robust plastic materials, I have found the locks are often smashed. You may wonder where we ship our stuff to but most assuredly it is not deepest Africa or Afghanistan but normally (what you would think are) fairly mild Australia, Europe or North America.

Very Few Packages are Dropped
Packaging experts reckon that it is a myth that many packages are accidentally dropped during transport. And far fewer are dropped from a height causing damage to the contents.

The internal packaging is thus the key to good protection.

Oddly, the Real Killer Can be Vibration

However, one area that most of us don’t consider is damage from vibration during transit. The wrong type of cushioning material (such as soft foam) for your delicate electronic equipment can actually amplify the external vibrations (of the vehicle or plane) and thus cause failure of your delicate contents – especially if it ends up close to the natural frequency. So be wary of the type of packaging materials you use.

Thanks to 101 Things I learned in Engineering School by John Kuprenas with Matthew Frederick.

Angela N. Blount makes a rather damning comment about damage: ‘Everybody’s damaged. It’s just a question of how badly, and whether you’re healing or still bleeding.’

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

In the past few years; we have seen some spectacular collapses of buildings and bridges. This is quite inexplicable to today’s structural designer and engineer who puts enormous effort into the careful use of materials and huge safety margins.

However, last night when I was watching the causes of the BP Deepwater Horizon catastrophe (with my fascinated non-technical wife, I might add), I realized that when a designer is operating at the limit of their expertise; mistakes still occur. One of the questions with the Deepwater Horizon was in the use of cement (coupled with nitrogen gas) a few kms under the seabed – as to whether it did indeed have the strength required to prevent a massive gas and oil surge. As we know, cement as a proven structural material has been around since Roman times.

The typical approach a structural engineer follows when assessing materials for safe use and which would give some background to the building you live in is as follows.

Lab Testing
All materials used are extensively lab tested to determine their structural properties such as tension and compression under loading. The design strength actually used is considerably lower than these figures.

Design Strength Varies Depending on Materials
The calculation of design strength varies from concrete and steel which are fairly predictable and of uniform quality to wood which is rather varied. Wood is considerably more variable in strength as it could have an unusual number of knots or come from a diseased tree. Thus the safety margin has to be considerably higher.

For example, the Douglas fir has a safety margin of 5.5 (versus 1.4 for Steel). For example, Douglas fir has a compression maximum strength of 51 MPa (7430 psi) and based on the safety margin of 5.5; a design strength of 9.3MPa (1350 psi).

However, (as we know from the Twin Towers disaster) steel can have problems for structural support. As you may recall it is weak in fires and must be protected in all buildings.

Additional Safety Margins
Structural engineers build in additional safety margins by overestimating the dead and live loads and selecting supports one size up from what the design suggests.

Beware when you are at the Limits of Technology
However, despite all this care; you have to be careful about operating at the limits of technology and as to whether you will see sudden loads well in excess of what you designed (DeepWater Horizon) or indeed, your materials exposed to conditions they were never designed for (Twin Towers).

Thanks to 101 Things I learned in Engineering School by John Kuprenas with Matthew Frederick.

Andrew Heller makes an interesting point:   Technology is like a fish. The longer it stays on the shelf, the less desirable it becomes.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

We should always try and align our engineering works and activities within the ‘natural order of things’. This is not a difficult undertaking, requiring a little finessing and can be done from tiny projects all the way through to massive undertaking such as the Panama Canal.

The best way of illustrating this principle is with a few (civil) engineering examples.

The first one is the Panama Canal.

Raise a Ship 30m - Naturally
When ships travel between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, they are raised and lowered about 30m (85ft). However, no pumps are used for the locks to raise or lower the ships. So no energy is required.  Gravity moves millions of liters of water from the lakes (located in the higher middle ground of the canal) of the Panama Canal to the lock chambers. As long as rain keeps falling into the lakes, this system will keep functioning.

As you know, these ships are gigantic and there is a veritable fleet of them travelling through the Panama Canal on a daily basis.

What an incredible saving in energy.

The second one refers to the old practice of balancing cut and fill.

Balancing Cut and Fill
One item which is always irritating to people in the surrounding areas is when an excavation is being undertaken and the earth needs to be moved. Lots of trucks and loads of inconvenience.

However, when undertaking site work (intelligently) the trick is always to balance the amount of earth that has to be removed (cut) with the amount that has to be added (fill) for a specific construction site. This means no unnecessary transport of moving earth from one site to another. Thus a huge savings in cost and efficiencies. Naturally, your client will always want to have an imbalance between cut and fill; but perhaps you can change your design to balance the two?
 
Dan Simmons in The Fall of Hyperion makes the very important point:   The Great Change is when humankind accepts its role as part of the natural order of the universe instead of its role as a cancer.

Thanks to 101 Things I learned in Engineering School by John Kuprenas with Matthew Frederick.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Most of us being clever (or believing we are clever); try and get components or parts in a design or installation to have more than one function or purpose. This is to minimise materials used and the time or energy consumed by other manufacturer and user.

Be Wary
However, you have to be wary about the people that are then required to install, commission and then use this system of yours. They may not have the requisite level of skill and care. Or indeed, the ability to maintain the system over its life.

Many years ago, I remember being forced to use hard wired relays rather than a PLC (Programmable Controller) for an electrical control system in central Africa. The owners of the mine believed that the maintenance of a PLC would be impossible with limited skills and know-how in the area; whereas a relay was easily understood and could be replaced by walking into the local hardware store to buy a replacement (well, almost). A PLC with software represents the ultimate in multi functionality with software doing a multitude of things which previously were done with a series of individual relays and modules.

The corollary is true of course – the greater the sophistication of the user, the lower the risk of failure and the more predictable her environment is; the more you can afford to be multifunctional with your designs.

Catastrophic Failure Casts a Pall on Your Design
However, you also need to assess the risk of installation and operation. If a failure of a multifunctional part could cause a catastrophic failure of the entire system; you may also need to reconsider your design here.

Thanks to 101 Things I learned in Engineering School by John Kuprenas with Matthew Frederick for some interesting reading on this topic.

If you’re brave you could take a leaf out of Steve Jobs’ book:

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The trouble-makers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently…they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

Yours in Engineering Learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

When you accelerate or expedite a job such as building a factory or power station or manufacturing widgets; you often believe that savings can be achieved by reducing your indirect costs – equipment rental/rental of buildings/insurance/electrical and water and insurance. Obviously, direct costs such as people and materials will stay the same, as you still have to achieve the same amount of work.

Costs Skyrocket
As those you well versed in these matters know; the truth of costs is somewhat more devious. Working at an expedited rate means more errors/reworking of substandard bits/overtime pay/mistakes and confusion.

There is an optimal project duration to minimise the sum of direct and indirect costs. But in expediting something; your costs will invariably leap.

Sometimes you can Justify The Higher Costs
When expediting a schedule, the costs can sometimes be justified. A building has to be constructed because it is urgently needed. Or a developer believes she can sell it if it is constructed immediately. Or a disaster area urgently needs new sewage, water and electricity facilities to mimimise disease and famine of the local population. Or the fickle market is screaming out for the latest Apple gadget. If you don’t deliver now; you will lose out to a competitor.

A Measured Approach Is Always The Ticket
However, a carefully considered specification, design, construction and commissioning and handover generally always minimises the costs and raises the chances the project will be successful. And indeed, that people will not be injured in the construction and the final result will be safe for the community.

Please Consider This
So when being asked by someone to build a switchboard faster or construct a building in less time or complete a power station as a fast track program; you need to realize that there is an additional cost attached to the request. Make sure you have factored it in and tell your client the unpleasant news about costs upfront.

Thanks to 101 Things I learned in Engineering School by John Kuprenas with Matthew Frederick for some interesting reading on this topic.

As far as moving faster, Rollo May remarked:   It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

As those of you in the industrial automation business would know – in a negative feedback loop, the system responds in the opposite direction to a stimulus, thus providing overall stability or equilibrium. Positive feedback on the other hand isn’t always so useful and creates instability and one thus has to be careful about applying it.

A Flow Loop
For example, in a flow loop, the controller is set for a target flow rate. If the flow rate is detected to be above this target set point rate, the controller will send a stimulus to a valve to close slightly to reduce the flow to meet the target rate. The reverse happens when the flow rate is above the target rate and the valve is opened to increase the flow rate. A good example of negative feedback doing the right thing.

Equilibrium is Good
This negative feedback should operate everywhere to keep everyone happy and in equilibrium. Rapid population growth (of humans or animals) may result in overconsumption of the food supply; which then leads to a decrease in food and thus a reduction in the population, which then leads to an increase in food supply, which then results in a growing population. Eventually some equilibrium condition is reached.

Positive Feedback means decrease in Equilibrium
Positive feedback on the other hand is where the system responds in the same direction as the stimulus, thus resulting in a decrease in equilibrium and some resultant unhappiness. A small disturbance on a system can result in huge movements of output.

An example of positive feedback can be seen in the environment when an alien species is introduced (e.g. the cane toad or rabbit to Australia). This tends to gobble up the food supply of the native species; which then reduces allowing the alien species to expand rapidly and move further afield.

Thermal runaway in semi conductors is another example of positive feedback where increasing heat causing more current to flow in the chip thus causing more heat at the junction. Eventually the semiconductor is destroyed. Probably the most common example (to my mind) is positive feedback with the howling or squealing sound produced by audio feedback in public address systems. The microphone picks up sounds, amplifies it and sends it through the speakers again.

Technically speaking
Positive feedback occurs when one has positive loop gain around a feedback loop. Positive feedback is in phase with the input so that this makes the resultant output larger. This causes instability and increasing oscillations from equilibrium (set point).

Sometimes Positive Feedback is Good
Although most engineering systems rely on negative feedback to successfully operate and to be sustainable there are occasional examples of positive feedback loops. Such as when momentum is required. But they are unusual and need to be carefully handled.
Other good examples of positive feedback include: contractions in child birth, blood clotting and lactation. Bad examples are of some chemical reactions which release heat and which speed up at higher temperatures – these can accelerate very quickly and lead to an explosion.

Suggestion
Look at the systems around you and assess which are positive and negative feedback loops. This will increase your understanding of their operation.

Ken Blanchard remarked:   Feedback is the breakfast of champions.

Thanks to Wikipedia for some interesting reading.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

No matter how simple your design is – whether it is a simple adjustment to a wiring layout of a switchboard or a complex bridge over the Hudson, it is always beneficial to communicate the reasons for your design when passing it to a colleague to work further on it. These reasons vary from technical, ergonomic, cost or (dare, I say) even a subjective personal decision.

Reasons for Decisions
As soon as you provide the reasons for your decisions made; you immediately make it easier for others to consider alternatives that may not have occurred to you. Or even for the (unusual?) situations where you made a faulty decision. This also keeps alive the main reasons for the project. Effectively you are empowering your colleagues to think outside the box and to focus on the reasons for the design.

So communicate not only the ‘whats’ but also the ‘whys’ of your design decisions.

Be wary of many reasons that are stated for a design decision. Often they are not the real reason for a particular design decision. Sometimes, one hides behind costs as a reason; when one can effect an excellent budgetary design with a different better approach.

All Good Design Decisions
All good design decisions have reasons behind them. Admittedly there are dysfunctional companies who hide behind a façade of not explaining why a particular design decision was made to avoid it being questioned.

As a Corollary
Similarly, when someone wants you to work on a design problem, they have been engaged with; always query them on the reasons for their approach. This will help you consider the optimum approach. And it will justify your actions when you have to make changes which they aren’t too keen about.

Thanks to ‘101 Things I Learned in Engineering School’ by John Kuprenas with Matthew Frederick for some thoughtful commentary.

George Stiny remarked:   Design is what you do when you don't [yet] know what you are doing.

i.e., Real design is done during the unstructured, informal, noodling around that occurs before the structured and formal `design' methods are employed.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

You probably know the trick to stop a crack on your car windscreen (windshield to you, North Americans) from spreading. Simply, drill a hole near the tip (or end) of the crack. This makes the crack less sharp and distributes the stresses over a larger area and in more directions. This reduced stress stops the crack from spreading. A great solution.

The Same Principle Applies
The same principle applies to rounded corners in a range of objects from tables to machine parts. A rounded window corner spreads stress over a larger area; whereas a sharply pointed (or squared) window focuses the stress on one point in the system. You can confirm this when you catch one of your body parts on the sharp edge of a table – it is painful.

A Key for Good Engineering Design
This is a crucial concept for all engineering design – a simple formula for reducing or distributing stress in many directions.

And on the line of ‘cracks’ or ‘cracked’, Bernard Meltzer remarked: A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked.

Thanks to ‘101 Things I Learned in Engineering School’ by John Kuprenas with Matthew Frederick for some thoughtful commentary.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

I believe the well known Rolling Stones rock group had a song with a lyric along the lines of: I can’t get no satisfaction. Judging by the regular complaints I get from engineering colleagues, this is a problem endemic in the engineering world – a lack of satisfaction with their jobs.

So what is job satisfaction in the engineering world?
It is unusual for anyone to have a 100% satisfaction in any job. However, everyone seems to believe that in changing one’s current job or project or colleagues or  boss that suddenly there will be a massive improvement in their job satisfaction levels. Sadly, this never seems to quite work out. I have long since given up on this approach and tried to adjust my internal view of work to make my satisfaction start now with my current job. Not easy; but attainable.

Often colleagues have quit their job because they can’t cope with a current project any longer. Initially all started out well with lots of enthusiasm and an optimistic view on the project; but after six months into the job, with regular client changes coming through, budgeting overruns starting and the contractors not reading the specifications, all sorts of problems started developing. Eventually, the engineer quits the job for something more satisfying. The only problem is that before long the new project has similar problems and job satisfaction isn’t there any longer either.
 
Two Aspects to Job Satisfaction
There are two aspects to job satisfaction. Your internal state (how do you perceive the world) and external elements such as the project you are working on/your boss /the people you work with and so forth.  My experience leads me to believe that satisfaction is mainly a state of mind. In changing the external issues of the job (boss/project/people/money); we are not really identifying and fixing the real reasons for job satisfaction.

 Admittedly, sometimes you are working in extremely dangerous conditions, traveling almost on a continuous basis with no family life or getting paid peanuts and these are issues that need to be fixed. But often the causes of your dissatisfaction are less obvious. They are internal. They relate to how you perceive and interact with the world. You know – the half empty glass versus the half full glass?

A Humble Suggestion
So before you gripe about a low level of satisfaction with your current job; pause for a moment. And consider whether you can change your mental picture of the job, project and the world and be a little more patient and accommodating about things that irritate you. And consider whether you can adjust to them and raise your job satisfaction to a higher level by looking at your engineering job world with a positive view and changing your state of mind.

As far as satisfaction is concerned; GK Chesterton remarked: “There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less."

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

I am not a teacher, but an awakener, is a particularly relevant remark from Robert Frost for mentoring. You are probably bulging with experience and knowledge won over many hard years.

I urge you (once again!) to share this know-how with your less experienced colleagues in your office or on the shop floor or on-the-job at some remote location. Many people hate sharing their know-how as they feel it makes them less valuable. This can hardly be further from the truth. It makes you well known as a valued source of great ideas and experience and a great mentor.

Mentoring is about someone who wants to share his or her know-how and experiences with someone younger and less experienced. This ranges from helping kids and students to understand what engineering is about to counselling young engineering technicians and engineers of a firm.

Many successful engineering tradespeople will tell you of the enormous benefit they received from a mentor when they were apprentices. And many older engineers will clearly remember fantastic engineers from years ago who gave them advice and guidance in building their engineering careers.

This short note is to encourage everyone in engineering to increase the amount of mentoring – it builds a strong profession - to encourage highly skilled and experienced professionals to act as mentors and for young engineering professionals starting out in their careers to actively seek out a mentor.

Mentors are for Everyone
Having a mentor can play a significant role in your long term success in engineering and your job satisfaction level. No matter whether you are a fitter, electrician, technician or a junior engineer. Research shows that engineering professionals who started with mentors end up with higher levels of self-esteem, better professional standards and excellent linkages to engineering resources and people. They also tend to stay longer with their organization and communicate far better with their peers.

People starting out in their careers can have a lot of anxieties, questions, pressure and stress. A mentor can give a quick answer and short circuit a lot of the angst that could otherwise arise for a young greenhorn employee. Mentoring students could range from giving workshops about writing a better resume, job interviewing strategies and personal suggestions on firms to approach for work.

In an organization, it is important to understand the corporate structure, gain specific skills (such as report writing/troubleshooting equipment/filling in forms and the application of specific standards). Other areas where young professionals can be helped is in tapping into personal networks, setting up professional goals, and in moving outside comfort zones.
Other more contentious areas (for firms) are ensuring a work-life balance and being successful at work while working a standard day. This may require some strategies to intensify your work output and productivity and thus to keep your hours under control. Mentors can help here.

Who is a Good Mentor?
Good mentors listen well, are reliable, have enormous experience which they are keen to pass on, are passionate about their careers and have some understanding about what their mentees are going through. On the other hand, the mentee is able to listen and respect and be committed to the relationship and apply these skills.

Being a Good Mentor can Benefit You As Well
It forces you to think through your experiences and to do a sanity and reality check on best processes and ways of doing things. It gives you a far better understanding of elements of engineering which you previously took for granted. Oddly enough, it also enables you to ventilate some of your frustrations and beliefs with an active and enthusiastic sounding board.

Become a Mentor Now
Anyone can mentor anyone else. There is always someone who is younger than you and who would be keen to listen to your words of wisdom and hard-won experience.

• If there isn’t a mentoring program in your firm; set it up.
• Decide how much time you have to commit before you start.
• Mentoring is not only about a face-to-face encounter but it could be done through email/skype chat/phone call/web conference.
• At the beginning of the relationship, take some time to agree on the ground rules and goals with your mentee.
• As with much volunteer work; you will feel good about yourself and your profession.

By becoming a mentor, you will be doing a great service to the engineering profession.

Thanks John R. Platt of the IEEE for an excellent article on STEM mentoring and in providing evidence.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Digital engineering touches every aspect of our lives. Every device today seemingly has a computer on board – whether it be your phone/RTU/PLC/Tablet or even TV and washing machine. And these devices are based on the work of a digital design engineer and technician.

Customers are continuing to expect considerably more from their systems in terms of lower power, lower cost, reliability, wireless operation, sensitivity and speed. And naturally, more user-friendly interfaces. But engineers and technologists working on digital systems are seemingly less equipped for their job today than in past years.

A decade or so ago, computer hardware was quite ‘slow’ and thus a detailed knowledge of analog circuitry wasn’t required in order to make the overall system work. Despite this, analog circuit design was a key course for all engineering (and indeed, often computer science) programs.

However, what has happened today is that universities believe they can eliminate a detailed understanding of analog circuitry from the engineering program in favour of higher level computer courses. This approach however weakens the would-be design engineer and troubleshooting technician’s understanding of the critical underpinning concepts of good electrical engineering and thus results in a poorer design and troubleshooting ability.

A few examples (from Howard Johnson’s excellent paper) of why a strong understanding of analog design is so important is noted below.

Where is the current return path?
Today, digital schematics and related discussions don’t detail or even consider the return path of electrons (and currents).  This approach is reinforced by vendors of oscilloscopes and logic analysers who push voltage-mode probes with little mention of measuring current. This results in design flaws such as an inadequate number of ground pins and poor return current flow designs.

Weak Understanding of Magnetic Fields
In the days of the vacuum tube (who can remember these devices? I can just faintly); everything was voltage oriented with high impedance circuits (after all electrons were flowing through a vacuum) and this made electric fields the most important element in the design. This philosophy has persisted today. Unfortunately, all chip design work today is based around low impedance circuits and currents (and thus magnetic fields). Hence when considering electromagnetic compatibility (EMC) issues, one has to think of magnetic and not electric fields. Today, everyone still focuses on electric field shielding for their circuits when they should be using magnetic field shielding as a priority. This results in poor designs which cannot handle magnetic interference problems.

An Incorrect focus on Absolute Volts – not differential voltages
When one looks at a typical datasheet it talks about input voltage sensitivity in terms of absolute volts and omits to mention that one’s electronic chip actually responds to differences in voltage between an input pin and a reference pin. Often, this reference pin and its voltage is simply ignored. It is thus critical to think about different ground potentials in their systems and the problems that will arise as a result. A related problem is that of common mode voltage problems affecting chips.

What Can You Do About this?
Never forget the importance of the fundamental analog underpinnings of all electronic and computer design and ensure those that you work with do the same.

Despite what your kids may say about it being only a digital world – we all live in a real analog world and are analog beings. As are our electronic circuit designs.

Thanks to Dr Howard Johnson’s article in Proceedings of DesignCon.: Why Johnny Can’t Design a High Speed Digital System.

In terms of justifying these comments about analog design Sir Francis Bacon remarked: By far the best proof is experience.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

A key member of your engineering team has just quit. She could range from a senior electrical power engineer with enormous experience. To a plant electrician who knows your marine electrical systems intimately and can troubleshoot a problem in a jiffy. Or a SCADA technician who knows the configuration details and intricacies of all your plants’ control systems. Generally, people leave for a myriad of reasons – more money, boredom with the same work, irritated by the local climate, tired of the small town you are based in and irritations with managers. With engineering professionals, it is often due to the project they are working going off the rails or simply grinding them down with the client’s unreasonable demands or requiring horrendous hours at remote locations (perhaps doing mind numbing work whilst living in poor conditions).

Although, what often puzzles me is that many employees who should leave – simply don’t – often due to inertia and unenthusiasm about taking risks with an unknown new company.

What to do?
Well; first of all one should realize that having a key member of staff leaving is a normal part of managing engineering and technology professionals. There is always an ebb and flow of talent – especially critical talent. The important point to make, is that you have to do your utmost to ensure that the changes you make after the departure of your key staff member actually improve your team with better and more appropriate talent and the team overall benefits from the experience. This can be a delicate and painful experience.

The Stages You Go through
Possibly there are a few stages you will go through on being informed by your star engineering employee that they are bolting for (presumably) greener pastures.

1. Denial (“After all, I have done for you, I can’t believe you are leaving us”)
2. Anger (“How can you do this to me at this critical stage of the project; we are going to miss our deadlines – you are critical here”)
3. Loss (“I think of all the good times we worked together on this project as part of tight team. I am going to miss you enormously”)
4. Bargain (“How much do we need to pay you extra to stay?”)
5. Acceptance (“I accept you are leaving and things will change now”)
6. Building a Positive Outcome (“We need to work out strategies to capitalise on this loss and look to make it a win-win situation”).

Never Bargain
It is always tempting to bargain with an employee who has indicated they want to leave. This is a risky strategy and to be avoided under all circumstances. The departing team member has likely thought out the issues and it is unwise to sway them. If they decide to hang in because you offered them more; they often eventually do leave for other reasons (and you set a precedent for everyone else). Unless, it for some reason, which is easily rectified and nothing to do with their performance and enthusiasm for the actual job such as another manager (or client) harassing and making their life hell. But you will generally tarnish your reputation (esp. with your team) in an unseemingly display of pleading to stay.

On a different note, I would also counsel about taking ex-employees back unless it is for a totally different role and the reasons they originally left are no longer there. Sometimes the employee has to leave for solid personal reasons (divorce/aging parents in another city requiring care/extended maternity leave/severe illness) and they can be welcomed back if they have moved to another level in their career and were outstanding performers.

Strategies for Successful Managers
Successful managers get through the first three stages (Denial, Anger, Loss) quickly; avoid the bargaining stage and focus with all their energies on Acceptance and Building a Positive Outcome to the experience. You can make it a positive experience and result for both your team and the departing employee.

Ensure that your departing employee leaves on a positive note with great memories. Try and maintain the professional relationship as I find it is a small world in engineering. You may find you can win new contracts with the firm she is joining. Or she can become a key supplier.

A few strategies to follow when a key player in your engineering team announces that he is leaving:

• Assess your existing team – weaknesses and strengths and see how you can improve on the structure by reworking job roles and responsibilities. Identify skills and know-how you need. Teams change over time and you can build the team into a more effective one by finding a replacement who can add value.
• Conduct a frank exit interview with the departing member to understand the problems and improvements you can effect.
• Look at ways to improve the work environment if warranted by the exit interview.
• Review the new job description to ensure it is workable and will add value.
• Consider existing employees first for the vacant position. With some training, is there an existing person who can step up to the plate to build value into their own career?
• Recruit and advertise extensively. Consider people outside your organization that you know who could fit the role.
• Do not take someone on if they are not 100% appropriate for the role (even when you become desperate). Hiring the wrong person can cause enormous damage to your team and your organisation. “When in doubt; do without” and continue recruiting.
• Ensure you have a warm welcoming experience for the new person you recruit but do not compromise on what you require from them from the “get-go” stage.

Ultimately, although difficult to believe when a key employee leaves; but it can be a very positive experience for your team and your firm. You have to ensure you have a great workable strategy to walk through when this happens though.

As William Shakespeare remarked: Wise men never sit and wail their loss, but cheerily seek how to redress their harms.

Thanks to Gary Perman of the IEEE for an interesting article on this topic.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

I hope 2014 is a wonderful year for you and yours.

I writhed in my seat with embarrassment last week when an esteemed engineer did a presentation on fixing the local electrical distribution network problems to a mainly lay audience comprising families, local businesspeople and civic councillor types. I had been looking forward to the presentation as it had great importance in the area in improving the electrical supply.

The presentation was disastrous – full of acronyms and technical terms which would baffle even an experienced electrical engineer. This continued for most of the hour. His presentation comprised mainly of PowerPoint slides presented at breakneck speed with huge amounts of numerical detail and with absolutely no effort to engage the audience. There were not many questions at the end. The presenter was also somewhat nervous; so bolted as soon as the few questions were haltingly answered.

Unfortunately, it is not unusual for technical people to present like this. Often it is well outside their comfort zone and they are not well prepared.

I hasten to add this problem is not only with engineers but goes right across the spectrum to the plumber explaining to the (bored?) housewife/househusband why a particular fix had to be effected to their heating system or the technician explaining to the manager of a processing plant why she had to change the settings for a PID loop. Or indeed, an engineer explaining to her management what her project is all about.

But with a bit of effort, you can connect in a winning way with audiences and ‘win hearts and minds’ with a personable and entertaining presentation, which both you and the audience will enjoy and benefit from.

One of the keys is to understand who your audience is before your presentation. You would be surprised that even highly technical audiences appreciate a somewhat simple straightforward presentation in simple lay(wo)man’s language . Practise meticulously your presentation and then speak from the heart in simple English using as much of a story as possible to underpin your presentation. Everyone can follow a story.

Inevitably, you will probably say: Why bother? Well, most of the time in your career and life you are dealing with people who may not have the deep technical insights and knowledge you may have built up in a specialist area. And in order to connect and communicate with them about what you are doing; you need to build up some skills in the area of non-technical communications.

A suggestion to make your presentations more palatable is to try and build a story around them. People love stories and this is a great way to make your highly technical story very understandable. I am also not suggesting that you dumb things down to make them understandable. I utterly believe that you can get highly technical concepts across in prose understandable to your even your grandmother.

A few suggestions for your next presentation to non-technical people.

• Understand your audience and what they (and you) want to achieve from the presentation
• Practise your presentation so that you understand it and it is polished. But talk to the audience as a valued equal partner – this is not a lecture.
• Confirm what you both want by sounding them out at the beginning of the presentation
• Use graphics and qualitative stories rather than enormous wads of numbers and zillions of ghastly PowerPoint slides
• Avoid all acronyms, equations and jargon
• Make the presentation entertaining
• Get the audience involved in the presentation by asking them questions and getting feedback from them at regular intervals.
• Remember that what you say may be of critical importance to the community or stake holders; so they need to understand what the issues are.
• The presentation needs to have an outcome or reason for its existence– ensure you don’t just give content but some reason to listen to the content.
• Make sure there is ongoing dialogue throughout your presentation or if the audience is too large – that you are available to answer questions at the end.
• Ensure that you provide lots of supporting information for those that want to dig deeper into the topic.
• Make sure you are available to discuss the topic further (via email or phone, perhaps)

It should be remembered that those who go the furthest in their engineering careers are those that can communicate well with all levels of audiences. Particularly the lay person.

As Les Brown remarks: Your ability to communicate is an important tool in your pursuit of your goals, whether it is with your family, your co-workers or your clients and customers.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve Mackay

Dear Colleagues,

Firstly, a happy festive season for you over the next few weeks. Seeing the economic engines of the world economies gradually ramping up, I think at least from an engineering perspective, 2014 looks promising.

Have you ever noticed that often most of your challenges in engineering are found at ‘the interface’? By interface, I mean where two elements meet each other – the boundary between two different systems.

Often you find examples of poor design and failures at the interface. Whether it be two different electronic circuits connecting together or two engineering professionals working together – an electronic engineer and mechanical engineer. A plumber working with an electrician or a substation connecting to the power electrical transmission system. Or indeed a C++ program interfacing to an API.

So I am not thinking only of electronic and electrical hardware but also people/processes and systems.

Give me Examples of Interface Problems

Examples of interfaces which create problems range from:

• Connectors and cables which make intermittent connections between different circuits
• Relay contacts (pitted or burned contacts) which then fail to connect (or do so intermittently)
• Two different circuits with different grounds connect together (producing ground loops)
• Data communication and wireless links between different systems which provide intermittent communications
• Programmable Logic Controller software and hardware. Incompatible demands made by the software on the hardware
• SCADA interface to the human operator – making excessive demands on the operator with too many alarms and information she can’t process or act upon.

Non-Hardware Interfaces Are Also there to Taunt you
People interfaces can be the most challenging. In a multidisciplinary design team, especial care has to be taken that communication between different types of engineering professionals is done well so nothing is forgotten in the design process. This is worsened by virtual multi disciplinary teams working on an international basis with the added complications of different cultures/time zones and telecommunications links.

Suggestions on Tackling the Interface
When aiming for an outstanding design or troubleshooting a problem, a suggested plan of attack is as follows:

• Identify the interfaces
• List from highest to lowest risk ones
• Consider the problems that could occur at these interfaces
• Put extra care into minimising interface issues with your design (eliminate them or make one person responsible for managing and defining interface problems and then in eliminating them)

Thanks to Lou Frenzel of Electronic Design magazine for a thought provoking article entitled: Trouble at the Interface which I have then extended to the impact on general engineering issues.

Jef Raskin hits the nail on the head with his comment: An interface is humane if it is responsive to human needs and considerate of human frailties.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve Mackay

Dear Colleagues

I often get questions about the practical differences between watts (W) and volt-amperes (VA); mainly from our civil and mechanical engineering fraternity; but surprisingly also from some electrical types.

As you would know, electrical products generally indicate both to show how much energy and current they draw.

So herewith a quick summary of the differences with some interesting alternative calculations to work out total VA (I am waiting for the deluge of critiques from my electrical brotherhood).

Real Power - Watts
Real power is measured in watts (or W). One watt is the consumption or generation of energy at the rate of one joule per second. This is what you as a consumer generally pay your electrical utility in kilowatt-hours (a 60W light bulb left on for 10 hours consumes 0.6 kWh).

We have a surprisingly wide range of charges throughout the world for kilowatt-hour charges. For example (for 2011 in US cents), in India it is 8c/kWh against Denmark where it is 41c/kWh (perhaps – and I am speculating here – they are paying for the enormous investment in wind energy). Other interesting ones are Australia (29c/kWh), UK (20c/kWh)  and South Africa and Canada (10c/kWh). People building aluminium smelters would consider these numbers as they would make a big difference to a business case.

Watts are calculated by W = volts (rms) x amps (rms) x cos (phi) where phi is the angle between the current and voltage for ac circuits (cos (phi) is often referred to as the power factor).  Rms volts refers to root mean square voltage (which is peak volts divided by square root of 2).

For dc circuits, this simply becomes W = V (dc) x I (dc) .

When calculating the real power for multiple devices; you simply add the watts for each appliance.

The measurement of watts does require specialized equipment where both voltage and current needs to be measured over a specific time. A standard multimeter is not much help here.

Apparent Power - Volt-Amperes (VA)
VA = volts (rms) x amps (rms)

or for dc  VA = V (dc) x I (dc)

Volt amps are very important for calculating current draw (and is essential to know in sizing cables). So to work out the current draw of a device; you simply take the VA and divide by rms voltage.

For example, you have a device which is rated at 500VA (maximum VA the device will draw). If it is supplied by a 230Vrms ac line; you would calculate maximum current as 500 VA/230Vrm = 2.2amps (rms). You must ensure your wires and associated circuits can cope with 2.2amps (rms).

Adding VA
Unfortunately (apart from direct current circuits); you can’t simply add the VA rating of devices to come up with the total VA rating. This is because the currents for each device are not necessarily in phase with each other.

But – importantly – you can add up the individual VA ratings to get a conservative figure since the actual total (calculated correctly) will always be less than or equal to this value.

Power Factor
Power factor is always between zero and 1 because watts (real power) is always less than or equal to volt amperes. As you electrical types know, it is possible to have a voltage across a device (e.g. capacitor) and to draw a significant current (and thus need to rate the cables correctly for this current) but to consume no energy (zero watts).

As far as kWh are concerned, Earl Wilson remarked: Benjamin Franklin may have discovered electricity, but it was the man who invented the meter who made the money.

Comparison of Energy prices is located at:
see http://theenergycollective.com/lindsay-wilson/279126/average-electricity...

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve Mackay

Dear Colleagues,

I am sure you all have encountered the nightmare and lies often inherent in interpreting vendor specifications. How to determine what is right and what is wrong is one issue. A vital issue. But there is perhaps an even more important issue: do you need these particular specifications for your project – in other words – do they mean much for your application?

The answer often is the specifications do not mean much. Even if they are valid.

A Good Example is the Turndown Ratio
Turndown is the ratio of the maximum flow rate to the minimum flow rate for a specific flowmeter for a required performance.

Typical quoted values for turndown for flow meters are 40 to 1 or even, 90 to 1 (as absolute maximum values). These turndown ratios may sound absolutely fabulous. However, they may not mean much for your application due to the real world impact of actual maximum allowable flow rates in your pipes and costs of pumping.

Energy Costs and Abrasion can be Real World Problems
It is definitely true that when pumping certain slurries, one doesn’t want the flow rate to be too low otherwise the solids tend to settle out. However, a real problem is that energy costs can dramatically increase with higher flow rates and the pipe wear factor may increase astronomically (esp. with slurries). So having significant turndown ratios may be quite irrelevant.

An Example to Illustrate
An ultrasonic flow meter may have a quoted turndown ratio of 40:1.

However, due to the abrasion effects of the fluid, the actual flow rate may actually be less than 1m/s. This means the turndown ratio (maximum to minimum flow rate), will be less than 2:1. So the 40:1 ratio is quite irrelevant.

Tripping the Light Fantastic
And this is why I say: Tripping the Light Fantastic with Vendor Specifications, as these specifications of turndown ratio can be generally irrelevant to your design. Look at the real flow rates that you can achieve and then examine the specifications supplied by the vendor.

And this applies to all specifications. Always consider the real world situation before becoming fixated by incredible specifications proffered by your vendor. You may be dismayed to find these wonderful specifications are actually quite irrelevant for your application.

David Thoreau's comment applies to interpreting specifications in terms of the real application: Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.

Thanks to my good colleague,  David Spitzer, for a thought provoking article on this thorny topic entitled: Flowmeter Turndown

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve Mackay

Dear Colleagues,

As engineering professionals; we are taught to calculate either on the back of a cigarette box (the old approach); using a calculator or some exotic software program.

Seemingly we spend most of our lives in strongly numerical activities calculating…calculating. No matter whether you are a mechanical fitter doing an estimation of material costs or a rocket scientist working out payloads for the next missile. We are all feverishly involved with and expected to calculate.

We are assessed on a daily basis on our ability to come up with outstanding accuracy in our calculations with lots of thought devoted to the possible errors.

But this is Emphatically not the ‘Be All and end all’ of Engineering
But this is not the key role for engineering professionals.

The key is in problem solving – in coming up with a solution to a seemingly intractable problem. This is where you employ your engineering skills to the utmost.

Don’t let a Problem Overwhelm you
Always look for the familiar components of the problem which can be worked through using past experience which provides demonstrable results. And then examine the more complex unknown parts.

Bear in mind two other issues of problems:

• Ultimately Every Problem is Unique
• And Inside Every Problem is a small one desperate to emerge

Henry Ford remarked - There are no big problems, there are just a lot of little problems.

Ideas for this blog came from a great eminently readable book: 101 Things I learned in Engineering School by John Kuprenas and Matthew Frederick.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues

As most of you would know, the so-called black box is a fundamental building block for engineering design. Indeed, it is used for many other activities where we simply refer to the ‘black box’.

What is a Black Box?
This is a conceptual container where we feed in inputs and get outputs emerging from a so-called black box. We don’t worry about how these outputs are derived as this is all dealt with by the ‘black box’. It means we don’t need to fret about what actually happens in the black box. Often, supremely complex processes are involved in the black box and this could be hard work to unravel about precisely what is going on.

The Black Box works well with Multidisciplinary Teams
The output of one team serves as the input for other teams. For example, in a plant construction project the civil engineering team will feed through their design outputs to the mechanical, electrical and instrumentation teams. Who in turn will feed through their outputs through to the next series of teams (IT, telecommunications and so forth).

It Works well for explaining difficult concepts
When explaining a difficult process control concept – for example how a Process Control Loop Controller works; it is best to simply to say the Process Variable and Set Point feeds into the PID Black Box and this is what the control output looks like coming out the other end. We aren’t that interested in the actual activities of the integral, derivative lead and lag algorithms inside the black box; but more in the practical output results of the controller.

Similarly, an electrician wiring up a complicated Programmable Logic Controller (PLC) treats this as a ‘black box’. She knows there will be inputs to the PLC “Black Box’ and outputs to control the plant. But she doesn’t need to know what is happening in the PLC itself.

In the Real World we are all humans and work in a web of interrelated relationships
In the real world, the black box approach doesn’t always work as neatly as this. We all work in a complex web of relationships with real world constraints. Projects rarely go to plan. Bad weather, supply problems of components, staffing issues and client changes impact on a daily basis.

You Thus Need to be Dynamic
So, while the black box is a great idea and nice to have in simplifying the overall system; be alert to the real dynamics of the world. Watch out for opportunities to improve your processes and be alert to threats to the design and installation.

For example, the electrician may see some changes happening in the processes of the plant and has to request program changes to the PLC Black Box to ensure she does get the outputs required.

A good way of persisting with whatever you are doing is to follow Jonathan Winters remark: I couldn't wait for success, so I went ahead without it.

Ideas for this blog came from a great eminently readable book: 101 Things I learned in Engineering School by John Kuprenas and Matthew Frederick.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

You can pick up the newspaper on a daily basis and read about those incredibly persistent individuals who were previously trades(wo)men, technicians and engineers and who have set up powerful businesses which they are absolutely passionate about.

In these challenging times; you should never expect someone to provide you with a job – you should go out and create the work. We need entrepreneurs providing services and products that add real value to our lives.

You are an ideal Entrepreneur
Engineering professionals are highly creative about making things which are ultimately useful and are ideally suited to being entrepreneurs. However, you also need to build on your business skills. The keys to success also include marketing and sales and being able to count the dollars and cents to ensure you are indeed profitable.

Engineers generally hate business uncertainty and risk – a key part of being an entrepreneur and this can prove challenging in becoming a successful entrepreneur.

Examples of Engineering Entrepreneurs are Everywhere
Engineering entrepreneurs have been around for thousands of years. From those fellows who built mines in Spain and boats for the Mediterranean to more recent examples of James Watt and the steam engine world.

Recent mega entrepreneurs who were engineers include: Microsoft with Bill Gates, Oracle with Larry Ellison, and Google with Larry Page.

But no matter how humble your skill or occupation is – you can become a successful entrepreneur.

Passion is what Makes it
You can’t suddenly decide to become an entrepreneur. You have to have a genuine passion for a product or service and be prepared to persist.

Importantly, though, becoming an entrepreneur does not necessarily entail striking out solely on your own. You can often do it within your existing company structure – genuine owners of businesses delight in welcoming like-minded engineering professionals to extend their businesses with new products and services.

Be ruthless about whether it is a feasible product you are proposing. Many companies have not been able to survive as their key products, whilst useful, have simply never been viable business ventures.

Some suggestions for you
As engineering professionals we tend to focus on the technical aspects of the product. This is what gets us excited. However, it is the ‘filthy’ business case on which we need to center our attention – “Can this product or service be sold to make money?” - the overwhelmingly important question before launching an idea.

Engineering professionals often neglect the business factors as they are less interesting. Sadly, the market will not beat a path to your door because ‘you have designed a better mouse trap’. Ideas are a penny a dozen - it is the business strategy and plan that is critical

A business plan defining your product and strategy is absolutely essential. And it should fit on a single sheet of paper with all the key thoughts worked through and built in here. If you can’t explain simply what you are doing in a few words to your grandmother, it is probably going to be difficult to make it work. Items to be included in your business plan include; those aspects of the product that are unique, why you will be able to sell it, who your competitors are, the costs and predicted revenue, the cash available to fund the venture, how long it will take to develop the product, the members of your team, an outline of the operations and admin issues and finally, a simple implementation check list with dates.

Initially, try to finance the product yourself and demonstrate that it is workable and bringing in a solid profitability before going to others for funding. Borrowing money from others or getting partners onboard, when the product hasn’t been proven, is fraught with danger. You might lose control at a very early stage to others.

Put overwhelming effort into your marketing and sales. Persistent communication of your idea to prospects for your products is essential.

Once you have your product out in the marketplace, you have to listen carefully. You may find that you have to change your strategy considerably as the market might want something else.

It is an extremely lonely mission setting up your own business. Make sure you have oodles of support from your life-partner and that she or he is absolutely committed.

Even when you have a highly successful business, it takes aeons to see the first dollars come in. Often you end up with two years of virtually no income as you build up the business. Can you cope with this and more importantly can your personal life cope with this? Cash flow is always a challenging animal to deal with, but it is always king in business.

And an issue I have tended to scorn in the past (to my detriment), is the operational and administrative side of running the business. You have to put in place systems to deliver your product or service easily and effectively, with a high and continuing level of quality and profitably.

You do need passion and persistence at least a dozen times a day in the course of running the business.

There is no doubt, that it is enormously satisfying as an engineering professional to run one’s own business, bring new products and services to the market and take control of one’s own destiny. I continue to see so many vibrant engineering businesses opening up that are absolutely inspirational. These range from consulting, to software and hardware development, to electronic product development, to education, to construction and shipbuilding.

When considering entrepreneurial ventures, as Amos Bronson Alcott remarked “Our bravest and best lessons are not learned through success, but through misadventure.”

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Your engineering career is likely to contain a major component of troubleshooting and then fixing. Perhaps mainly remedying someone else’s mistakes? The trick, I believe, is to keep your mind completely open when troubleshooting - to avoid pre-conceived ideas which can throw you completely off track. And to work through all the phases below systematically.

A few suggested steps below when confronted by the next problem:

1. Identify and define the real issue
When someone reports a problem to you; you can bet your bottom dollar this may not be the actual problem. When seen through the eyes of a user the report of the situation may not reflect engineering reality. Ensure you get a careful explanation and if possible a demonstration of the problem. It is your job to ascertain what the real problem is in real engineering terms. Often a problem presents intermittently. Don’t walk away from it, however, presuming it has gone forever – it hasn’t.
Recently, when trying to tune a process control loop, which the operators had complained was sluggish, I found that I was actually dealing with high frequency signals (an aliasing problem) - it wasn’t a tuning problem, after all, but a filtering one.
Another challenge in fixing an IT switch which refused to recognize new MAC addresses from new devices connected to the network. It turned out; the problem had nothing to do with the switch itself and everything to do with a faulty power supply (which was supplying below the required voltage – 160Vac rather than 230Vac) to the switch.

2. Reproduce the problem
It is best to reproduce the problem where possible. You can then observe the full sequence of events, view the error messages and analyse other variables that may be affecting it.
This is terribly hard to do with intermittent problems such as occasional interference on communication cables or common mode voltage problems. In these cases; you have to try and consider what were possible causes of the problem.

3. Localise, isolate and home in
Now you have to zone in on the equipment or software module that is responsible for the problem. The trick is to zone in on the precise element causing the problem. Penetrate the thicket of equipment and find the precise element. Remember that seemingly unrelated elements can cause problems. It is also vitally important to identify exactly what happened before the problem occurred - was a card changed out and the IP address not updated on the server?

4. Make a Plan
Ensure that you assess what is required carefully. As one of my regular correspondents remarked: Beware the Law of unexpected consequences. The process of fixing something may cause other unexpected new problems (a colleague of mine located and remedied severe harmonic problems in a plant network, but blew up three of my precious variable speed drives with an overvoltage condition). When going through your plan, step-by-step, to best remedy the problem, you may find other issues appear that you hadn’t considered.

5. Trace your steps
Ensure that when you fix the problem, you know exactly what you have done in case you need to retrace your steps later to put the equipment back into its original state.

6. Test and retest
Test and retest over a period of time before accepting that the problem has been fixed. If there is any doubt about whether the problem has been fixed or not, there is no doubt. It is, most probably, still a problem.

Most people tend to walk away when they think they have remedied the problem; only to be called back later because they haven’t finished the job.

7. Document for an absolute moron
People who come after you may not be aware of what you have done and how you have solved the problem. The problem may reappear or something similar may happen to another piece of equipment. So - document for someone who may have no knowledge of what you have done.

Again; this phase of the project is often forgotten. And then when a similar problem occurs on another part of the plant; everyone goes through the same learning curve again.

8. Communicate with the client or user and your buddies
Often the user is not convinced the problem has been fixed. Your job is to ensure you communicate honestly; what you have done and why the problem has been fixed. Don’t treat the user as a complete idiot, but as a real partner in operating your facility. This is important for your credibility (and for the engineering profession). Ensure all your buddies (and boss) are also apprised of how you fixed the problem – it could save them a lot of stress in their work.

I like Anthony J. D'Angelo’s take on fixing things: ‘Become a fixer, not just a fixture’.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Are you like me – overwhelmed with your email traffic? Do you answer your emails quickly enough and do you get rapid responses to your messages ? Probably not.

Email is insidious – it is everywhere and it affects (infects?)  most of us. Although I must say, there is a mining prospector who lives in his truck at the parking lot near our local beach and who doesn’t have any phone, computer or even post box – and definitely no email. He is totally mobile. And only corresponds through messages left at the mining leases office. He is apparently worth tens of millions and doesn’t communicate (much) at all with anyone and just focusses on the job at hand – prospecting for iron and nickel ore.

Herewith a few suggestions to save at least a few hours per day in using your emails more effectively.

Typical Problems with Emails

• Emails are often rather one-dimensional and as a result a quick phone call is often more effective. With the amount of rubbish on emails; most shouldn’t be even dignified with a response.
• It is often hard to know what on earth the sender wants from you in an email. Often you will receive provocative ones wanting to drive you into a frenzied response.
• Or what about the ones that have been zinging around the group so much so that the subject line is totally disconnected from the topic.
• Often people are frustrated by not getting people to follow their verbal instructions; so they think by sending an email providing a detailed procedure or request that this will improve things. But this doesn’t happen as the recipient couldn’t be bothered to read it at all.

One thing is for sure; There are far too many emails. Only 20 years ago, most businesses didn’t have emails. Just clumsy faxes and mostly – phone calls. The world still worked as well as today. So let’s all actively work to cut emails down and make the ones you send far more effective.

A few idle suggestions follow.

A Quick Tool Kit on Dealing with your next emails
1. Don’t stay in suspended animation waiting for the next email to respond to. Do some useful work and save a block of time through the day to respond to emails. Working on emails is not always highly productive work. You have probably other things to do which will make you more productive. Block out time to answer emails and go do something else more useful.

2. When you reply to an email change the subject line if the subject is changing. It takes a few seconds and it then helps track the discussion’s progress.

3. Use the ‘To’ and ‘cc’ fields rationally. TO is for people who have to do something. CC is for someone who doesn’t have to act on your note.  Don’t cc people who have not the slightest interest or involvement with your message. You are simply clogging up their inbox with unnecessary traffic.

4. If you want someone to act on something; put it specifically in your email message with what you require and a deadline.

5. If you are unsure about someone acting on your email (or they often don’t bother to respond); try and restructure your email so that if they don’t do what you require; you will automatically take some action. This normally immediately provokes a response e.g. ‘If  I don’t hear back from you by Friday morning, I will assume you agree with our approach and will not be contributing anything further to the design and we will proceed as stated in the attachment’.

6. Don’t conduct a lengthy debate on email. It is unproductive and probably best done in person or with a live discussion (e.g. skype or perhaps live chatting with text)

7. Read your email before you send it. Most people simply bang it off without going through it carefully and confirming this is indeed what they want to send.

8. Don’t send an angry email without leaving it to cool for a while when you can review it later and modify it or delete it and then send it.

9. Emails are often difficult to locate; so if there is a significant number belonging to a particular project; they should be automatically filed in their own folder.

10. Remember anything tricky, urgent or requiring careful thought and debate is best done using the phone or face-to-face discussions.
Thanks to Susan de La Vergne of the IEEE for a great article on email.

If these tips don’t save a few minutes in your frantic work today; do let me know of any other suggestions.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh makes a great point when she says : Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Many of your applications such as in the industrial, military and aerospace area are in exceptionally demanding environments with extreme levels of vibration, high humidity, dust, severe voltage variations and of course, that good old chestnut – extended temperature variations.

When manufacturers of computing hardware (particularly single board computers) provide their products for integration in these environments, they will often quote ‘extended temperature’ ranges. This should give you a warm and fuzzy feeling that all is well if you are operating within these extended temperature ranges in the field.

However, sadly, this is not always the case…..

Watch out for Engineering Untruths
The definition of extended temperature ranges can vary by vendor with typical ranges as follows:

-40 to +85 degrees Celsius
-20 to +70 degrees Celsius
-40 to +75 degrees Celsius

However, the picture isn’t as rosy as it would first seem.

As most of you hard headed veterans of engineering procurement know from bitter experience - an important rule always applies to purchases: ‘There is no such thing as a free lunch’ or ‘If it is too good to be true, then it is too good to be true’. A cheaper system doesn’t always mean you are saving money. Many manufacturers will unashamedly use lower specification commercial grade components in extended temperature products which will fail if used repeatedly near their stated temperature limits.

And as you know – replacement of a component on a circuit board for a critical application can run into thousands of dollars.

Always Assume the Worst
First of all, many users are optimistic about their temperature ranges and tend to underestimate the extremes and thus select -20 to +70 degrees Celsius range when they should be going for a far greater swing.

For example, an embedded system operated in a vehicle may see the temperature of the car reach over 90 degrees Celsius within 30 minutes on a hot day (yes – Western Australia!). At the other end of the spectrum, temperatures in cities such as Chicago (and remote mine sites high up in the Andes) see temperatures frequently falling below -20 degrees Celsius.

What Goes Wrong With Your Components
Thermal runaway is a major problem for an electronic component (e.g. CPU) operating outside its temperature range. Power dissipation increases as a function of the temperature which raises the temperature of the device further until it fails (or explodes).

Crystal oscillators and capacitors do not like temperatures below their stated limits and tend to cause timing errors and unpredictable change in parameters before component failure.

Testing Short Cuts
Some manufacturers take short cuts when designing and testing.  Before buying any product, verify exactly how they do their testing. Some vendors will provide extended temperature ranges for their systems but only test them intermittently at these extended temperatures (or sometimes once-off).

Final Comment
As far as I am aware, there is no industry standard for designing, manufacturing and testing extended temperature embedded computing products. So this means that vendors can define their own standards and approaches. You have to thus be vigilant about what you use and investigate what extended temperature ranges mean for your application.

I would like to acknowledge an interesting non-sales whitepaper entitled Embedded Computing Mythbuster by Versalogic Corporation.

Aldous Huxley remarks apply to engineering professionals on a daily basis: Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Psychologists call it the anchoring effect - the tendency of humans to adopt a familiar yardstick (such as the familiar electric light bulb) in using as a benchmark in predicting savings. As a result most people tend to underestimate energy savings. Well, according to the latest research.

When looking at energy savings, we tend to focus on upgrading light bulbs (to LED types) and twiddling thermostats. Most people grasp basic issues about energy savings; but they are decidedly unsure about the details, especially when estimating. Apparently participants in recent research underestimated both energy use and savings by almost a factor of 3. And also tended to grossly underestimate the massive energy savings that could come from tweaking larger machines such as heaters and clothes dryers. Most people tend to focus on small savings such as switching off lights and ignored (as a typical example) the great savings from moving their washing machine from a hot to a warm setting thus saving 4kWh for each load of laundry.

The estimates of savings thus tend to cluster around this yard stick (psychologists call this process ‘anchoring’) and thus we tend to grossly underestimate the savings that could be made. Naturally, if the average person used a larger yardstick (beyond the light bulb), the problem may be less pervasive. And if you are intuitively good at maths (or arithmetic), you are likely to have a considerably lower level of error.

Based on this, there is probably a case for idiot proof energy saving devices that indicate exactly how much energy you consume.

What can you do about it?

• If you want to calculate energy savings, then try and do this systematically taking into account the real energy numbers.
• Look at energy savings by examining the great opportunities to squeeze a tiny percentage saving from larger machines, resulting in significant savings – rather than replacing a few lightbulbs.
• And when estimating other items in your engineering work watch out for the ‘anchoring’ effect – practised unintentionally either by yourself or others.

Naturally, I am not knocking looking at the small things when undertaking energy savings. But merely pointing at the need to also aim at making a tinier % saving out of a considerably larger item resulting in a larger absolute energy saving. Hopefully this makes sense?

Thanks to the National Academy of Sciences (and the Economist) for an interesting piece of research.

Never overestimate what others do. As Cory Doctorow said: Engineers are all basically high-functioning autistics who have no idea how normal people do stuff.
 
Regards,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

You've probably heard of Google Glasses which displays text messages right next to your eyes. There are a range of wearable devices offering all sorts of features on the market. These include wearable devices that measure heart rates, how many calories we are burning or how many steps we have walked.

Now this is moving into the brutal world of work where there are huge opportunities to apply these nifty technologies to your job or indeed next engineering design to improve performance. And this ranges all the way from a tradesman working on a building site to the engineering manager considering a remarkable new design.

There is One Major Risk with Wearable Devices
Absolutely no one wants to feel that “Big Brother’ is watching their every move. Especially when they are engaged in creative work and often stressful work situations. So anyone who believes that they are able to improve productivity by forcing people to wear devices to monitor their every movement and activity is probably going to be massively disappointed with a drop in performance and some discontent.

Interesting Applications of Wearable Devices
There is a vast range of opportunities to apply wearable devices from improving the performance of football teams with wearable devices monitoring their physical exertion to offices where employees are advised on their level of engagement with others or their level of stress to warehouse crews wearing talking glasses keeping them informed about the progress of a task.

These are briefly discussed below.

Office Activities
A wearable device monitors employees’ interactions with others and gives a map of their level of interaction and stress levels. People who have minimal interaction can be identified and counselled if interaction is a key part of their job.  This device has sensors that monitor movement/speaking/light/temperature and location. For example, in a one hour brain storming session it may indicate someone with a low energy level who is not contributing much to the meeting.

Running a Factory
Smart glasses now have a high definition camera built into them allowing immediate scanning of codes. Built in audio gives the worker immediate feedback on any problems on the job. And guidance in undertaking some difficult task in calibrating an instrument or rewiring a switchboard.

Football Teams
One of the most interesting (and robust) application of wearable devices is one which contains a gyroscope, accelerometer and magnetometer to measure a football players’ acceleration, maximum speed, change of direction and overall distance covered. The fatigue of the players can be assessed and injury avoided. All in real time.
Just bear in mind with all these exciting technologies that they have to be simple (and follow the KISS principle) and economically viable.

Thanks to the New York Times for an interesting article on the issue of Wearable Gadgets.

Many of these devices are difficult to imagine in the real world; but as Frank Lloyd Wright remarked: The thing always happens that you really believe in; and the belief in a thing makes it happen.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

You all know about fiddly power cables and the proliferation of different power supplies and plugs with the myriad number of different electronic gadgets in our busy lives. A veritable nightmare. The USB (Universal Serial Bus) has definitely simplified my life by simplifying my connections here. Today most phones, cameras, 3G modems and other devices (including my wife’s Kindle) can charge from a simple USB cable plugged into a computer (or adaptor).

The only challenge is that the USB connection can’t deliver too much power. Approximately 2.5watts at present (500mA-5V, 900mA with USB 3.0, to be exact). Despite this drawback, some ingenious designers have used the USB port to power fridges and fans and other exotic products. But certainly power is an issue for most devices.

Interestingly, Power over Ethernet (PoE), also provides a similar option although up to 57Vdc (rather than 5Vdc for USB). It is difficult to distribute USB power at 5 volts throughout a building due to the voltage drop on cables (but easier for PoE at 57volts).

The Next Big Change - Power
From 2014, USB will be able to provide power to larger electronic devices up to 100 watts. This is called the USB PD (Power Delivery) standard.

This will certainly revolutionise the office and home. As it is a widely applied standard with massive manufacturer support. Thus direct current power (dc) will be used to power a growing number of devices. You can see that the alternating current approach will be less obvious in the future. This fits in well with solar panels which produce dc power and are a growing feature of our home and work landscape.

The Interesting History
Mr Ajay Bhatt of Intel (the ubiquitous chipmaker) invented the USB connection to cut out the hassle of plugging a variety of different devices into a computer (e.g. keyboard, mouse and speakers). It was certainly not designed to power devices. Although, it is definitely the default device for charging a wide range of electronic gadgets (at low power).

Forget About Fantasies
There are now suggestions that flowing from the rapid growth of USB connections that dc power will be used more widely outside the office and home. Highly unlikely. The existing power grid is standardized on high voltage ac low amperage cables and is the only feasible way of transmitting large amounts of power over long distances using transformers. High voltage dc transmission systems are certainly used (and the equipment to lower their voltages is around); but are still relatively rare and expensive. Will this change? I doubt it; but as we know technology is never quite predictable.

What are the Take Away Ideas?
USB is a fantastic standard – widely used and widening its impact.

Providing significant dc power from USB devices will make a huge impact on the home and office.

One minor glitch
One thing that does irritate me (admittedly, ever so slightly in the grand scheme of things) is that the USB plug fits into the socket only one way (apparently the original design was to make the plug as cheap as possible). Ajay Bhatt is now working on making the USB plug ‘flippable’. That would be a brilliant innovation.

USB is certainly getting to this point with Arthur C. Clarke’s comment: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

On a regular basis, you will often be confronted with requests for a quick summary of some lengthy meeting or series of documents. You will have to provide the key ideas in simple easy-to-read English with no jargon. Seemingly an intractable task.

Herewith a few tips on achieving this task:

• Identify what you want to achieve with the summary
• Consider who your audience is, what they already know and what they want from your summary?
• Initially do a brain dump on everything you can think of relating to the topic. Don’t worry about the clutter of detail. Just write everything down in a roughly logical sequence.
• Choose the key facts – eliminate all irrelevant detail by considering what your audience want from it (For every detail ask the question: Does my audience absolutely need to know this?)
• Avoid technical jargon. Stick to simple understandable English. Avoid any diversions. Use active case with verbs rather than roundabout language.
• Order the sequence of information so that it is logical and easy to understand.
• Ensure that your write-up is objective and unbiased (by your experiences for example).
• Come back after a few hours (or even a day) and re-read what you have written and ensure that it is easy to understand.
• If you are presenting this; practise and practise until you are perfect and able to handle any awkward questions.

I really love this comment by Edwin Schlossberg:

The skill of writing is to create a context in which other people can think.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Although this note sounds like it is about high flying IT strategy; you can be assured that it is down-to-earth and impacts on everyone (and is thus relevant to you) – no matter whether you are an electrician in a process plant, a designer contemplating a mechanical system, a civil engineer or indeed director of Chevron sitting in a boardroom.

1. New Technology
One thing that is a given is the rapidly developing world of IT. The goals of your organization tend to remain constant and the challenge for you is in deciding whether a new IT system (e.g. Cloud, Virtualization, Mobility) will indeed be of real benefit or not.

The key question to thus to ask whether this new technology will reliably solve your existing problems or help you achieve your goals. If there are any doubts; then don’t proceed.

2. Cloud
This is a fast growing technology with enormous benefits but some major problems if not handled correctly.  You may be running all your applications in-house (or at home on one dedicated computer). Will running everything on the cloud solve some of your day-to-day challenges in managing these facilities? Do you have a reliable internet connection and how critical is your data in terms of security? Do you need to have access to your data no matter where you are in the world?

3. Energy Efficiency and Climate Change
IT data centers are chewing energy at enormous rates. Estimates (in the USA, at least) is that data centers are now consuming a few percent of the total energy consumption of the USA. Actively use tools to monitor your IT and telecommunications energy usage and work out ways to reduce it. You could easily save a considerable amount of money and help reduce your carbon footprint. Don’t forget your telecommunications system either.

4. Mobile Devices and Interoperability
Avoid proprietary systems and stick to open architectures that allow you to easily connect to other systems. Ensure that your mobile universe of tablets and phone are also interoperable with your existing IT systems. Seriously consider using tablets where you can demonstrate a benefit over desktop or notebook computing technologies.

5. Bring Your Own Devices (BYOD)
With your staff bringing their own smart phones, tablets and other mobile devices to your factory, office or plant (or indeed using them as mobile connections to your factory when travelling); control of security and access becomes more problematic. It is probably a losing battle trying to control users’ devices and trying to monitor every device that links to your network (unless you are in a prison). Best to look at alternative strategies such as protecting the data on the server and allowing users to access data on servers they are authorized to access (but doesn’t store the data on any mobile device).

6. Virtualization
The concept of virtualization is to allow several operating systems in parallel on a single computer (or CPU). This can reduce overhead costs allowing you to manage updates to software without disrupting the user. This is a fast growing technology and is something you will be increasingly confronted with no matter where your IT systems reside – in the plant or office.

7. Social Networks
Some engineering professionals may raise an eyebrow at social networks being mentioned. Personally, I shudder at the amount of rubbish that is exchanged on these forums (e.g. the interesting practice of ‘endorsing skills’ of people who you hardly know). However, these can be of enormous benefit for locating critical information, discussing thorny engineering issues and naturally in recruiting key staff for upcoming projects.

8. Big Data
Data is growing dramatically throughout the organization. Most of it being collected in different parts of the organization (e.g. emails / blogs / documents / video / images / process control data….). A holistic analysis of this disconnected data has the potential to reveal some great relationships between process and business data, for example.

You thus may need new approaches for capturing and storing your data. Data is generated in real time and you may need to consider 100 Gbit Ethernet and solid state drives to improve response times.

9. Support Users Aggressively
With the rapid democratization of IT to everyone in the company; poor support and lack of engagement by the department handling IT issues is quickly noticed. And indeed, the IT team will be bypassed if they do not aggressively support users and make their lives easier. Ensure the IT department is well trained and highly proactive and supportive of everyone in the company.

Thanks to Paul Simoneau for a thought provoking note on current IT isssues and who has also written some great books on SNMP and TCP/IP.

Remember with this rapid growth in IT opportunities, that as the Abbe’ D’Allanival remarked: The more alternatives, the more difficult the choice.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Ranging from the plumbing blocking up, an intermittent electrical fault to the bungled design of an exotic process plant, we get confronted with problems on a daily basis.

Some of us get hugely remunerated for solving problems – an airline pilot for solving a problem which involves 45 seconds in his entire career as he wrestles a plane safely to ground, or Red Adair putting out oil fires. Some not so, such as the astronauts bringing Apollo 13 back. At the end of the day, as engineers, I believe problems are our stock-in-trade. Part of our reason to be at work.

For some reason, we are initially taught at college that engineering is all about design and coming up with a nice overall system - there is very little mention or discussion based on problems, until they occur. This is a huge oversight in teaching engineering – that problems are a key part of being an engineer. Perhaps, would-be engineering professionals would be put off by being confronted with a daily litany of problems to solve. If we don’t have problems, we don’t have a job. Interestingly, our most popular short courses (for engineers or technicians) are the troubleshooting and problem solving ones.

Fred Nickols ("Solution Engineering: Ten Tips for Beefing up your Problem solving Toolbox") gives some really excellent tips on a great sequence for problem solving which I have modified to my more simplistic way of thinking:

1. Focus on the desired solved state
Most of the time we contemplate a problem with horror and ignore what we want to achieve. With this mind set we focus on the problem and then move from problem state to problem state. Instead, visualise clearly what you see as the final solution and focus on this unerringly through the entire process.

2. Be clear about ALL your objectives.
To clarify this it is worth asking:
What are we trying to achieve/preserve/avoid/eliminate?

3. Expand your definition of the problem
The acclaimed "define the problem" is the most poorly understood and executed step in the process. And as you solve the problem, this definition changes. Do the following:
Locate the problem/Isolate it/Describe it precisely/Define it

4. Bounce around like Sherlock to solve a problem
The information you need is not in one structured pile, but in a heap of little bits scattered far and wide; both written down and in many people’s heads. And changing. Be Sherlock Holmes – the brilliant detective; find it all and bring it together.

5. Picture it
We are engineers after all and tend to be visual thinkers. Diagrams and schematics should be used as much as possible.

6. Don’t always fret about the cause
Causes can sometimes be fixed and should be investigated. But don’t waste valuable time and effort looking into a cause where it is not going to help you solve the problem.

7. Avoid disconnects
We go through this every day. Top management gives instructions on fixing a perceived problem. By the time it gets down to the electrician on the shop floor, the problem has disappeared and he is merely doing a useless job for which the reason no longer exists.

8. Know your own vision
We all have built in biases and approaches to doing things. Sometimes good and sometimes not so good. It is best to be ruthless about what they are and understand the overlap between our personal and the rational objective world out there when assessing the problem. Stand back and watch yourself solve a problem and try to understand your biases for next time. Use your strengths, but guard against your weaknesses.

9.Create your own system
You know your skills and expertise the best. Develop your own system.

10. Sharpen your knife
Keep refining your knowledge and expertise and sharpening your problem solving abilities. Try and approach problem solving with a win-win philosophy. Solving the problem will result in an improved overall system.

I believe in what the famous mathematician and scientist, Rene Descartes observed:

‘Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.’

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Many years ago, in an isolated part of the outback on the inevitable mine site in hot and dry conditions, one of our guys inserted a communications board into the PLC rack and inadvertently destroyed one of the key memory chips by electrostatic discharge (ESD). Fortunately, we had one backup board left. But it was a salutary lesson in being vigilant about the effects of ESD. No back up board could have meant significant down time while we waited for a replacement to be shipped to site.

The costs of electrostatic discharge (ESD) can have a significant impact on your business and work. ESD is the sudden flow of electrical energy between two objects after the build up of static electricity on the one object. The most common example is that of a person walking across the floor, who generates static electricity as his/her shoes intermittently make contact with the floor. Just sliding an electronic component in and out of a bag can destroy the electronic components. Believe it or not, but walking across the carpet (with up to 25% Relative Humidity) can generate 35,000 volts. We all work with electronic components and boards. And the newer components are becoming more and more sensitive to ESD problems.

A decrease in humidity tends to make the problem worse by increasing the level of static electricity (as the water molecules in the air vapour normally conduct some of the static charge away to ground thus reducing the problem – thus dryer air makes for less conductivity and more static electricity).

An Invisible Foe
Many times a day, ESD incidents occur below the human sensitivity threshold of 3000 V. Mostly never seen but causing enormous damage to circuit boards and sensitive electronic components. Remember that a small 100 volts can destroy an electronic component. It is claimed that the mere wave of the arm can generate sufficient ESD to damage an electronic component.

Costs Can Be Huge
It is claimed that high tech companies could be incurring costs up to 6% of their revenue due to ESD damage. Remember that the  loss of a single component on a circuit board could results in a significant additional cost (well beyond that of the cost of the individual component) because of the need to replace or repair the entire board. This means the cost of failure of a $5 component could be hundreds of times greater.

An ESD To Do List
Some suggestions for dealing with the problem are listed below.

1. Learn as much about your exposure to ESD at your firm. Consult widely. Esp. the internet and experts in the area.
2. Identify sensitive work areas such as assembly, packaging stations, engineering and testing areas. Any where you handle electronic products which are unshielded or unprotected.
3. Identify sources of ESD within your Work Areas. This includes such items as non-conductive materials (plastic parts, tape, cardboard and Styrofoam). Also computer monitors or laser printer paper.
4. Assess the level of protection for each work areas. This may require innovative solutions such as using fibre optics or wireless to connect to sensitive devices.
5. Prepare a Plan of Action. Put together a plan including easily understood procedures, responsibilities of key staff, training and checks that the plan is indeed being actioned.
6. Implement Solutions. Install grounding mats and work surface mats where required. Ensure staff use wrist straps, heel straps and ESD-protective clothing (and shoes) to conduct static electricity away. Clearly signpost areas where potential damage may occur. Consider air ionization to neutralize charge build up on objects in the work area. Finally, educate staff in the key principles of ESD protection.

Maintenance is the key
Finally remember that you must maintain your ESD program. Wrist straps and other personal grounding devices require regular testing and replacement. Use a static charge meter to indicate the effectiveness of your system.

Thanks to an interesting white paper by Versalogic entitled: The Invisible Foe – Understanding and Controlling ESD Damage.

When fixing the problems with your ESD issues, Henry J. Kaiser's comment comes to mind: Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

In some of my more desperate moments, I sometimes think the universe is a malevolent force. Tough and unforgiving. Admittedly, I am at that age (mid fifties) when friends and colleagues are ‘falling off their perches’ or getting sicker than usual. The so-called global financial disaster also pushed a lot of very good engineering businesses into a death spiral making people quite sad. And added to this; the rapid change due to technology (i.e. mainly the internet and IT related) has also made things considerably more challenging (perhaps interesting?) from a career and personal point of view.

Recently, I have had a few good friends encounter significant set backs in their lives – such as suicide of partners, murder of a beloved family member, kids killed, businesses go insolvent and serious illnesses galore….not that I want to dwell on these issues. So I thought it would be good to revisit an old blog of mine here. Mainly focussing on the engineering issues but touching on the personal side as well.

We all Experience Setbacks
We all experience setbacks and bad things particularly in our engineering work and our personal lives. I do often. At the risk of sounding like a ‘jolly hockey sticks’ fan, here are some strategies to work through these times quickly and effectively and perhaps come out feeling a bit better.

Bad things Vary
Often referred to as failures, perhaps you had a bad project outcome; unhappy angry client; missed a deadline; ran over budget or got passed over for a deserved promotion. Or you might have lost the Olympic gold medal by less than one hundredth of a second!

Here are some good strategies to get back from the bad times as quickly as possible:

1. Change Channels
Do something totally different. Disconnect from your current activity and change channels to something different. Watch a good movie, listen to Deep Purple music or walk to a nice quiet spot and scream at the top of your lungs. Take a vacation in a nice positive environment.

2. Work the bad vibes out of your system physically
Often the quickest way to get through this; is to engage in high level physical activity. Where you really sweat it out. A long run on the beach, a work out in the gym or a long hard walk. Or as I did this morning - a hard ride on my bike through the rain and wind. A bit daunting though.When you exercise you release the wonderful endorphins; which make you feel better and eliminate the negative emotions and vibes.

3. Breathe deeply
If you are an extraordinarily bad emotional state; then focus all on your energy on taking deep slow breaths by expanding your diaphragm. Concentrate on how the air enters your body and how you inhale and exhale slowly. Do ten deep breaths and contemplate life again. Often you will feel considerably better. Do this often.

4. Do a post mortem of what went wrong
Contemplate carefully and objectively what went wrong – where did you fail and why? Did you not have sufficient information on your competition; were you overconfident; did you make a wrong calculation; did you depend on the wrong person? Often you need to get an independent opinion as to what happened. Are you being too harsh on yourself.
The key is to learn from your mistakes and ensure you don’t repeat this one again. Or to be more philosophical in future.

5. Sweat the stuff you can control
Consider carefully what you have control over and what you don’t or can’t control. Many things in life; we can’t directly control and have to accept the situation. Without losing sleep or simply giving up on everything.

6. Seize the situation
Often things are extraordinarily painful to deal with. The project has gone bad and your client wants you to make some awkward decisions. The supplier of critical components has gone bust. Your key engineer on the project has left to join the competition. But you have to face up to the situation and simply deal with it. Things are not what you wanted and have ended up the wrong way.

But you know what – rarely does life pan out the way we want. Seize the situation and plunge in and deal with it. Now.

You will be the better for it.

William Shakespeare in "The Winter's Tale" suggests: What's gone and what's past help. Should be past grief.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

I am always rather cautious about politicians’ speeches as they are often self-serving or meaningless. However, one can modify President Kennedy’s powerful speech in 1960 with my words italicized:
…..ask not what your country can do for you as far as a job—ask what you can do for your country.

There is an Expectation
There is an expectation that when you graduate with an engineering degree or diploma that you then need to seek out employment and a good job (preferably with a blue chip company).

Due to the rapid changing and often chaotic job market, I believe it is critical that we imbue our young ones with the entrepreneurial flair to create their own jobs. I know this can be extraordinarily difficult (and believe me I have been there many times and it can be exquisitely painful to set up a profitable company) but if we can encourage everyone at school or college to start thinking about setting up their own operations and innovating, we will make the economy more vibrant and unemployment less of an issue in the tough times. It doesn’t have to be a massive megacorporation – it can be a sole trader – just you, yourself.

It is certainly not easy being an entrepreneur and creating your own employment. It can be massively difficult with lots of challenges thrown your way. However, I believe the era of large corporations offering unlimited employment to all our school and college graduates has long since passed. The large companies are unable to adapt to sudden economic shocks and to stay in business will often suddenly lay huge numbers of people off.

I do still remember our young kids operating a lemonade stand on our street making a few dollars or busking with their violins in the city (and making a huge amount of money). Admittedly, under close parental guidance. Most of our kids have the entrepreneurial impulse when they are younger. This needs to be nurtured.

Your Entrepreneurial To Do List
This requires you or your kids to think along the lines of:

• Identify the gap in the market (it may only be for a short time)
• Ensure the job or company you create is something you are passionate about
• Create an innovative solution
• Be flexible in your thinking and operations
• Do not be afraid to fail
• Seek advice from others who have proven track records
• Persist in seeking out the best solutions
• Work hard on marketing and business development
• Communicate well to staff, clients and suppliers
• Understand the need to be profitable
• Look after your personal health and well being at all times

One of the finest areas of endeavour is naturally engineering and technology. So go for it. Encourage your kids and your young ones to think hard on being entrepreneurial and running their own businesses. Hopefully employing others and enjoying themselves.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

I know many of you will think I have lost the plot when discussing the KISS principle but it is a vital engineering philosophy. Most of you will know it means: Keep it Simple, Stupid (other variations are Keep it Short and Simple). This should be a key goal in all engineering design. Of course, there is no suggestion that the design engineer or the user of the equipment is stupid. It is just that this is a very effective principle.

In passing, I often say that we should make the product or service orang utan proof (with apologies to the orang utan). Able to be used by anyone under the most stressful and trying of circumstances.

Historically Speaking
Apparently the acronym KISS was first used by Kelly Johnson, the lead engineer for the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes. His philosophy was that the aircraft his team was designing must be repairable by an average mechanic under highly stressful conditions (war or combat) with a limited set of tools. Other related commentaries have come from Albert Einstein who remarked: Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler; and Leonardo Da Vinci who noted: Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

I am sure most of you have been confronted with a design that is simply too complex to be usable. Especially, when the operators having to use it are not highly sophisticated or trained. Or the operators are in a tough environment (e.g. mining or the harsh marine environment) and have limited time for the niceties in operating the equipment.
An area which I am sure most of us have come across are badly designed SCADA operator screens which make it very difficult for an operator to visualize exactly what is going on in the plant. And then when an emergency occurs, the deluge of information makes it very difficult to rectify the situation.

Avoid Creeping
The enemies of the KISS principle are function creep or scope creep. This is especially true in software development. This refers to uncontrolled growth in the scope of the project often due to the user demanding more features or changes. This requirement for changes to the project; generally are not accompanied by any increase in resources, schedule or budget. This generally results in a project which is over budget and  well outside the deadlines for completion. And in the case of software development; it is often associated with a failed software development. The resultant product developed (after scope creep) is often too complex to be usable.

The solution is when developing a product is to be absolutely ruthless in the development to make the product as simple and effective as possible and to avoid all attempts at giving it more features. And in the development process not to allow any changes. Only allow changes when they have been carefully considered and costed and do not make the product more complex.

Not that this is an advertisement for the Apple range of products; but the late Steve Jobs spent an inordinate amount of time in the development of these products (such as the iPod) in making them as simple to use and operate as possible.

Thanks to Wikipedia and the Princeton Review for a discussion on the KISS principle.

Jessie Sampter summarises the situation well: Simplicity is the peak of civilization.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

I am not suggesting that, as an engineering professional, you get put to death through negligence in your design or maintenance. But the old Code of Hammurabi stated 5000 years ago, that ‘If a builder builds a house and the house collapses and causes the death of the owner, that builder shall be put to death’.

Certainly, the Romans were also quite ruthless with execution of engineers who failed in the adequate construction of viaducts and bridges. Penalties are perhaps less harsh today; but consequences of negligence can be far more deadly due to the greater number of people using engineered facilities. Simply put: An engineered system fails when it stops working according to agreed standards. And failure is often due to negligence in the design and construction – and often through human factors.

I would note that there are often failures which are not due to engineering negligence – simply lawyers finding unreasonable fault.

Disasters Litter the Engineering Landscape
You can reel off a list of disasters caused by negligence that litter the engineering landscape:

• Challenger Space shuttle explodes killing 7 crew. Due to failure of the O-ring leading to the explosion of liquid fuel tanks.
• Bhopal. Piping systems failure leading to toxic vapour linked to the killing of thousands.
• Piper Alpha. An offshore platform exploded, killing numerous personnel.
• Chernobyl. A nuclear cloud is released over Europe.
• Therac-25, a cancer irradiation device. Due to a software bug patients are killed by the doses of radiation.

And recently, some spectacularly ugly train accidents. How on earth; after so much investment in train safety systems; can we still have head-on collisions? I can also list many bridge failures and building collapses due to negligence (and not only in the so-called Third World but in highly sophisticated economies such as the USA and Canada).

The Main Causes of Engineering Disasters
The primary causes of engineering disasters (according to SUNY at Stony Brook) are due to (entirely or in part):

• Human factors (incl. both ethical failure and accidents)
• Design flaws (resulting often from unethical practices)
• Materials failures
• Extreme conditions or environments

A recent study pointed out engineers were at fault with the top four reasons being:

• Insufficient knowledge (36%)
• Underestimation of influence (16%)
• Ignorance, carelessness, negligence (14%)
• Forgetfulness, error (13%)

(this is from a study of 800 structural failures)

How to Guard against these human flaws?
A simple starting point, I would respectfully suggest is to question everything you and your colleagues do in your engineering work. Never accept anything at face value.
Hopefully, what Doug Adams says is not true about you and me: ‘He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which’.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Despite the depressed economy, up skilling is still very much alive and well. Although, who pays for it has changed dramatically over the past few years. An interesting recent report by Kelly Global Workforce Index, shows that more and more engineering professionals (amongst others) are proactively grabbing training opportunities themselves without relying on employers to provide them.

This is different to only five years ago, when companies used to budget for training of their staff. However with tough times for many employers, this approach to training has dropped off dramatically. Perhaps you have been affected with fewer training opportunities due to lower profits of the firm you are working for?

Employees are now taking responsibility for their own up skilling and paying for it themselves. It is critical in today’s fast moving technological world to keep sharpening your knowledge and skills to take advantage of the growing and changing job opportunities – particularly in engineering.

Up skilling and Staying with your current company
Interestingly, this report notes that a large percentage (60%) of people are not up skilling to find new jobs – on the contrary, they are loyal and hoping for promotion within their current company. And no surprise to most of you - the most valued source of training (as expected) is on-the-job training.

Don’t give up when your initial training request is turned down
Today, managers don’t have the big budgets for training; so they often have to reluctantly turn down training requests. Hence, if you are putting in a request for training, you need to make a clear case of the benefits to the organisation – otherwise you are wasting your time. Putting a request in generally shows the company that you have initiative and are keen about up skilling and thus benefiting the company. So keep trying and your persistence will be rewarded. Naturally, the training junkets in Bali and Hawaii are generally a thing of the past.

Up skilling can also be cheap
Bear in mind that expensive training is not a requirement for up skilling. It can be as simple as buying a book. Or engaging in on-the-job training or finding a mentor to help you gain a particular skill. This is often the most powerful form of training.

Find the Time
When working, it can be difficult to block off the time to put the effort into up skilling yourself or gaining the requisite knowledge. The best way I find, is to build a habit of studying at a particular time and particular place. Often first thing in the morning before coming to work or at lunch time. Make time by getting rid of some extraneous activity such as perusing emails, or trawling news-sites and Facebook. Many companies are requesting vendors to come in and provide lunch-and-learn sessions about a particular technology. A great idea; as long as there isn’t a huge amount of selling their products or services but focussing on real training.

Technical Skills are Vital but so are Soft Skills
As engineering professionals, technical skills are critical to you but communication skills can also make or break you – especially when you want to move up the career ladder. Soft skills are thus a critical part of your career armoury.

Up Skill Collaboratively in a Team
An innovative way is to work in teams to up skill. This can be a very motivational experience in improving your skills in a team and working together on assignments or problems in a collaborative way. Your colleague can be your coach.

Thanks to John R. Platt of the IEEE for an interesting article on skills.

Remember, Joseph Badracco's famous comment: In today's environment, hoarding knowledge ultimately erodes your power. If you know something very important, the way to get power is by actually sharing it.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

There is no way I can give you a silver bullet to writing well. As you can probably guess - I struggle enough as it is. My wife (an ex English teacher) reckons I am too convoluted and verbose. But one sure-fire way to improve your writing skills is to read more good books from outstanding authors. Unfortunately, this generally excludes often poorly written web copy, blogs and technical journals (with a few notable exceptions).

Why Bother about Writing Well?
It is vital to work on your writing skills, as this has a major impact on your engineering career. And many engineering professionals, I am sorry to say, are virtually illiterate (some even using mobile phone texting syntax in their letters and correspondence).

A few characteristics of good writers
While I certainly can’t give you a cut and dried formula to success, some suggestions about how good writers excel are:

• They write simply and get to the point quickly.
• They don’t litter their prose with clichés
• They don’t use standard templates in their writing
• They make their ideas interesting and useful
• They commence with a catchy or intriguing comment
• They make you think
• They show leadership and provide important lessons

Get a good book from one of the greats of literature (Austin, Orwell, Hemingway, Vonnegut, Twain, Rowling) and ponder their words.

Thanks to an interesting article by Susan De La Vergne of the IEEE for a great article on writing well.

It is hard work in persisting with improving your writing skills. As William Zinsser points out:  If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Diverging and dreaming outside the engineering box is a key attribute of innovation and creativity. A critical part of the creative process is to diverge from the initial concept – moving out from the initial point and examining the problem from many different directions (many probably hopelessly ludicrous and foolish as Steve Jobs remarked); branching out, discovering new ideas and then refining these different approaches.

Converge Creatively
Once you have a whole heap of solutions to your problem or design; the issue is then to converge to a solution by eliminating approaches which are not going to work effectively.

You may need to move between diverging and converging approaches many times until you refine your solution to arrive at a functioning product (or service).

Apply this to Next Presentation
One area where we are constantly creating and being reasonably creative is in presentations. Most of the time; we put a ferocious amount of effort into creating a sequence of slides and then re-arranging them to try and putting them into some logical order. Then we deliver the presentation with gay abandon. Often the slides and presentation are disorganized, clunky and confusing. People are not quite sure what you are trying to tell them and what you want them to do.

Diverge and Converge with your Next Presentation
A good strategy with your next presentation is collect all your ideas on separate pieces of paper (or electronically) in such a way that you can easily move them around. Put only one idea on each piece of paper.

Then rearrange the pieces of paper into:

• Introduction of idea
• What is the Benefit in going through this
• The Key Ideas
• Concluding Points and Summary
• Call To Action

Eliminate any superfluous or irrelevant information.

This Approach Works Well in a Team
If you’ve ever watched a BBC TV (generally fictitious) crime investigation; you will see how they enhance the creativity of the team of detectives. Every bit of information or observation (and picture) gets pinned to a whiteboard and then the entire team trys to work out the sequence of events and the linkages between the individual elements. You can do the same with a team presentation. Take all the individual contributions for the proposed presentation on (sticky yellow) pieces of paper and put them up prominently on the whiteboard for all to see and critique and then try and sequence them logically as noted above.

Naturally you will have to throw away dysfunctional or irrelevant information and content. This does sometimes require a clinical approach but shouldn’t detract from your overall creativity.

As George Lois rightly says:

Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.

Thanks to Susan de la Vergne of the IEEE for a thought provoking discussion on the importance of divergence and convergence in creating a product or service.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Objects around you are increasingly being embedded with a myriad of sensors and actuators – from your roadway, body to your industrial process. Data from these sensors is then being transmitted over the internet using the familiar TCP/IP protocols.

There are incredible opportunities opening up in engineering and industry to apply these technologies and data to your work. When formerly inanimate objects can sense the environment and communicate, they become tools for discerning what is happening in remote environments and making decisions on the data. And quickly. It should be added that much of the decisionmaking is without any human intervention at all.

You are already probably aware of the tiny microcameras that you can swallow to view your gut to pick up sources of illness. Or remote farming equipment that takes into account weather and rain conditions. Cars that brake automatically when detecting an object ahead. Billboards that adjust their messages based on consumers passing.

For better or worse this will affect you – no matter whether you are an operator on a process plant or marketing director of a blue chip company.

Six Applications Lurking Out there
According to McKinsey there are six types of applications with the Internet of Things:

1. Tracking Behaviour
Sensors track usage of equipment ranging from cars to the level of thrust of a jet engine to products moving through supply chains (using RFID). This data is then relayed back to make decisions on fees to charge for usage of a jet engine to instructions to adjust shipments of goods.

2. Environmental (or Situational) Awareness
Data from sensors (e.g. video/audio/flow) can indicate soil moisture, ocean currents, weather, rain, traffic intensity or intruders in a particular zone. Action can then be taken to re-route traffic or alert people affected.

3. Mass Gathering of Complex Data for Decision Making
Masses of sensors can gather data - for example for oil and gas and mining exploration (to locate high grade deposits) and feed this back for mapping. analysis, and decisionmaking. Similarly, with gathering data on thousands of shoppers on buying habits. From a health perspective, there is an opportunity to continuously gather patient blood pressure, heart rate and sugar levels; analyse this complex maze of data and then take action.

4. Process Optimization
We have been monitoring data from instrumentation for years but the lowering cost and smaller size makes for even better process control and optimization of flow, level, temperature, pressure and even faster ways of processing previously inaccessible data for slow moving analytical data (gas chromatography). Lower levels of process variation means savings in cost. Also increased safety.

5. Smart Metering and the Smart Grid
Smart meters are increasingly being used to provide details of energy usage and real time costs to consumers and power companies. And allows one to reduce  one’s costs by using power at low usage times.

6. Complex Autonomous Systems
Application of sensors and actuators to the car industry means automatic breaking and eventually self driving cars (perhaps allowing us to cut down on the million deaths per year due to car accidents). Or allow robots to roam freely in complex dangerous underground environments making their own decisions about where to go and what to do.

Big Concerns
Obviously one of the major concerns is the privacy of the data gathered and rogue sensors/actuators (robots ?) endangering life and limb.

These technologies are not pie in the sky but being rolled out today. See if you can apply them in your next project.

Thanks to McKinsey Quarterly March 2010 for an interesting article.

John F. Kennedy's comment could be applicable to the Internet of Things: We need (wo)men who can dream of things that never were.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.

(Attributed to Benjamin Franklin) is the basis of good mentoring for engineering professionals. Mentoring ranges from someone who wants to share his or her know-how and experiences (the mentor) with someone younger and less experienced. This ranges from helping kids and students to understand what engineering is about to counselling young engineering technicians and engineers of a firm (who are often referred to as ‘mentees’).

Many successful engineering tradespeople will tell you of the enormous benefit they received from a mentor when they were apprentices.

This short note is to encourage everyone in engineering to increase the amount of mentoring – it builds a strong profession. To encourage highly skilled and experienced professionals to act as mentors and for young engineering professionals starting out in their careers to actively seek out a mentor.

Mentors are for Everyone
Having a mentor can play a significant role in your long term success in engineering and your job satisfaction level. No matter whether you are a fitter, electrician, technician or junior engineer. Research shows that engineering professionals who started with mentors end up with higher levels of self-esteem, better professional standards and excellent linkages to engineering resources and people. They also tend to stay longer with their organisation and communicate far better with their peers.

People starting out in their careers can have a lot of anxieties, questions, pressure and stress. A mentor can give a quick answer and short circuit a lot of the angst that could otherwise arise for a young greenhorn employee. Mentoring students could range from giving workshops about writing a better resume, job interviewing strategies and personal suggestions on firms to approach for work.

In an organization, it is important to understand the corporate structure, gain specific skills (such as report writing/troubleshooting equipment/filling in forms and the application of specific standards). Other areas where young professionals can be helped is in tapping into personal networks, setting up professional goals, and in moving outside comfort zones.

Other more contentious areas (for firms) are ensuring a work-life balance and being successful at work while working a standard day. This may require some strategies to intensify your work output and productivity and thus to keep your hours under control. Mentors can help here.

Who is a Good Mentor?
Good mentors listen well, are reliable, have enormous experience which they are keen to pass on, are passionate about their careers and have some understanding about what their mentees are going through. On the other hand, the mentee is able to listen and respect and be committed to the relationship and apply these skills.

Being a Good Mentor can Benefit You As Well
It forces you to think through your experiences and to do a sanity and reality check on best processes and ways of doing things. It gives you a far better understanding of elements of engineering which you previously took for granted. Oddly enough, it also enables you to ventilate some of your frustrations and beliefs with an active and enthusiastic sounding board.

Become a Mentor Now
Anyone can mentor anyone else. There is always someone who is younger than you and who would be keen to listen to your words of wisdom and hard-won experience.

• If there isn’t a mentoring program in your firm; set it up.
• Decide how much time you have to commit before you start.
• Mentoring is not only about a face-to-face encounter but it could be done through email/skype chat/phone call/web conference.
• At the beginning of the relationship, take some time to agree on the ground rules and goals with your mentee.
• As with much volunteer work; you will feel good about yourself and your profession.

By becoming a mentor, you will be doing a great service to the engineering profession.

Thanks John R. Platt of the IEEE for an excellent article on STEM mentoring and in providing evidence.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Are you as frustrated as I am with the bewildering collection of communication and power cables between electronic equipment and computers around your office and home? Something we engineering professionals have to contend with as computer-based technology is a key part of our lives. Although I notice now that my 15yo teenage son has dispensed with all cables with his wireless headset (after breaking the cables for the umpteenth time).

A solution to this issue of eliminating the thicket of cables will impact on everyone – from the child to the PhD working on high speed data communications in her lab.

Well; a solution (inevitably) is rapidly coming into view. With incredibly high speed radio communications harnessing the 60Giga herz (GHz) spectrum. Oddly enough another issue driving a solution is that the (mainly copper) cables simply can’t keep up with the increasing demands made for more and more data at higher speeds (high resolution and rich multimedia files).

Fast Becoming History?
The HDMI (hi-definition multimedia interface) cable has been used to date for cables for transferring pictures and audio between digital recorders and video game recorders to TVs and computer monitors. Wi-Fi has steadily replaced USB cables for connecting computers to printers, keyboards and mice.

Although that workhorse of the office and shopfloor - Ethernet – the tough old bird she is – is affordable and can easily zoom from 1Gigabit to 100 Gigabit. So this is unlikely to be replaced easily.

60GHz Coming Up …Fast
The solution lies in the frequency range  in the EHF (Extremely high frequency – 30GHz to 300 GHz) band of the spectrum. It is totally unexploited because it has been considered worthless. The main reason why it has not been used is that oxygen molecules resonate at 60GHz and water vapour (rain and high humidity) absorbs at this frequency.  Line-of-sight between transmitter and receiver is thus essential.

Health Hazards
I have this uneasy feeling that there are some health hazards with all this radiation. But no evidence as yet. Oxygen can be a pretty dangerous substance to excite with radiation.

Practical Issues
As the wavelength of 60GHz is 5mm (c = frequency x wavelength), the antenna can be quite tiny and thus embedded in the chip. Two wireless technologies look like bringing the bacon home as far as applying this frequency to creating a wireless office. WirelessHD and WiGig (the latter from the IEEE entitled 802.11ad). Both standards transmit at 7Gigabit/s (peaking at 30Gigabit/s) – many times faster than the Wifi networking. A pencil thin beam is used to transmit the data – thus avoiding any hackers (as with Wifi).

Without a doubt, this new technology promises to make as big an impact on communication as Wifi did a decade or so ago. Now the only thing to work on is transmitting power wirelessly.

Thanks to the Economist for a great article on the topic of WiGig.

This new wireless technology echos Arthur C.Clarke's comment: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

I believe we have all had what we considered an excellent resume (cv) rejected at some time or other in our career. While I am not suggesting that you need to leave your current good job; it is good to keep in mind what is required and perhaps, in these uncertain times, to help a buddy who may need some support in writing his or her resume. This skill is vital whether you are an electrician or a chief engineer.

If you do an Internet search for ‘resume or cv writing’, you will have thousands of links – all guaranteeing you a top job. This short note is to help you create a winning engineering cv with a business edge. Which I believe is vital to success.

What is a Resume?
It is essentially a one-page summary of who you are and why your skills and know-how are aligned with the job under offer. The key element is to understand your audience (interviewer or would-be employer) and to market yourself in an eye-catching way which reduces the perceived risk of your would-be employer.

Different audiences require different information in your resume. You have to compete with many other resumes and ensure that your write-up hits the target and gets the potential employer reaching for the phone to talk to you further.

The content is not as important as the way you present it. I am not suggesting you lie, cheat or steal to get the job you want; but you need to carefully consider what the would-be employer is after.

Suggestions, Suggestions and more suggestions
Some suggestions for writing your next resume.

• Focus on what the job requires. A generic cv will never make it.
• Keep the overall document simple and easy to understand.
• Ensure your grammar and spelling is 100%. The tiniest of mistakes here can poison an otherwise good resume. Get a competent friend to check this aspect.
• Avoid excessive information about you which is not related to the job. You are probably detailed-oriented but employers don’t have time to read through masses of information.
• Leave lots of white space between sections. Balance, symmetry and a professional appearance are critical. White space between sections is a good thing. You want the feeling of spaciousness. Bold and italicized print is fine, if done in a way that is complementary.
• Preferably format in block style using bullets. Avoid long drawn out paragraphs and ensure they have fewer than six sentences. Concentrate on providing action oriented words showing how you clearly benefited your previous organisation and had clear responsibility for an outcome.
• A short summary at the top of your document giving your key skills is useful to get the reviewer quickly up to speed with who you are and what you can do.
• Jobs should include the name of employers, dates of employment and location. Watch out for giving the impression you are a job-hopper. If you are a job-hopper, you need to justify why you left the jobs. Honesty is always vital here.
• Focus on your strengths rather than tasks you don’t enjoy doing. Demonstrate integrity with what you do. It is pointless applying for a job where you are going to be engaged in tasks you would hate.
• Try and link your previous jobs to positive business achievements (increase in revenue or profitability or outstanding products or time saving solutions).
• Remember that a truck load of qualifications is pretty useless when not linked to specific experience and results.

I like Leonard Bernstein's wry comment: To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.

Thanks to Elizabeth Lions of the IEEE for an excellent article on the topic.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues

As you well know – many engineering companies talk about their incredibly innovative products and services; but these are often anything but innovative. Many companies avoid innovation until they are condemned to the scrap heap. And by this time it is too late.

Innovation is one of the key building blocks of a successful company. And perhaps one of the most uncertain and difficult.

Early Exposure Kills Innovation
The challenge when you try and innovate is that often early release of your idea within your company will attract the doomsayers. Many remarking that it is a stupid idea or something that has no chance of success. These comments are often unreasonable but people are somewhat jaded by the talk of innovation in terms of ideas and need to be convinced. The trick thus is to build up a more cast iron case for success of your innovation to ensure it hits the light of day and is a successful product or service.

How many times have you had a great idea for an innovation which are you enthusiastic and passionate about and then had cold water poured on it from a disbelieving boss or colleague?

You Need to Check First
So when considering releasing a particularly innovative idea for an improvement to an engineering system, you should check that:

• You have done detailed stealth testing of your innovation. This requires you to test your innovation out extensively so that you have considerable support in terms of data and operation. But it needs to be done quietly and as extensively as possible without alerting any of the negative forces or opposition.
• You have all the data to prove it has a good chance of working. An airy fairy idea is not an innovation. You need hard data, demonstrated research and costings.
• Support from the middle and lower echelons of the company. This is where you will obtain the necessary resources, support base and who understand what your idea is about. It is not always likely that the top management will understand the innovation that well (apart from the financial savings you will make).

Next time; before you release your innovation consider whether you have built up a strong case for it by stealth.

Thanks to Paddy Miller, an old professor of mine, for a great concept.

Remember as Charles Lamb points out: There is nothing so nice as doing good by stealth and being found out by accident.

Yours in Engineering Learning

Steve