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Dear Esteemed Colleagues

Perhaps you are not running a small (or large) business selling products and services; but you are undoubtedly offering some range of services or skills in terms of your job (e.g. electrical or mechanical engineer or technician working in a mine or in a power plant).

The Killing Ground
We all have heard of large companies ‘canning’ or killing off products and services which they believe have become unprofitable. You only need to think of the slew of magazines (and newspapers) which have disappeared from the corporate landscape. I am also sure you can  clearly recall some engineering product (PLC, instrument, power supply, pump….) which the manufacturer has decided to cull and no longer offers. Often (as we all know); they kill off a product or service which they then hastily re-introduce due to the market backlash.

Decisions such as this are never easy. However, they are an inevitable part of life and business. And your engineering career.

Product or Service or Indeed, Part of your Engineering Career
No matter how hard you have worked on a particular product or service, there will inevitably come a time when you have to get rid of it. This may also apply to the range of services or skills you offer in your engineering career. Sometimes; a skill or competency that you offer becomes more hassle than it is worth (perhaps due to lack of demand from employers, competition from others or overwhelming government regulation and red tape). We have all heard the comment that one has quoted for a job at a reasonable rate but then ended up working for a few dollars per hour due to the subsequent unreasonable demands made by the employer or client.

How to Decide on When to Kill
A few suggestions on culling your product/service or marketable career skill.

1. Apply the 80/20 Rule
List your product and services (and career skills) and work out which product and services generate 80% of your income. You will in all likelihood find that 20% of your products or services generate 80% of your profits (or personal income). Paradoxically enough, 80% of your products/services may generate only 20% of your profits. Examine these ones and decide on which ones to cull.

2. Avoid Emotional Attachments
Avoid the emotional connection to a product or service (or indeed a career skill); if it is not paying its way. We always have a love for our first born (product, skill or service). But it has to stack up in the cold hard business world.

3. Look with New Eyes or a Fresh Perspective
You may need to get an unbiased colleague to look at what you offer from a fresh perspective in a clinical way in terms of what is performing and what isn’t. Often new owners of a company; simply look unemotionally at each product or service and then terminate them forthwith. Similarly, a new boss may look at what you were doing in terms of your skills and abilities and alter your job to maximise your effectiveness.

Thanks to the Sydney Morning Herald April 4, 2013 for an interesting read.

Note what Friedrich Nietzsche remarks:  What does not kill me, makes me stronger.

Yours in Engineering Learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

No matter what your engineering discipline - you would have learnt about Ohm’s Law at some time or other (even at school). Herewith a simple application question which tests your conceptual knowledge.

Ohm’s Law
As we all (should) know, Ohm’s Law states that the current through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the potential difference across the two points with the following formula:

I = V/R

where I is the current through the conductor in units of amperes (A), V is the potential difference measured across the conductor in units of volts (V), and R is the resistance of the conductor in units of ohms. (Thanks Wikipedia).

Do you Understand Ohm’s Law?
An electrician opens the control panel of a 3-phase resistive electric furnace while it is in operation and accidentally receives a shock from one of the 400 Volt lines inside the panel, while the furnace is drawing current (of say 100 amps). This is situation A.

The furnace is now switched off; but the electrician (being an idiot) accidentally touches the same place before (situation B) and gets another shock from the lines feeding the control panel. Assume everything is the same for both situations (skin resistance/point of contact/humidity).

Which was the more intense shock for the electrician ? Situation A or B ?

The Answer
The answer has to be Situation B where the voltage has gone higher due to lack of load (no current being drawn) of the furnace. The 100A current in the first situation A has no direct relevance (apart from being a red herring).

A few Parting Comments

• The amount of current required to cause an electrical shock is tiny compared to the current drawn by the furnace.
• The shock you receive is really dependent on your own resistance and the contact voltage. There is a higher voltage present for the second situation as there is no load.
• A resistive furnace was referred to to avoid confusing with phase angles between current and voltage for an inductive furnace.
• One should really consider peak voltages (not rms) as per above and line to ground (not line to line voltages); but this would make no difference to the answer.
• Don’t make the mistake of thinking that because the first situation A has a 100 amps flowing through the circuit; that this level of current is likely to go through you if you touch a live part.
• The resistance of the human skin can vary depending on moisture and open wounds; so the amount of current flowing through your body can vary. So being wet would cause a considerably greater shock than being dry. It only takes 20mA to stop your heart. Oddly enough, someone mentioned to me that he understood that higher currents won’t necessarily stop your heart but put you  into a convulsion thus sometimes helping you to shake yourself free from a high voltage source.

Thanks to John Reid for posing the question.

As Elbert Hubbard wryly observed: You can lead a boy or girl  to college but you can't make them  think.

Yours in Engineering Learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

The level of industrial espionage is rocketing with almost daily reports of (often Chinese) hackers actively looking for trade secrets and intellectual property (IP). Although Chinese hackers are often regarded as the number one source of thieves; most trade secret thefts are actually from insiders (e.g. employees taking information out of the company with a USB-memory stick). Chinese companies claim that they have an enormous problem with hackers and IP theft. Most thieves are definitely not caught. And don’t think just because you are a humble small business that you are immune to hackers looking for useful information. Theft of intellectual property (IP) and other useful information (e.g. credit cards) affects us all.

As engineering professionals; the value of our products and services is based around keeping our Intellectual Property secret or perhaps going through the patenting process.

But the situation is somewhat more complex than this.

Patent Your IP?
The standard approach to protect intellectual property is to patent it. This theoretically gives an inventor protection for her idea. The inevitable problem with this approach is that as soon as you patent your valuable invention; you are publishing it for everyone to see.  Meaning that someone in a less lawful country can simply pinch the idea and implement it. And probably get away with it.

An example is Coca Cola – if the secret Coke recipe had been published years ago; Coca Cola would have lost the rights a long, long time ago as the patent only lasts 20 years. So Coca Cola has followed the strategy of keeping their recipe secret.

Because of this concern many companies with high-value inventions refuse to patent them for fear that they will give the opposition an opportunity to implement them immediately.

To Patent or Not to Patent
The key consideration of whether to patent an invention or to keep it secret; should be based around whether one can keep it secret at all. Not necessarily from industrial hackers and spying but whether your competitors can reverse engineer your device (once they have legitimately purchased it to reverse engineer it). So if you can some how keep your invention secret while still selling it commercially, secrecy (and not patenting) will undoubtedly be the best approach. If you can’t keep the secret indefinitely; probably the best solution to protect your IP is to patent it.

Naturally, trade secret protection only protects against theft of the secret. It doesn’t stop someone developing an equivalent product or process. Theoretically, one can litigate against theft of a patent. However, often the resources of the inventor cannot match that of the individual who has stolen the patent.

The USA has now changed the patent law to ‘first to file’ rather than ‘first to invent’; but this sadly, is likely to benefit those thieves who steal the patents.

Some Other Solutions
When developing critical code for a key element of product or service, it is vital to break the code into discrete modules and isolate these with different people working on them. Any external contractor who is doing work for a company will only access part of the overall design. The other important item is to break a database into individual databases – so if one is hacked; the thief will still lack the remaining portions.

Thanks to the Economist (and especially their respondents) on an interesting discussion on patenting IP versus doing nothing.

Perhaps an old Czech proverb has a suggestion on how to protect one's IP: Do not protect yourself by a fence, but rather by your friends.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

An engineering job can suck up all your time and energy and when combined with your daily home and personal life it is often hard to pause and reflect on whether you are happy or not. Many of you will remark that fighting life’s daily battles requires more than enough effort without worrying about issues such as happiness.

However, an interesting measurement of happiness is the rule of thirds for happiness.
This is based around the following principle.

Ask yourself Three Questions

• Are you happy in your job?
• Are you happy where you live?
• Are you happy who you’re with? (in these more interesting times - this could vary from partner, spouse or friends)

If you’ve got at least two out of three; you’re found happiness.  If not; you need to make changes to one (or possibly two of these elements).

Naturally, this is a simplistic view (and I hope many of you will disagree with me and provide your own measurements of happiness!); but it is useful to stop and think about. My wife contends that happiness is a far more complex business than these simple measures.

We Are Often So Caught up
Once completing our education (ranging from a trade to a degree) we are often so caught up in our new career that we don’t consider these three items. It is vital to pause and ‘smell the roses’ and consider these points occasionally. After all, we all strive for some form of happiness.

Thanks very much Jeffrey Selingooft The Chronicle of Higher Education for an interesting take on happiness.

I had a muffled chuckle at the comment from the famous philosopher, Bertrand Russell:

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.

(as I quite enjoy what I do at work although hopefully I am not too obsessed with it)

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

Most engineering professionals will readily confess that they are not overly enthusiastic about making presentations. Often the reason is that they are nervous, the presentations come across poorly and it is not a particularly pleasant experience for both the audience or the presenter. You’re unlikely to ever hear from someone, who has to attend a presentation, that they are looking forward to it.

However, doing a high quality presentation is a key part of every engineer or technologist’s toolkit. And helps make your career and job considerably more successful.

And by application of one simple rule (sounds like black magic or a quick get rich scheme doesn’t it?); you can dramatically improve your presentations. And that is practice.

Personally, I find practice a bit irritating and unpleasant. Going through one’s slides a few times is often tedious and unrewarding work (like discovering your old smelly running socks in your backpack a few weeks down the track?). But it works; and pays off with great feedback from your audience.

Four Reasons Why Practising Your Presentation Helps You
The first reason is to eliminate your nervousness when presenting. When you have practised your presentation thoroughly you will find your nervousness disappears. Once you start your presentation; your lines and ‘patter’ seem familiar to you, giving you comfort and you quickly build up your confidence and can then focus on your audience. Nothing is more nerve wracking than not knowing your presentation and at the same time having to interact with them.

Secondly, you can then focus on interacting more spontaneously with your audience and catering to their needs and requirements. You can focus on individuals, their reactions, their body language and those who may have lost interest in what you have to say. You can drive up their interest level by throwing questions out to them to get them more involved. And thus avoid the one way monotone presentation.

Thirdly, you can be more dynamic in your presentation and respond to particular audience needs. Jumping to a particular slide as a result of a question or dealing with a particular issue brought up by the audience on the whiteboard. All help to show everyone that you are a person obviously in command of the subject and the issues.

Finally, every successful presentation you give, makes the next one slightly easier and builds on your skills in presenting. Some of our instructors (who were initially very poor presenters), by practice and a large number of presentations; have become superb at their craft. Simply, because they have practised over hundreds (thousands?) of presentations.

Professionals know the Key Secret to Excellence is Practice
Most good speech makers, actors and indeed trainers know the power of practice. Actors are a great example of professionals who practice until they know their lines, facial expressions, tone of voice, gestures and movements so intimately that they can be absolutely spontaneous and bring the play or film to life.

How to Practice
A few suggestions on how to practice your presentation:

• It is best to go through all your slides several times and to present verbally as if you are in front of your audience (but presumably to your dog or cat or mirror). Build up confidence in your phrasing, time allocation and think of potential questions that may come up from the audience. Commence powerfully and with energy and enthusiasm. Avoid reading off the slides, but talk around them.
• Prepare your presentation equipment and ensure your computer connects to the overhead projector and the audio and video (esp. when embedded in powerpoint or another program) all works seamlessly.
• Prepare any associated equipment so that it all works well. Test equipment and instrumentation can sometimes be embarrassingly slow to boot up or not do exactly what you require.
• If you are getting anyone else to co-present make sure you have carefully synchronised with them on what they are going to say. Ensure it adds value to your presentation; isn’t repetitive or embarrassingly poorly done.
• Practice your call to action. What do you want to achieve with your presentation? What do you want your audience to leave with? Finish off with a powerful energised last slide and exhortation.
• Finally, ensure your time management is done well – if you have a deluge of questions but only a fixed time; what can you cut back on ? And if you have an embarrassingly quiet audience, what can you add in to the presentation to ensure it runs for the full time?
• Ensure throughout that you do not read off the slides but sound like someone completely in control of their subject, friendly and enthusiastic. Talk to the audience as colleagues’ ¬- not as a patronising professor to 250 first year engineering students who have just commenced study.

Thanks to Susan De La Vergne of the IEEE for an eminently readable article on doing great presentations.

You Can’t always be Perfect

A Roman emperor (Augustus Octavius) remarked two thousand years ago:
Practice, the master of all things.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

Copper landlines sometimes referred to as POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service), seem to be reaching the end. The only reason for keeping them has often been for the alarm or emergency calls. However, even this need is being addressed with mobile connections. The main driver for the change to mobile connections is inevitably reducing costs – sometimes up to half the cost. Very few people today (mainly the elderly) only have fixed line phones.

In any event landlines aren’t always reliable
As we all know, landlines can go down due to high winds, landslides or a severe storm. Most mobile phones happily continue for a few days with their batteries (although admittedly my kids report to me that intensive usage of their smartphones seems to clean out their power very quickly). The mobile phone operators have also made their masts considerably more robust to ride out even the most severe storm (including that of a cyclone recently).

Of course, many younger users, have never ever had fixed lines – always content to use mobile phones. Fixed line costs are probably going to skyrocket as users decline.

Many small businesses (and indeed large corporations) couldn’t survive without their employees using mobile phones. Think of your plumber or electrician where the mobile phone is a key part of their business.

Alarm and Emergency Calls go Mobile
Now one can even replace your alarm or emergency calls with an internet connection – through a mobile phone connection or possibly a cable connection.

As far as the rapid march of communications technology is concerned:
Things are only impossible until they're not. (from Jean-Luc Picard, 'Star Trek: The Next Generation' )

Thanks to the Economist for an interesting article on the topic: Telecommunications: Nearing the End of the Line.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Power supplies are critical to most engineering systems. At some time or other; we are all confronted with a power supply design issue – no matter whether you are a mechanical or electronic engineering professional. Even those of us who are non-engineering professionals, will benefit from this concise set of tips which apply to you whether you are installing power supplies for a PLC control system, your pool chlorinator to designing at the electronic circuit board level.

1.  Keep Cool at All times
Power supplies generate heat and it is critical to keep this aspect under control at all times. Especially in considering the range of ambient temperatures that your system (and power supply is exposed to). Thus you need to consider where the cooling air is coming from. From a super hot desert environment or simply from passing over other hot electronic components. Watch out for obstructions in the airflow as well. Hence, maximising the cooling air flow means bearing in mind component placement, layout of the airpath flow and your inlet and outlet routes and capacity. In a control cabinet, you will place the power supply at the top of the cabinet where the hot air can easily escape (through filters).

2.  As Goldilocks says: Too Big or Too Small Doesn’t work – it must Be Just Right
Ensure your supply is not undersized to the load otherwise its operation will be erratic. Some safety features restart the power supply when it is unable to supply a load due to overloading causing problems for your systems. Alternatively, the power supplies will become permanently damaged due to the constant overload.

Providing an oversized power supply is not a good solution either. It costs more and results in inefficient operation with extra heat (and thus additional operating costs). Power supplies operate at peak efficiency at 80% to 95% of their rated output. Try and keep them at this point all the time.

3.  Voltage Drop Can Be a Hidden Killer
As we all know - Ohm’s Law states that Volt drop equates to Current x Resistance. The delivered voltage over a short piece of wire (and remember you need to calculate both to the load and the return pieces of a wire for resistance!) can be significant even with a few milli ohms of resistance of the wire, resulting in the delivered voltage lower than that required by the load. Solutions would include increasing the nominal output voltage, shortening the wire or detecting the remote voltage delivered and adjusting the output power supply voltage automatically.

4.  Mechanical Issues Are Critical
Ensure you strain relieve all your cables from your power supplies and watch out for vibrations flexing the cables and connectors and eventually cracking the insulation or copper resulting in intermittent connections. Or shorting of the open wire against the chassis or other components and wires.

Filtering of the air to keep out dust and corrosive gases/fluids is also essential.

Careful mounting of the power supply and its associated components and wiring so there is no chance it will shake loose in a high vibration environment is also a key task.

Often open-frame supplies have an exposed section with exposed components. Ensure these don’t make contact with the chassis even with flexing or vibration.

5.  Power Supplies Working Together can be Tricky
When supplies are connected in parallel; you need to ensure that if one supply fails there is sufficient redundancy to carry on providing the load without any interruptions.

6.  Electromagnetic Interference Is Always Lurking Around
Always ensure your earthing/grounding strategy is top notch. For example, there is often a serious amount of capacitively coupled noise currents for ac line-operated power supplies. Ensure the  common is grounded to the same point as the safety-ground to minimise the problems caused by these noise currents.

Thanks to Bill Lurie of N2Power, and Bill Whitlock of Jensen Transformers for a great set of suggestions in Electronic Design May 21 2013.

Watch out that you are not following Garrison Keillor's comment when working with power supply problems:  I believe in looking reality straight in the eye and denying it.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

I watched (bemused) yesterday as a car reverse parked itself and considered the possibilities with the rapidly growing field of intelligent transport engineering. My brother-in-law grunted his dubious assent about the growth of the transport field as he had been involved in development of software for smart cards for transportation but the massively fragmented nature of the industry caused him considerably more pain than profit (he has since moved into the more lucrative and simpler field of mining software).

Everyone has heard of the Google ‘self driving’ car and the market is predicted to grow to almost $25bn in 2017 for intelligent transportation technologies. At present my personal‘state of the art’ transport engineering is restricted to cruise control (esp. to keep my driving under speed limits). But this situation is going to change rapidly.

A million deaths per year
To my mind one of the true tragedies of today’s world is the horrendous death toll caused by car accidents. Over a million people are killed per year in traffic accidents (especially in poorer countries which can’t afford this huge cost). Intelligent transport engineering promises to dramatically reduce this death toll.

Three Key Factors
There are three factors driving intelligent transportation. The most important would obviously be safety - reducing even a fraction of a million deaths pa would be a godsend.

The second is reducing congestion of traffic and helping you to identify the best possible path from point A to point B in terms of speed and convenience; whilst also (the difficult one) optimising the overall traffic flow (for the other drivers on the road).

The third factor would be the standard one of improving energy efficiency and reducing emissions.

Skills required are wide ranging
The skills and know-how required in this field encompass such traditional areas as electrical, mechanical and civil engineering. As well as communications, sensors, systems, IT and industrial automation and the softer fields such as ergonomics, economics and psychology. This has resulted in a very fragmented approach with individuals working on small aspects of the overall transport problem. There are few examples of project managers working on the entire problem. As a result of these scattered contributions from numerous experts; there is a need for collaborative as well as communication skills to make the teams effective.

A Tremendous Career Opportunity
The next few years will thus see extraordinary growth in intelligent transport systems and also create a deluge of career opportunities whether you are an engineer, technologist or technician working in the area. Or most importantly – an entrepreneur seeking to create a new solution for intelligent transport systems.

Thanks to John Platt of the IEEE for a great article.

Remember with your career as Colin Powell says: Perpetual optimism is a force multiplier.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

You’ve probably heard (with some irritation) the expression: ‘Get a life’. Well; research shows that if you want a longer, healthier and more fulfilled life; you should establish a purpose to your life with clear (achievable) goals. This not only applies to when you are in retirement but as an engineering professional working today.

When we are younger we are often overwhelmed with short term goals – getting a career under way; establishing a family; bringing up your kids; dealing with health issues and those of your family and simply paying the bills. As you move into your mature phase of your career and life; there is often more time to contemplate the future and assess what you are currently doing. And to think about goals.

The Research on Goals
The research (from Patricia A. Boyle from the Rush University Medical Center) gives those of us with active dynamic missions in life a 30% slower rate of decline in our facilities i.e. cognitive decline (e.g. Altzheimers). When you are working to achieve a goal you are probably leading a healthier mental life; you are probably more socially involved, connected to other people, physically and mentally active and making decisions and agonizing over solutions to (often seemingly) intractable problems.

Admittedly, I often associate goals and missions with some pain and stress (and frustration – even anger) – trying to get a project finished on time; dealing with an intractable client or supplier or completing a course or an engineering design (or worse – dealing with some government bureaucracy such as achieving accreditation for a program). But that is all part of the overall package of having a goal.

Goals can Range Widely
Goals can range from philanthropic (helping at the local soup kitchen to volunteering at your local hospital). But an enormously helpful area for engineering professionals has to be in mentoring others entering the workforce (not only engineering) or in the early phases of their careers. As an engineering professional, you would have done so much in your career and possess often hard to acquire knowledge and skills. As we know – engineering is challenging and often really hard work (as compared to some other careers).

Alternatively, a goal may be in you acquiring a skill in a new field of engineering or technology (even if you are 80 yo). This can be enormously satisfying. I am currently battling with completing a course on Computational Quantum Mechanics ( a free but extraordinarily high quality course presented the guru in the field).

Encore Careers
An enormous number of people throughout the world are interested in encore careers – putting their skills and passions to work for the greater good. This ranges from social services, health care, religious issues, social justice, arts and culture, at risk youth, environment to education and helping those who are poverty stricken.

Align Your Goals with What is Important to You
You need to carefully identify what is important to you and what you really enjoy doing – what fills you with joy and enthusiasm – and what lights your fire. Then think about setting meaningful achievable goals and most importantly – how do you achieve them (the hard bit).

Obviously You can Ignore All This
Naturally, you can simply ignore this pursuit of goals and simply truck along and ‘Simply Be’ (as one respondent suggested with some peevishness). But I would respectfully suggest that a calm focussed pursuit of goals can not only be enormously beneficial to the (engineering) community but also to you in enabling you to live a far more fulfilled life (and benefit you in retaining your mental faculties in top performance mode for far longer).

Thanks to Diana Cole of the Wall Street Journal for an interesting article entitled: Why You Need to Find a Mission.

As a famous British prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli, from the 19th century remarked: The secret to success is constancy to purpose.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

I always believe an engineering workplace should not be a place of anguish and pain but of (reasonable) satisfaction and enjoyment.

One day, however you may decide that the time has come to move on. Your job may have stagnated – growth in the company may have frozen – the company may have hit the wall due to bad decisions or a poor market - or someone may have joined the company and is making your position difficult. So a few suggestions on looking for a job while keeping your boss and the company unaware of your intentions.

Personally, I am a great believer in being open when looking for a job (one of my best bosses at a large engineering company used to help me assess job opportunities in other companies – perhaps he was keen to get rid of me!) but it does depend on your boss and the company hierarchy. Some companies regard it as disloyal conduct and all promotional prospects immediately dry up and you get punished in a variety of (often insidious) ways.

Your Confidential Job Search
A few suggestions in keeping your job search confidential:

Network only with absolutely trusted peers. Many (most?) good jobs are not directly advertised and are hidden. In talking to trusted colleagues outside your firm; you may become aware of the hidden opportunities out there. Obviously, avoid telling anyone close ‘to home’ about your intentions. Otherwise it will get back to your boss very quickly.

Big Brother Does Watch You. Be wary about doing too much job searching while at work. Some companies survey what their employees are up to and your job searching would become quickly evident to your company.

Be Vigorous about Phone Confidentiality. Only take calls from recruiters in your car lot or far away from the office, definitely not in the office or even in the bathroom where someone will definitely overhear your discussions.

Only Work with Professional Executive Search Firms. Insist on confidentiality in your job search process. Make sure you are dealing with a professional in your job search.

Preface all Correspondence with ‘Confidential Candidate’. Ensure all your correspondence has Confidential Candidate spelt out to ensure everyone knows the importance of confidentiality.

Social Networking. Watch out for other lurkers (who may know of you) on social networking sites when examining job opportunities.

Exhibitions and Conferences. Talking about job opportunities in a disinterested way can be a great way of identifying other job opportunities when meeting hordes of other engineering professionals at exhibitions. But again; watch out for hidden contacts with the company hierarchy. Even competitors to your company often feed back unwelcome information to your boss about your (perceived) feverish job hunt.

Theodore Roosevelt remarked: Big jobs usually go to the men who prove their ability to outgrow small ones.

Thanks to the IEEE for a thought provoking article on this topic.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

Undoubtedly Winning is Vital but So is Integrity and Compassion

Over the past few months; we have seen numerous incidents of winning at all costs. Taking drugs, cheating, fraud and even killing competitors.

The pursuit of excellence – of achieving first place is undoubtedly a wonderful goal, whether it is in sport or in engineering. Having the best engineering design – or the most efficient energy design or the fastest machine. Or being promoted to engineering manager or project manager or being voted the best Young Engineer or Technician in the Nation. We all want to be at the pinnacle of success and it is extraordinarily sweet achieving these accolades. It is embedded in our ‘system’ that winning is an extraordinarily powerful motivator in achieving personal or professional excellence.

Certainly, if we all sat back and didn’t strive for excellence with a winning product or service; we would in all likelihood be condemned to mediocrity in everything we do.

For obvious reasons, sadly, very few of us get there.

However, the pursuit of winning at all costs is definitely not a good objective. Using cheating or bribery or fraud to get to the top is disastrous. It is very hard to hide secrets for very long and ultimately you are likely to be ‘found out’ and the truth emerges. Which eventually can destroy a promising engineering career or personal life. In some countries; fraud and corruption are a way of life and professionals use every devious trick in the book to win a contract. But this is simply unacceptable as it imposes a huge cost on the country.

Victory and winning should always be linked with humility, honesty, integrity and compassion for others.

To be honest – simply participating in the race to the best of one’s ability – whether it be a 100 m sprint or a tender for a large engineering project is ultimately all that society really requires. In these situations when you try your hardest and strain every sinew to win you know ultimately you are a winner.

As Arnold Horshak confirms:

Winning is nice if you don't lose your integrity in the process.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

With the rapid growth of software in every device conceivable; the demand for software engineers and technologists is going through the roof. Some pundits (the IEEE) suggest that for every software engineer and technologist that is trained; there are probably three positions to fill in the real world. Many employers aren’t waiting for the students to graduate but are grabbing them while they are still in training.

Oddly enough, countries such as China and India although inundated with human resources in traditional manufacturing; don’t have sufficiently trained software engineering types with a real world perspective. The US Department of Labor has suggested a 30% growth rate in engineering jobs to 2020 (compared to an average for other jobs of 14%). New college and university enrollments in software and related engineering fields haven’t particularly grown much either – thus exacerbating the problem.

What are the Specific Software Engineering Skills Required ?
As we all know with the waning interest in Java; programming languages have a short lifespan. So the trick is not to brand oneself as an expert in only one programming genre such as Java or C# or .NET but to have a wide field of interest.

The ability to understand real world business and industry requirements and being able to translate these into workable software programs is probably the most challenging skill required. For example, taking what a human does in terms of a process and translating this into a workable and practical software program must surely a most demanding skill.

Other useful skills (common to engineering) is the ability to be able to communicate with others simply and effectively. Allied to this is the ability to work in a team especially virtually on a global basis.

How do you gain this knowledge and skill?
By studying and working in the real world and understanding what the real world requires. It is also vital that the would-be software engineer experiments and is not terrified of making a ferocious number of mistakes and is able to think ‘outside of the box’.

Is Certification Valued?
There is considerable debate about the value of certification for a software engineering career. Certainly, the number of certifications is growing but one thing is for sure – certification only gives one an indication of knowledge but doesn’t necessarily show true skill and aptitude.

Software Engineering is a Key Part of Every Engineering Career
Bear in mind; that a skill in software engineering is useful – no matter whether you are an electrician, engineer or technologist. Software is a key building block of every engineering discipline and a good understanding of what is required here is essential in achieving success in your own engineering career – no matter whether it be in mechanical, civil, chemical or electrical engineering.

You drive your life and your engineering career according to Jean Nidetch:

It's choice - not chance - that determines your destiny.

Thanks to the IEEE for an interesting article on Software Engineering.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

Probably one of the most fascinating but critical improvements urgently needed for the new generation of electrically-based devices (from mobile phones to electric cars) with lower emissions is improved battery technology. Certainly there have been enormous amounts of money invested in finding better battery technology but the road has been rather rocky.

There have been attempts at other innovative storage technologies such as fly wheels. However, these are tricky to develop because of the need for high quality materials, a reliable vacuum and size is directly related to energy capacity.

A fundamental problem is that for both the internal combustion engine and batteries the energy is stored in their chemistry. However, internal combustion engines do not need to store the heaviest component (oxygen) and thus have a virtually unassailable advantage. Similarly with safety – batteries have all the components for a fire in the one box; whereas internal combustion engines need oxygen externally to burn. Petrol stores sixty times more joules per kg than a lithium ion battery.

As most of you know – batteries have three key components: an anode, cathode (referred to as electrodes) and the electrolyte that allows the positively charged ions to move from one electrode to the other. Currently the most successful battery is the lithium-ion one. These power many of the electric and hybrid vehicles hitting the roads. However, they have the awkward propensity to overheat and create fires (such as on the recently grounded fleet of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliners).

A possible leading technology is that of the lithium air battery – using atmospheric oxygen as the electrolyte. However, these are still very unreliable and highly flammable so considerable effort has to go into protective safety systems to minimise any fire. Another interesting strategy is to move beyond lithium (one valence electron) to multivalent ions such as magnesium (two valence electrons) and aluminium (three valence electrons). However, this is likely to be offset by the fact that a magnesium atom weighs 3.5 times that of a lithium atom for only twice as many electrons (aluminium has a slightly lower opportunity cost). Note that NiMH batteries have been available for the past thirty years, with 100Wh/kg. Lithium Ion batteries achieve 150Wh/kg at best. Lead-acid batteries have been close to 30Wh/kg; whereas Nickel Cadmium averages 40-60Wh/kg.

Another interesting strategy is the use of so-called flow batteries. In a conventional battery, the battery’s charge is held as chemical potential energy in the two electrodes of the battery. In a flow battery, the charge is held in the vastly greater electrolyte – thus allowing these types of batteries to be made huge in size with large amounts of energy.

Thanks to The Economist and their rather volatile (but generally knowledgeable) discussion forum for some interesting ideas on batteries.

Perhaps in looking for inspiration for new technologies we should heed the advice of William Bridges: Genuine beginnings begin within us, even when they are brought to our attention by external opportunities.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

I always get a bit twitchy when I write about negative topics – so please forgive me – but I will focus on the positives here. The big positive out of this blog is a humble set of suggestions on extracting every ounce of value out of your training dollars – whether it be you or your company paying.

Some suggestions are as follows:

Investigate the training course thoroughly before commencement. This means that you need to look at the training company’s previous presentations and the specific instructor’s capabilities. You could find the instructor to be a derelict that has never presented this course before (and perhaps doesn’t know much about the subject area). Ensure you have total buy-in and commitment from the course participants to benefit from the course.

Plan for the Training with your colleagues. Ensure that everyone is aware of the training, is able to attend and you have the appropriate process plant, substations and appropriate engineering workshops available to provide a real hands-on experience. Some years back, on a course where I fronted up to provide to a very large blue power utility there were initially no students – no one had been told about the training. The company managers then had to go around press ganging (in many cases) unwilling students to attend.

Ensure the training is beneficial and required. Seemingly pretty obvious. Often the training provided by an external instructor has no relevance to the participants who are often working in a different area.

Ensure there is no content overload. Due to work pressures these days, we always try and compress as much as possible into a short time in a course. However, it is best to ensure the students leave with useful skills and know-how rather than be inundated with a thousand and one concepts which they can’t grasp or apply in the limited time available.

Drive synergy. Ensure the training is directly beneficial in every participant’s job.

Hands-on and Practical. Try and ensure the participants practise their new skills and knowledge in the training course rather than subject them to a few days of lectures. No one learns anything from lectures. Although the universities would probably contradict this assertion of mine.

Ensure the Training is Grounded. Down to earth, practical and applicable in the student’s job training is absolutely vital. Not esoteric, theoretical and difficult to see as a connection to the job.

Measure the results after the training. Test to confirm the participants have gained new knowledge and skills. Preferably not in a formal examination but with hands-on assignments and practical sessions where you test real knowledge and skills. Where you can correct and guide the students. And then confirm that the skills do result in a measurable improvement in the on-the-job work.

Complement the formal training course with informal training. Informal training on-the-job should be built into to reinforce the formal training course. Ensure your experienced managers, supervisors and engineering professionals are able to coach and train informally on the shop floor.

Bill Cosby rightly reckons (and this is very relevant to selecting a training course): I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

Something which is sure to drive you crazy is having someone sitting next to you in an aircraft yammering away into their mobile phone. At this stage, as we all know, mobile phones are banned from use on a plane but there is a strong move to unban them for aircraft usage.

One myth that is prevalent is that mobile phones are banned because they disrupt an aircraft’s sensitive avionic systems because of their electromagnetic radiation. Not so at all. The ban on mobile phones really exists to prevent the phones disrupting the phone companies receiving equipment on the ground (and causing problems with billing).

There is a Huge Amount of Interference at Present
Theoretically, it is possible for any item of electrical equipment to interfere with the aircraft’s navigation equipment and delicate instrumentation. Specifically, cables and power supplies to recharge your computers, tablets and iPhones are probably the worst offenders. Transmitters such as mobile phones have unpredictable emissions which theoretically could impact on an aircraft’s avionic systems. And we have all heard about the reports (admittedly all anecdotal) of aircraft instruments being affected by these mobile electronic devices causing aircraft to suddenly lose or gain altitude with the possibility of a crash.

However, extensive research by manufacturers such as Boeing and Airbus who have bombarded their test aircraft with electromagnetic radiation with ranges of intensity equivalent to that of a mobile phone show no demonstrated impact whatsoever.

We also know that there are thousands of passengers using their phones surreptitiously during take-off or landing or leaving their computers, phones and other devices powered on. But there is still no concrete evidence that any of these have caused a problem with an aircraft (although admittedly lots of anecdotal commentary about how hazardous for an aircraft it is).

The Big Challenge Remains
The real challenge with a mobile phone is that in an aircraft flying overhead, it could be in reach of a number of mobile phone masts using the same channels. This could result in unreliable calls (as calls will be dropped) and would also confuse the overall system’s network management software (trying to identify exactly where a phone was located). The other problem is that phones could be travelling in an aircraft close to the speed of sound – thus not registering on a network and not allowing calls to be made.

Other Worrying Problems in the Air
Two other reasons why mobile phones may not be desirable on a plane are sometimes mentioned:

During take-off and landing or indeed turbulence in an aircraft the mobile phone can be a missile travelling at a high speed that can seriously hurt a passenger if flying around the cabin. So not recommended for this one reason.

Mobile phones can create excessive electromagnetic radiation. Aircrafts are essentially Faraday cages. With a number of mobile phones active in an aircraft cabin, there is a ferocious amount of energy radiated (and reflected about) in a confined space. Surely not a good thing for humans (and their living tissues). Children and infants are probably even more vulnerable to this level of radiation.

At this Stage - No Decisions
Although there has been a drive to relax the standards; nothing has been agreed upon as yet. The only thing that has been allowed is the creation of pico-cells onboard aircraft thus allowing passengers to use the Internet. These pico cells connect to a satellite and thus to a ground station. These services are still extraordinarily expensive. So likely to deter any passenger from yammering away too long on their phone and waking you up from your fitful slumber. Also these pico nets (based around Wifi) would result in less radiation (as per an earlier comment above).

Harold Geneen is quite right when he remarks: We must not be hampered by yesterday's myths in concentrating on today's needs.

Thanks to the Economist for an interesting article on the topic: Phones up in the air.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

We all know that no one is indispensable – companies and people come and go. Even the owner or ‘boss’ of a business is often a fragile commodity. Bearing this in mind you could be cynical and indifferent - or work hard on building your career value to make yourself infinitely more valuable.

Here are a few suggestions:

• Make sure you are The Expert on an engineering or technology topic. Pick a “hot useful” topic, learn it inside out and use this know-how to contribute to your firm and clients. Become well known as the local and indispensable expert who takes delight in assisting and educating everyone on this difficult topic - both in your organisation and to your clients. For example, if you are working with an industrial data communications system and are able to knowledgeably troubleshoot protocol packets with Wireshark (a freely available utility) you have a unique and enviable skill. Or if you are able to diagnose and rectify problems with electrical harmonics on an oil and gas platform you will be looked upon as the expert. Remember that these skill requirements are often temporary – you need to keep learning and refining your know-how.
• Write well and document what you do in simple English. Most engineering professionals hate writing and documenting things. If you have this skill you will become well known and respected. Supplementing your text with clear drawings and diagrams and a neatly-structured spreadsheet, for example, also adds enormous value to your communications.
• Add presentation communication skills to your expertise. Being able to communicate simply and effectively (avoiding jargon) is always highly regarded. Make opportunities to attend professional development classes that focus on critical thinking and presentation skills or join a group like Toastmasters International which will give you practice.
• Watch out for changes in your field of endeavour. Change is guaranteed and not always welcome - especially when you have spent your career investing in a particular skill. For example, a decade before, you had to know about the RS-232E serial communication standard and you were able to wield a soldering iron with some panache. This is mostly obsolete now and instead you need to know all about Gigabit Ethernet and TCP/IP addressing. So watch for changes, be prepared to change and where possible avoid backing yourself into a career dead end.
• Hitch a lift with a magic carpet rider. There are employees going places in an organisation that can be fairly easily identified. They show clear signs of leadership with their enthusiasm, high level of energy, innovative thinking and involvement in pioneering and ultimately productive projects. Endeavouring to work in their departments is far more intelligent than working for and with dead-end colleagues and managers – those who tend to be cynical, negative and disappointed with the firms they work for and with their own careers. Avoid those who say:” I have told my kids never to take engineering as a career as it is a dead-end”.
• Discuss your career with your manager. Put a plan together of where you want to go with your career over a 6 to 12 month period. In the plan consider; type of work and experience, progress and a forecast, education or professional development and naturally salary. Don’t haggle with your manager on salaries, however, and play your firm off against a job offer from another firm - you are likely to be labelled mercenary and untrustworthy. Keep an eye on salaries, though, with comparable jobs in the market and ensure your management is aware of any discrepancies. In tough economic times flexibility with salaries is more challenging, but you may be able to negotiate on intangible benefits. These include things such as; more time off, longer holidays, opportunities for experience in other areas of the firm, training and education.
• Make a point of understanding the business side of your firm. This is mainly what your managers are interested in after all. Whether this involves financial, marketing or legal issues – gaining some knowledge in the relevant areas and contributing intelligently will make your managers sit up and take notice - your advice may even become invaluable and sought after. This is a big ask, however, as very few people have a good understanding and a good mix of skills in technology, engineering and business. However, I believe gaining an understanding of finance, is critical for all engineering professionals (as it is vital in your personal life as well).
• It is the long haul and persistence that matters. Don’t worry about short term setbacks in your career development. Reassess your direction every now and again, by all means, but ultimately set your objectives and keep trucking doggedly in their direction. Don’t give up or compromise.
  Remember as Bob Wells remarked: Your true value depends entirely on what you are compared with.

Make sure that in your firm and with your clients you are considered one of the best there is.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

Often, one of the most challenging things is to persuade your engineering colleagues to take a particular course of action such as telling them a different way is better, more effective, or just the right thing to do. When change is involved, as we all know, there is always enormous inertia in acting. Reactions range from outright hostility or resistance to indifference (as someone pointed out to me a few years ago – “re-engineering the already re-engineered corporation” – people simply become exhausted with constant change and then resigned to someone persuading them to change).

Engineering Professionals may be Objective
As engineering professionals we may all be utterly objective and rational. However, you will find that everyone has a totally different perspective of a given situation and you can never assume other professionals will come to the same conclusion as you. You have to think of the other views of a particular situation when considering how to get them to change.

Change is sometimes a good thing
So herewith a few suggestions on persuading your peers that change is indeed a good thing.

• Focus on the good things that will come about as a result of the change. You are doing it to improve processes or the life of your co-workers. You are not doing it to punish them.
• Link the proposed change to common goals that you all agree on and share.
• Anticipate all the reasons why people will disagree and prepare for them. Bring out these possible changes into the open and discuss them openly and positively. Listen carefully to the others who are not enthusiastic about your changes proposed.
• Avoid using the words: “No”, “but” or “however” in your responses. They send a negative signal to the other party. Often just say “Thank you for your comments”.
• Avoid getting into a full-on argument. How many times have you changed someone’s opinion because of an argument ? Rarely, I would suggest.

Remember Benjamin Franklin’s take on persuasion: If you would persuade, you must appeal to interest rather than intellect.

Thanks to Susan De La Vergne of the IEEE for an interesting piece on the Inexact Science.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Is your new engineering graduate engineer, technician or technologist ready for the job? Do they find it easy to learn the key elements of their job? Did they get a great education focussed on practical outcomes? The answer to these questions is depressingly, no.

So we have to seize the moment and mentor ‘em.

What are young engineering professionals weak in?
The areas where newbies in the workplace are often weak is in communication skills, working in multidisciplinary teams and practical problem solving. The highly specialised theoretical academic study doesn’t help with producing industry-ready graduates.

Other issues are that students and graduates actually don’t really have a notion of what engineers and technicians really do in their careers. I (and perhaps you) can testify from personal experience that my engineering education didn’t prepare me for a practical engineering career. And I don’t see much evidence to show that it has changed much today in engineering schools and colleges. For example, I chuckle when I see the huge amount of highly theoretical mathematics in the engineering curriculum. Supposedly to train you to think logically and systematically; but I have my doubts.

After overcoming my initial disillusionment after starting with my first engineering job after leaving college; I was really helped along by a mentor who went out of his way to give me real responsible engineering project work to undertake.

So how do you mentor someone?

• Give them help in problem solving/working with engineers and people from other disciplines and help them communicate better
• Encourage a hands-on approach
• Get them to practise communication skills – reading/writing and presenting
• Help them improve their troubleshooting skills
• Critique their work in a positive constructive way
• Try and tie their theoretical understanding to the practical side of the job
• Give them responsible projects that test them
• Give them ongoing opportunities to test their skills
• Don’t worry if they break something – encourage risk taking (as long as they are SAFE)
• Teach them how to start lifelong learning (and never to stop)
• Push to teach at your local college to give some practical know-how

Abigail Adams is quite right about: We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

As we all know – the Internet has made a huge impact on how we view the world. However, what is now happening is that the Internet is increasingly playing a part in the physical world and affecting how you view it especially with the rapid growth of mobile technologies. Think of your mobile phone or tablet. Not only can you access people scattered a few oceans away but you can also have localized information at your finger tips.

An ocean of data
If, like most of us, you live in a city, then there is a huge amount of real-time data that is being thrown off from people, buildings, cars, industrial equipment that you can grab through your mobile phone or tablet. With your mobile device, you can grab details on the next bus leaving, the free offers of coffee from the café across the road and a special deal on books from the shop that you are currently striding past.

Digital Information has a huge Influence your Physical world
However (and here is the rub), a lot of the digital information will have a huge influence on how you see the physical world around you. From a restaurant you were planning on going to, but noticed a poor series of ratings (from previous customers), to the location of a friend you were planning on meeting.

However, there is likely to be a somewhat sinister side – standing in front of a monument and being given a version of history that reinforces your bad feelings about a particular culture; may not be such a good thing. Or being provided with reviews on a product which reinforces the reason why you won’t buy. Much of the information you will read will be filtered to suit your likes and dislikes.

Think of the impact of the mobile world on us as Engineering Professionals
Consider the impact on us as engineering professionals; with the following opportunities and threats when accessing your mobile phone in a specific location (in real time):

• Provision of digital markers (accessed through your phone) using GPS co-ordinates to warn you about digging dangers in your locality for power and water supplies and emergency information (hospitals/police)
• Consumption of power and water in your location
• Number of cars crossing a bridge/road and the loading limits
• Localized weather warnings/lightning activity when on a building site
• Special deals on engineering supplies/training/education/consulting services – pop-in to pick up your complementary book
• Recruitment for engineering professionals in a specific area.

Overall; surely it is a good thing to have all the digital world interleaved with the physical world – however, one will have to be wary of the filtering that is already occurring meaning that important information may be hidden from you. Or conversely that you may inundated with too much information.

Thanks to the Economist for an interesting article.

A rather harsh reminder (from Bertrand Russell) of what really happens in the physical world today: The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

I think we are all subjected to written reports which are gibberish, unreadable and full of gobbledygook. Perhaps you even are guilty of writing like this? I know that I am.

An example of poor writing in a report on a problem with delivery

Technological problems and input product deficiencies combined to impact on the specified deliverable quality and estimated deadlines of the product. Extensive and unspecified (at this stage – pending further investigation) modifications will be made to bring the deliverables into alignment with the contractual requirements of the client specification JFHA/JHU/1909804 Rev5.0567…..

Why do we write like this?

I know you will exclaim that you don’t write like this; but this is an extreme example.

Engineering professionals often feel uncomfortable with writing and tend to focus with passion on the technical problem at hand. When they do write, I often find they use large jargon-rich words expressed in the third person in rather convoluted English. Naturally, the reader is often hopelessly confused about what the writer is trying to communicate. The situation is often worsened because engineering teams are composed of personnel from a range of cultural backgrounds where English is a second language.

A few Humble Suggestions:

1. Keep it short and to the point
Keep your sentences short and to the point. Use words which everyone can understand. Avoid technical jargon; or if you intend to use words which are going to be misunderstood – explain what they mean.

2. Express Action
Instead of:
‘Extensive modifications were made by the team to the product…’

Change to:
‘We modified the product…’

Instead of:
‘An extensive investigation was conducted into the problems with service by the team’.

Change to:
‘We investigated the service problems’

3. Avoid clichés and old tired language

Suggestions of well worn boring phrases include:
“jump the gun’; ’one in a million’; ’law of the jungle’…

Avoid these phrases and try an alternative simple expression.

For ‘one in a million’; you could say: ‘unusual’

4. We may have a boring subject but sex it up
A considerable amount of engineering reports are skimmed through and hardly read. Why? Because they are boring and no one can face ploughing through them. So why not make your report interesting, short and powerful? Design it so that someone will read it and commend you later for an enjoyable experience. I know some of you will roll around on the floor laughing at this suggestion; but I dare you to try…

I suspect Walter Bagehot hits the nail on the head with his remark: The reason why so few good books are written is that so few people who can write know anything.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Approximately a hundred thousand people are killed every month in traffic accidents around the world. If this was happening with aircraft; it is likely they would be all grounded. The number of cars is slated to increase from 1 billion (2010) to over 2 billion in 2020. Almost 90% of accidents are caused by human mistakes. Certainly, when I drive around town (I like to think I am a defensive & cautious driver!), I get alarmed with the quality of driving and the number of accidents I have personally witnessed.

Two years ago, Audi (part of Volkswagen) successfully dispatched a self driving car through a few hundred tight curves over 20kms of sealed (paved) and dirt road in Colorado. Perhaps the driverless car can be a workable solution to our driving woes?

There are now enormous opportunities for engineering professionals in getting into the fast growing field of driverless cars.

The Driverless Car
Certainly, seatbelts and airbags have saved lives. However, the next big revolution promises to be driverless cars. Think of the opportunities to co-ordinate routes, optimise the capacity of roads, save time and fuel. The first commercial driverless car is anticipated by the end of this decade.

Autonomous driving
Adaptive cruise control has been around since the early nineties – allowing one to use a radar system to track the car in front and to accelerate or decelerate automatically. Autonomous driving is a combination of adaptive cruise-control and lane-keeping systems (warning or adjusting your steering if you move out of your correct lane). This supposedly will only add a few thousand dollars to the cost of a car. There is already evidence of reduced insurance claims for injury of almost 15% in the use of these systems.

The Technology required
As would be expected – the critical components for a driverless car are based around instrumentation and electronic/electrical engineering; not so much mechanical engineering parts. An array of sensors is required to detect the surrounds using cameras, radar and lidar (light emission rather than radio). Ultrasonic detectors for parking and gyroscopes, accelerometers and altimeters provide precise positioning. Communications between neighbouring cars would be another useful component.

The Inimitable Google
You have probably heard of Google’s work in the driverless cars. Their strategy is to build up a detailed map of items along the route in manual mode and then switching into autonomous mode. Over time, the route mapping becomes more and more detailed as the route is covered more frequently (such as going to work).

Some challenges
The challenges are naturally huge. For example, deciding whether an object in the road is a plastic bag or a solid rock can be difficult for software to assess. Or the real edge of the road (e.g. a dirt road after a heavy downpour of rain), humans are still better at doing this type of work (at the moment).

Regulations will need to be put in place to eliminate any hobbyist putting his driverless car out on the road and causing a huge accident without some certification process. We all know how reliable software is and the need for thorough testing….

Driverless Trucks are already being used
In Australia, the Rio Tinto mining company is already using a fleet of self driving trucks (and trains) to haul iron ore (over 300 tonnes per truck). No accidents have been reported to date – probably because of the variety of sensors and interaction (‘they chat to each other’) between the different trucks’ controls systems.

Perhaps in the future, some cities will ban manual driving as a result of proven evidence in saving lives and reducing congestion. Surely the true measurement of the success of this technology (hopefully seen in the next decade) will be in significantly reducing accidents on the road and reducing the overall cost of driving a car.

Naturally, building an effective driverless car will be based on everyone's input. As Eric Schmidt (of Google) remarked: None of us is as smart as all of us.

Thanks to the Economist for interesting reading on the topic.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

As engineers and technicians we tend to focus on the technical issues in the job and salaries are left behind.

Best Paying Engineering Degrees
Maria in our US office located an interesting document on engineering salaries in the USA in 2011 – produced by the respectable US Bureau of Labor and Statistics. Admittedly, if you live in another country or Outer West Waziristan, this would probably be of minimal interest but there are some interesting comments which do apply to you wherever you are.

Engineering Technicians and Overtime
Although this presentation is focussed on engineering degree programs; presumably you can get an equivalent figure by discounting these numbers by 20% to get that for engineering technicians (unless overtime is involved in which case, the remuneration should be increased to be 20% more !). Civil engineers have been left out; but I would suggest they would be similar to mechanical engineers in terms of remuneration.

Top of the Wozza
Electrical, chemical and computer engineering are probably top spots.

In Summary

• As you already know – Overall, engineering degrees are a good investment.
• The devil is in the geographical detail. Jobs for particular engineering occupations change significantly from one town to another.
• I would be dubious about whether achieving a higher degree such as a doctorate is going to suddenly jump start your salary.
• As indicated in previous blogs – computer engineering show the greatest promise – esp. hooked into an existing area such as civil engineering or chemical engineering.
• One has to be careful about outsourcing of jobs to China and India for example, as this can have an impact on salaries in specific areas – for example – mass produced goods and textiles.
• Environmental engineering can only grow because of the vast amount of water use and waste produced.
• Aerospace engineering can be somewhat challenging as most jobs are in large companies or government. However, there are some interesting growth areas with space exploration going private and construction of cheap remote-controlled aircraft for civilian use such as drones.

In the early 1700's, Benjamin Franklin wryly remarked: Who is rich? He that is content. Who is that? Nobody.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

I am sure you are keenly aware of the conflict that often develops between the marketing/sales/business development and engineering functions of your firm.

Selling features which don’t exist
We often hear of marketing selling features of a product or service we haven’t developed yet (and often we had no intention of ever developing). On the other hand, marketing tends to regard engineering professionals as those who insist on high quality technical outcomes with no thought to the cost and time to complete delivery of the product or service. This may be true in some cases where engineers are not always aware of business considerations as they are so busy focussing on the technical issues (which they naturally enjoy).

How to Sell Mediocre Products
I am constantly dumbfounded by the enormous power that marketing can bring in delivering incredible rewards for often absolutely mediocre products. And the converse is often true – stunningly brilliant engineering products and services simply don’t succeed because of poor marketing and awareness.

Apple is a good example of a brilliant firm with great marketing. I would question whether the Apple product range is technically that outstanding – apart from their styling and design which is brilliant; but there is no question that their marketing and PR prowess is worldclass. And it works. You have to admire them.

Some Suggestions on a happy marriage between marketing and engineering

• As we are repeatedly told - competition is fierce and margins are cut to the bone so one is always overselling and overmarketing. But I believe it is important to hose down expectations and to over-deliver on a product or service wherever possible. This makes for a happy client.
• Customer needs and requirements are often a minefield in complexity - a delicate bewildering balancing act of features, cost, scheduled time to completion, performance, ergonomics, quality and design. This requires careful consideration of risk, pricing and delivery schedule to ensure a profit at the end.
• It is critical to clearly specify (in simple English) at the outset what one is going to deliver –esp. with software. With no ‘if’s and but’s” and grey areas.
• Requirements creep during the project should be avoided at all costs (esp. with software). As this can totally destroy the profits in a good project. Wherever there are genuine changes requested by the client, the best is to ask for a variation and charge appropriately (the client can delete this change at this point or pay the additional amount).
• Take particular care to minimise risk (or to hedge them appropriately by putting in conditional clauses in your contract) when bidding on a job. I have come across so many jobs where the job has been won and after many months of development it has turned into a massive lossmaking project due to unreasonable (or unknown) technical risks.
• Ultimately however, constant innovation is a key ingredient in engineering and product/service development. If you have an innovative feature which delivers superior performance or levels of productivity, it is always easier to price this at a premium level (well, until the competitors have caught up)
• Marketing/sales and business development and engineering needs to be a tight partnership and strong positive relationships need to be developed for the business to succeed.

As Peter Drucker (one of the greatest management thinkers) rightly pointed out: Business has only two basic functions - marketing and innovation.

Thanks to the IEEE and Gary C. Hinkle for a thoughtful  article on marketing.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Over a million robots toil endlessly in (particularly car) factories around the world. However, they are expensive, difficult to maintain and time consuming to program and only have a limited repertoire of activities.

Low Cost Robots equivalent to the PC
What many are calling for is a low cost equivalent to the ubiquitous PC. Obviously, one is after something considerably more reliable than the PC. A recent innovation by Dr Brooks (originally hailing from MIT) is a large two-armed robot (called Baxter) that is located on a moveable pedestal costing under $22,000 (but considerably cheaper than an equivalent production line robot).

We all know about consumer robots
Most of us have come across these snazzy little consumer low cost robots which scoot around happily under chairs and tables cleaning our homes. Definitely becoming more user friendly and effective. Consumer-based but not quite industrial. So this new industrial robot, Baxter, does offer some great opportunities.

Robots can hurt people
A concern many have with industrial robots is their undoubted ability to hurt humans working in their proximity (and hence they – well, the robots – need to be housed in protective cages). This particular one (Baxter) has a sonar located on its head to detect any object near by. It then compensates for the presence of any objects with its movements thus possessing a degree of elasticity in its movements.

Programming is done by moving its arms and manipulators through the required trajectories it is required to execute (e.g. putting tops on bottles and packing them into boxes or picking up items from a conveyor belt and popping them into a box).

Quick Payback
A low cost industrial robot opens the door to reducing the costs of assembly line work. Suggestions are that the payback could be less than 6 months if the robot could work 8760 hours per year compared to a human equivalent of 1600 hours. However, the truth of the matter is that it could probably replace 10% of assembly workers as technology (as we all painfully know) never quite lives up to its initial hype.

What are a few lessons from this?

• Robots are rapidly becoming lower cost and available
• Re-examine tasks that you have humans doing which are dangerous and mindlessly repetitive – these may be cost effective to swap across to robot-based
• Keep researching the robotic offerings out there for the one that may soon fit your requirements
• In your new designs, give serious consideration to more lower cost robots

In inventing new approaches in engineering, Charles F. Kettering makes a good point: Inventing is the mixing of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less materials you need.

Thanks to the Economist for an interesting article on the PC’isation of robots.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

As former Apple evangelist, Guy Kawasaki, noted recently (in contradiction to the usual hype) – Silicon Valley’s core reason for success is not about venture capital, easy finance, legal structures or marketing but simply the engineering and computer science departments of Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. A critical mass of engineers and engineering students has created an unprecedented level of ingenuity and innovation. This has resulted in an ongoing slew of innovative (perhaps prototype) products and services. At this point funding took the prototype products to the next level.

Silicon Valley is the cradle of High Tech Heaven
Silicon Valley has developed from a small university town into home of some of the largest technology firms in the world (including Apple – the world’s largest company) and Adobe, Google, Sun Microsystems, Hewlett Packard and YouTube.

Governments have used the wrong formula
Governments throughout the world (being largely controlled by lawyers and business types) have tried to recreate Silicon Valley prototypes through funding and tax breaks; but this generally doesn’t work as innovation and success doesn’t (initially) come from money but from plain old engineering ingenuity.

Patents aren’t the panacea either
No one can patent their way to success either. Just starting out to get your patent finally recognised can take an enormous amount of money and at least five years (if it isn’t stolen in the interim). By this time, the “technology horse” has bolted. So either the company with the concept is dead in the water or worth squillions of dollars and enormously successful (before the actual patent has been granted).

Creating your own mini Silicon Valley
So how do you create your own mini Silicon Valley?

• Gather a lot of innovative engineers and engineering students together
• Ensure the focus is in ‘breaking the mould’ and doing things outside the norm
• Set targets for the impossible
• Encourage and give space for innovation
• Educate on how to take the products to market
• At this point introduce the finance types to provide the next stage of commercialisation

In creating something successful, David Brinkley is so right in saying:

A successful (wo)man is one who can lay a firm foundation with the bricks others have thrown at him or her.

Thanks to the Sydney Morning Herald and Guy Kawasaki (CEO of  Garage Technology Ventures) for some interesting reading.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Over a million robots toil endlessly in (particularly car) factories around the world. However, they are expensive, difficult to maintain and time consuming to program and only have a limited repertoire of activities.

Low Cost Robots equivalent to the PC
What many are calling for is a low cost equivalent to the ubiquitous PC. Obviously, one is after something considerably more reliable than the PC. A recent innovation by Dr Brooks (originally hailing from MIT) is a large two-armed robot (called Baxter) that is located on a moveable pedestal costing under $22,000 (but considerably cheaper than an equivalent production line robot).

We all know about consumer robots
Most of us have come across these snazzy little consumer low cost robots which scoot around happily under chairs and tables cleaning our homes. Definitely becoming more user friendly and effective. Consumer-based but not quite industrial. So this new industrial robot, Baxter, does offer some great opportunities.

Robots can hurt people
A concern many have with industrial robots is their undoubted ability to hurt humans working in their proximity (and hence they – well, the robots – need to be housed in protective cages). This particular one (Baxter) has a sonar located on its head to detect any object near by. It then compensates for the presence of any objects with its movements thus possessing a degree of elasticity in its movements.

Programming is done by moving its arms and manipulators through the required trajectories it is required to execute (e.g. putting tops on bottles and packing them into boxes or picking up items from a conveyor belt and popping them into a box).

Quick Payback
A low cost industrial robot opens the door to reducing the costs of assembly line work. Suggestions are that the payback could be less than 6 months if the robot could work 8760 hours per year compared to a human equivalent of 1600 hours. However, the truth of the matter is that it could probably replace 10% of assembly workers as technology (as we all painfully know) never quite lives up to its initial hype.

What are a few lessons from this?

• Robots are rapidly becoming lower cost and available
• Re-examine tasks that you have humans doing which are dangerous and mindlessly repetitive – these may be cost effective to swap across to robot-based
• Keep researching the robotic offerings out there for the one that may soon fit your requirements
• In your new designs, give serious consideration to more lower cost robots

In inventing new approaches in engineering, Charles F. Kettering makes a good point: Inventing is the mixing of brains and materials. The more brains you use, the less materials you need.

Thanks to the Economist for an interesting article on the PC’isation of robots.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

I wondered when I would write about this topic. Something which always amuses is the incredible longevity of some computers. In the context of IBM mainframes,as the old Roman sage, Ovid, living a few thousand years ago remarked:All things change; nothing perishes.

Ode to a  Mainframe
Many of you will no doubt remember the (Sperry Univac and IBM) mainframe (and indeed, minicomputers) - computers we worked with either on university campus or at work doing some form of exotic design (well, in the seventies and eighties) or number crunching. Well, Big Blue or IBM, still a massive computer company operating throughout the world, derives a quarter of its revenue from mainframes (and associated hardware, storage, software and services) and at least half of its profits. Although officially, the headline revenue from the traditional mainframes is supposedly only 4%, the detail is obviously somewhat more interesting.

Made Like a Scandinavian Refrigerator
The current IBM mainframe computer looks like an avant garde (Scandinavian ?) large refrigerator and is used for mission critical tasks such as credit card payments, artificial intelligence research and geophysical number crunching.
In the late eighties everyone started bolting from mainframes in favour of the utterly unreliable but hopelessly cheap PCs and perhaps more reliable minicomputers (such as the late lamented DEC range). And we all thought, the time of the mainframe, was almost over. Quite wrong, as it has turned out.

We need Mainframes
However today, the mainframe is in demand for number crunching at an unprecedented level with security as the number one item. The latest version is referred to as T-Rex (some IBM tongue-in-cheek humour referring to computer dinosaurs, obviously).

There is also an element of inertia in mainframes surviving. If you were a large financial institution or bank with security of data top of your mind; you would be rather unsure about changing across to a flotilla of PCs. The latest mainframe apparently cost over a billion dollars to develop (and sells for a million dollars each) – is utterly reliable and secure (built in or ‘impregnated’ through the hardware) and has embedded analytics to detect fraudulent activity. One of their most assiduous clients is the Bank of China who have been buying truckloads of mainframes.

Perhaps PCs, under massive assault from tablets and mobile (smart) phones, will not survive as long as mainframes ?

Thanks to the Economist for a rivetting article on Big Blue.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

Companies today are rapidly reducing tangible assets – buildings, machines and inevitably, people such as high cost engineering staff. And we know that there is a massive amount of outsourcing going on meaning jobs go elsewhere. This is all happening today and will eventually impact on you.

Companies Fail
The days of expecting a job for 30 years, say, from a company are rapidly diminishing. I clearly remember starting out in the diamond mining business as a junior engineer with thousands of other highly skilled engineering professionals working for this company. It had been around for over a hundred years. Today it is a poor shadow of itself with only a tiny number of engineers and technicians working there now. An unbelievable situation when one considers how dynamic and profitable it was thirty years ago.

Create a Job Today
We thus need to create these jobs dynamically ourselves. And employ others. Engineering professionals have the innate technical prowess to make things. Add in creativity to the mix and an understanding of what the market wants and you could have a winning product or service.

Become an Engineer-Entrepreneur
The winners are individuals such as Engineer-Entrepreneurs and companies that come up with new products and services which the global community wants. And keep coming up with new products. Otherwise they also die.

We thus need the engineer-entrepreneur to conceptualise and design new products and services. Working out what to invent/why it should be invented – who is the market and how to make the whole process economically viable and sustainable.

This applies to you whether you are working for another company or for yourself. Seek out opportunities to innovate and create new products and services. In this way; you can extend the life of your company and your career.

Start-ups and Small Business are different
As an engineer-entrepreneur, there is a chasm between successfully operating a start-up company and a small business. Although business schools tend to gloss over the differences and treat both as the same. But they are totally different animals. One key difference is that a start-up company often has a brilliant product which has incredible possibilities; but no actual market (at present). Your job with a start-up is to get the product to market as quickly as possible.

Innovation and Creativity are a must
Perhaps, the most valuable ingredient of the engineer-entrepreneur is innovation and creativity.

Engineering professionals also have to be ferociously self-sufficient, self sustaining and life long learners responsible for staying in business. And prepared to learn from their customers in optimising their creations so that they are economically viable. Inevitably, they must be prepared to have a high threshold of tolerance to repeated failure and the ability to persist to success.

And above all - you have to believe in yourself.

Thanks to Dr Mark Polczynski for his article on The Engineer Entrepreneur (www.technologyforge.net/mark.polczynski).

As George Lois points out: Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

A topic I often avoid discussing is quality. Mainly because it conjures up ideas of masses of paper work and enormous costs with no discernible increase in the quality of a product or service.

However, someone for whom I have the greatest admiration is a fine electrical engineer, Edwards Deming, who as many of you will recall is often referred to as the father of modern quality control (and was single-handedly responsible for a massively positive impact on the quality of Japanese manufacturing after World War II).

Quality and Costs
Deming made two important observations which are worthwhile repeating:

When you focus on improving quality as defined by:

Quality = Results of Work Efforts / Total costs.

You will find the quality improves and costs decrease.

Conversely, if you focus mainly on costs, you will find that over time the costs tend to rise and the quality decreases.

What key knowledge do you need to improve quality?
In improving the quality of a product or service, he felt all engineers and managers should possess the following key knowledge:

• Know the system and process well. This not only means the engineering system but the suppliers, producers and customers.
• Understand where the variations in the quality are coming from in terms of range and causes.
• Be aware of the theory of knowledge and what can be known in the process and system.
• Finally (and nonetheless) still importantly – understand the psychology of human nature (the hard bit!).

Thanks to an excellent article in the IEEE by Dr Wole Akpose (A History of Six Sigma).

A good strategy when striving for a high quality document according to David Reisman is:

Look at all the sentences which seem true and question them.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleague,

A few years ago, I was somewhat surprised when we (and indeed others) launched an extensive range of renewable energy courses focussing on solar and wind power and found that the Interest wasn’t particularly high. In reading the newspapers and government rhetoric, one thought that everyone was ‘doing renewable energy’. The truth is obviously that most of us aren’t directly involved in building some exotic wind and solar energy installation. We continue to work in our traditional engineering jobs.

And a lot of the manufacture of solar panels (interestingly, often made at a great loss as with China) and wind turbines have often moved offshore. But the amount of activity in putting installations together down the road from you is steadily growing.

An Opportunity to Green yourself
However, we do have an extraordinary opportunity today to green our existing jobs and work. Whether you believe in climate change and the impact of CO2 (I do!); you can definitely improve the environment in a myriad of other ways and prepare the world (and your kids) for when the fossil fuels are perhaps not as widely available.

In fact, being green is a key part of your job. No matter what you do – it doesn’t have to be directly connected to the solar and wind turbine business. Producing things which are cheaper, more efficient (esp. lower energy usage), have lower CO2 emissions and are kind to the environment should be our mantra these days.  And being green doesn’t have to cost more than the traditional approach.

One Intriguing Approach
Examples of changing to more efficient processes are myriad. One particularly intriguing one was a company that wanted to provide cloud computing storage and backup services but decided not to go the traditional route of an energy intensive data center but to encrypt the data and store it in fragments on other users’ hard drives – meaning no dedicated data centers and thus a significant saving in energy.

It has to come from the top
The message of innovating and going green has to come from the top with ongoing management support and encouragement. And indeed, similarly client support and encouragement as well.

It won’t hit the Press and you will be an invisible green
The approach of going green with everything you do is unlikely to hit the press in the way that electric cars, photovoltaic cells and wind turbines attract attention from the public. Being green here will be somewhat invisible to the public. But this will arguably be even more critical to your long term career, your company’s success and that of the sustainability of the planet. And you are likely to break a few traditional business models as well as creating new processes.

Thanks to John R. Platt of the IEEE for a thought provoking article.

Although she wrote this 300 years ago, Abigail Adams is of course right when she says: We have too many high sounding words, and too few actions that correspond with them.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues

Often you have to write a short summary (referred to as an Executive Summary) for your managers or executives. These fellows (and gals) can be an impatient lot wanting the core ideas imparted with the minimal of technical jargon in action oriented prose. So that they can quickly act on the points you make with minimal cross fire from any one else. Thus you need to be hyper-efficient in your writing.

A few other issues you need to consider

• What do you want to achieve with the executive summary?
• How relevant is the topic to them? Do they have prior knowledge or do you need to give them appropriate background?
• It can be useful to give them some technical details in simple English if they are familiar with the field (being from an engineering background) or you can easily summarise the key assumptions you have made from the technical details.
• Initially do a brain dump of everything you can think of. Don’t worry about the clutter of detail initially. Just write everything down relating to the issue and then work through it after this.
• Choose the key facts from a conflicting maze of others – typically not more than three or four details suffice.
• Write in simple non-jargon based English. Get to the point and don’t get distracted with unnecessary rubbish. Preferably use verbs rather than inactive nouns.
• Review your summary to ensure it is objective with no bias.
• Finally, if you are to present this to a live audience; prepare meticulously beforehand. Practise, practise and also rehearse for any awkward questions that may be thrown your way.

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

Please avoid doing this at all costs: An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations. (From Charles de Montesquieu)

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

We all experience setbacks and bad things particularly in our engineering work and our personal lives. I do often. Here are some great strategies to work through these times quickly and effectively. The key is to work through these to increase your likelihood of success in the future.

If you haven’t had a bad moment; you may not be trying hard enough in your job and are stuck in some comfort zone.

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.

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.
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.

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.

The key is to learn from your mistakes and ensure you don’t repeat this one again.

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.

Thanks Andrew May for an interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

An interesting little (simple) brain teaser for you – no matter whether what discipline or type of engineering professional you are.

The Challenge
A tank at atmospheric pressure contains 1 kg of air. The tank is then pressurized with an additional 3 kgs of air. What is the resultant gauge pressure (in bars) in the tank after this 3kgs of air has been added? Absolute pressure = gauge pressure + atmospheric pressure

A. 1 bar
B. 3 bar
C. 4 bar

You could use the Universal Gas Law in your deliberations:

PV = nRT

Where V is volume; P is absolute pressure; n is the number of moles (‘molecules’); R is a constant and T is the temperature.

Assume atmospheric pressure is 1 bar (the initial pressure) – naturally this is a number which could change depending on what altitude you are at.

Solution (suggested – you could do it in a myriad of different ways)
There is initially 1kg of air occupying V0 initial volume.

With 3kgs of air added; there is now a total of 4kg of air in the tank (thus the final number of moles or particles is effectively 4 times that of the initial number).

The volume (V0) and temperature (TO) of the tank still stays the same.

Thus:

P0 V0  = n0 R T0 (initial state)
P1  V0  =  n1 R T0  (final state where n1 = 4 x n0)
Thus – dividing each side of equation 1 and 2 we get:

P1  V0 / P0 V0  =  4 x n0 R T0  /  n0 R T0

P1  V0 / P0 V0  =  4 x n0 R T0  /  n0 R T0

Thus P1 = 4 P0

Hence, the final pressure P1 = 4 bar absolute or 3 bar gauge pressure (thus answer B above)

Do you agree?

My humble appreciation to Dr Rodney Jacobs and David Spitzer (the flow guru) for their contributions and critique.

Albert Einstein remarked: I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

As we all know, most electronic-based equipment and instruments generally contain some form of circuit board and bits of wire to tie the individual parts together. However, the assembly and manufacturing process in tying these individual wires and circuit boards together and then squeezing them into a tiny space can take considerable effort and consume a huge amount of space.

As we have discussed in earlier blogs, it is now possible to undertake 3-d printing of items ranging from phones to instrument cases – printing one layer at a time. This is possibly the prelude to a personal manufacturing revolution where everything is done on the fly anywhere anytime. Not in a low-paying sweatshop as is often the case.

It is now possible to print electronics in three dimensions to complement this 3-d printing revolution.  Printing on circuit boards has been around for a long time. However, we can now do electronics printing in combination with the 3-d personal printing of the case (of the instrument, for example).

Conductive inks are critical
Xerox is currently experimenting with conductive inks to print electronic circuits directly onto plastic or textiles. Although copper is used extensively in circuits; silver is actually better as it is a improved conductor and can easily be used in the printing process. The silver is deposited in a tiny layer (five nanometers thick); thus being cheap. The printing of electronic circuits can be combined with the 3-d printing process thus enabling antennas, sensors and full electronic circuits to be printed “within” or “on” a plastic item (such as phone or instrument).

A Single Machine to make One Product
Instead of considering assembling electronics and building a case for an electronic device as separate processes; one can now do it all in one process. Printing all the millions of transistors contained in an electronic chip is obviously not possible at this stage. So a hybrid approach will be required.

Think of the huge potential possible with your applications…..

The uses of this technology are quite extensive and you can look around at the items you could make smaller or build on the fly and thus respond flexibly to demand and customise to individual requirements.

Thanks to the Economist for a great article on 3-d printing.

David McCullough’s remark is so true: Real success is finding your life work in the work that you love.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

If you have ever been involved with building a start-up firm you will probably realize that a lot of the stuff from business school is next to useless. Start-ups are not simply smaller versions of a standard business but something completely different. Universities have had a mixed record in transferring technology to the market.

It is my sincere belief that driving the creation of start-up firms – particularly in engineering are a critical part of our lives to create new products and services and to improve overall productivity. And we need to nurture and build these “animals”.

Driven only by passion and the smell of an oily rag
Engineering start up firms are driven by passion and belief. Business plans, while nice to have, often change dramatically once you have launched the product and come into contact with your first customer. For every venture that makes it to established small business (or bigger) status, there are hundreds of others that have gone bust. Leaving broken hearts and much financial loss.

There must be ways to improve the success rate of start-ups. Particularly in the critical engineering and technology areas.

We can’t only be focussed on the technology
It is vital to avoid being 100% focussed on the technology we have created with a start-up but to ensure we put solid (and competent) effort into finding customers, working out effective distribution channels, pricing and joint-venture partners. And to handle a ferocious amount of rejection from would-be disinterested customers.

But overall we have to unerringly focus on getting out of the lab or workshop and our product into the real commercial world. After all – no sales and no customers makes for a quick death of the start-up.

Failures are a key part of the start-up
We have to learn from the all too frequent failures in approaching the market. This will require making considerable adjustments to our original premises in how to sell the product – changes to how the product is used/what market should be approached/pricing etc.

We have to run a marathon rather than the 100 m sprint
Start-ups often take considerably longer than anyone ever anticipated and we have to factor in a longer time to get the product out in the marketplace and some degree of profitability creeping in.

A useful template
A successful approach to launching a start-up has come from Mr Steve Blank from Silicon Valley who is somewhat of a serial entrepreneur. He has created two complementary techniques: Business model design (to help understand who your customer really is) and Customer-development (real-world testing of your product in terms of sales and marketing).

If you are considering a start-up – do a google on his approach which is yielding great success.

Thanks to the Economist for an interesting take on a tricky problem.

With respect to start-ups, Benjamin Franklin’s comment should be noted: Energy and persistence conquer all things.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

A few weeks ago, I stupidly broke my right wrist (on a beach!) and a few years ago my ankle. Fortunately, after a few plates and screws all is well with no actual loss of a limb.

The purpose of this note is decidedly not to look for sympathy but to talk about the exploding opportunities for engineering professionals working in the field of prosthetics where loss of a limb is the focus.

What is a prosthesis?
A prosthesis, prosthetic, or prosthetic limb is a device that replaces a missing body part. It is part of the field of biomechatronics, the science of using mechanical devices with human muscle, skeleton, and nervous systems to assist or enhance motor control lost by trauma, disease, or defect. Prostheses are typically used to replace parts lost by injury (traumatic) or missing from birth (congenital) or to supplement defective body parts (thanks Wikipedia).

Thousands of new amputees every day
Each day, thousands of people around the world undergo an operation to amputate one or more of their limbs. For example, in the USA, almost two million Americans live with the loss of a limb. Causes of loss of limbs are not only due to trauma or accident but illnesses and cancer. And naturally, military action (although this is a very small component).

The rapidly growing field of prosthetics provides many solutions to those who have lost limbs.

The Feel-good profession
Some have called the field of prosthetics, the ‘feel-good’ profession as it can enable those who have lost limbs to recover much mobility and to operate on an equivalent level to a standard functioning human.

Modern prosthetic devices are highly computerised with microprocessors, sensors and actuators to provide human-like functionality. Experiments are starting to yield brilliant results in interpreting what an amputee actually wants to do with her limb using implants.

How does an engineering professional enter this fast growing field?
There are generally no specific education programs to train engineering professionals in this area. Most people come from a mechanical engineering background; and to a lesser degree also from electrical engineering and software programming. It is vital to know about electromechanical systems, anatomy and physiology and to understand the psyche of an amputee. A slight complication is that the field is quite an inexact science requiring customization to a particular individual and this may drive the more ‘precise’ engineering professional into a frenzy as a result.

Many engineering professionals got their entry into the field by volunteering.

Engineers working in this area have a pretty well 100% employment rate. In fact, there is a growing shortage of expertise in this area.

So think of working in this area if you are looking to put something back into the engineering profession, work at the boundaries of engineering and medical science and to help humanity. Such is the degree of satisfaction working in the area that there are few who enter the field and who leave it.

Thanks to John R. Platt of the IEEE for an excellent article on prosthetics.

It is good to recall John W. Gardner’s comment when dealing with seemingly massively challenging problems: 'We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems'.

Yours sincerely

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

The art of negotiation can be a thorny topic. I always remember the comment from a guru who (sadly) remarked: “You don’t get what you deserve; you get what you negotiate”.

We don’t negotiate enough
I believe most of us engineering professionals don’t negotiate enough. We accept the status quo when purchasing or selling something. In our quantitative minds, we accept that the price must be right as it is generally set by others “who know better”. Or we believe it is unprofessional and demeaning to “haggle” over an item. And we often believe that it is about a win-lose scenario - if you beat the price down sufficiently, the other party loses. But believe me, even in established department stores, with a supposedly rigid pricing structure, you can negotiate if you have a reason (imperfections in goods, out of date goods, no spares available). People are looking for reasons to give you a great deal. And a better price. Obviously, you have to justify the reason for the lower price. Simply applying the battering ram approach and demanding a lower price isn’t going to be successful.

Understand the other point of view
It is critical to understand the other person’s point of view almost as well as your own – ensure you are clear about what he/she wants and then look for alternatives to the standard solutions.

Don’t destroy the other party
There is definitely no point in destroying the other party in negotiations. It is better to protect their interests, particularly if you are looking for a long term relationship – otherwise it may come back to haunt you. We were the consultants to the construction of a power station. The client was tough and wasn’t prepared to tolerate any relaxation of the original contract terms (delays in delivering the power station occurred due to unexpected wet weather and labour disputes). The contractor ended up with particularly severe terms in the negotiations for liquidated damages and went out of business shortly afterwards. This resulted in a power station that had to be completed by someone else at an enormously increased cost and with huge delays.

Proven Techniques for Negotiation
A few proven techniques with negotiating – no matter whether you are the buyer or seller:

• Avoid an adversarial – you-lose-I-win approach
• Build trust and co-operation - work as partners
• Try and uncover hidden issues when listening to the other party.
• Research your position and that of the other party thoroughly and work out possible solutions before you negotiate.
• Communicate your position clearly and simply and make sure the other party understands you. Clarify your understanding of the other party’s requirements. Indicate a proven commitment to coming to a win-win solution - What do you have that the other party wants? What can you give away at minimal cost to yourself, but which is worth a lot to the other party?
• Reframe the problem so that it is solvable by a win-win solution. What compromises are possible?
• Wait in silence when you have stated your price - do not talk.
• Look for solutions by “expanding-the-cake.”
• Write down the final agreement and confirm this is what has been understood

As far as negotiation goes, William Shakespeare’s advice (in Much Ado about Nothing) from the 1500’s is timeless, insofar as trusting a third party when interpreting a situation:

Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues,

Every successful engineering career involves troubleshooting and fixing at some time. Perhaps mainly remedying your colleague’s mistakes? The trick, I believe, is to keep your mind completely open when tackling the problem - to avoid pre-conceived ideas, as these can throw you off track.

The suggested steps for general engineering troubleshooting are as follows:

1. Identify the exact 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 unwittingly 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.

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.

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 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 overvoltage). 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.

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.

8. Communicate with the client or user
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).

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,

Something most of us intuitively grasp; but which is worthwhile mentioning is the inverse relationship between costs of products and services and experience.

In essence, the more experience a firm has in producing a particular product or service, the lower its costs are. Fairly obvious one would think, but something we often don’t consider when planning a large project or job (especially one which has a degree of repetition in it). The Boston Consulting Group noticed that a semi-conductor company’s unit cost of manufacturing fell by about 25% for each doubling of the volume produced. While there are obviously savings due to an increased level of production, a related conclusion was that costs can decline by 20% to 30% in real terms, each time the accumulated experience doubles. This law has been known since WW II when building aircraft. Effectively less labor is required for a given output, depending on the level of experience. Properly managed, experience can facilitate improvement.

Don’t dump your experienced professionals
So this shows the folly of a company replacing experienced engineering professionals with young hacks at (supposedly) far cheaper rates. Experience and a company’s value reside in its human capital. People. And if talent is not recognised, it leaves the firm and takes away a lot of the value and indeed, cost effectiveness of that firm.

Obviously there are ways of bypassing this law in applying new techniques, training staff intensively to pass on the knowledge and hiring more experienced people. And, innovation and change can invalidate the benefits of the experience curve as certain approaches become obsolete. Innovation can thus leapfrog the experience curve. For example, experience in manufacturing black and white TVs is not of much particular advantage today.

However, even with situations such as this, experienced professionals would be refining their skills and knowledge to ride out these technological changes and can thus help the firm to adapt. After all, the basic physics and mathematics underpinning engineering remains the same.

What can you do about it?
The important issue is to realise that you can achieve greater profits at a lower risk by trying to focus on building up your store of experience in your business.

And naturally, you can budget on the hours spent in reviewing/turning around certain repetitive tasks will decline as the project matures.

As the old saying goes: Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.

Thanks to the Economist, Joseph Sherman and Rahul Sha for some interesting discussions.

Yours in engineering learning,

Steve

Dear Colleagues

I was lucky to participate in a recent graduation of eleven electrical engineering students from a major power utility engaged in one of our three year diploma programs (easily equivalent to the first two or three years of an engineering degree and in some respects superior as there was an strong hands-on job-related component).

My speech went as follows….

You (and indeed your partners) have worked exceptionally hard on this qualification over at least three years and we should celebrate. You may have felt that the Engineering Institute of Technology has probably been far more demanding in what we have required from you than most other colleges and indeed universities. This is because we are absolutely determined to build value into your qualifications so that they are marketable and useful on a national and international basis in your engineering career.

We should celebrate your successes from the rooftops as you have achieved a very powerful thing culminating in today’s ceremony.

Power Engineering and specifically the Electrical Supply Industry is typically an area characterised by significant skilled shortages. So your experience and associated qualification will stand you in excellent stead in the future.

A few suggestions relating to your engineering career as you go forward:

Remain positive and in top problem solving mode
Engineering professionals are generally brilliant at identifying problems but not always so good at creating novel solutions to fix problems. You do not want to be known as the ‘Dr No’ of your organisation who is always finding fault with designs and systems; but someone who is proactive about finding practical solutions to problems – often even before they become an issue. Be more foolish in what you do. Experiment with  new approaches without fear.

Fit into the organisational culture
Although you may consider yourself to be a huge asset in your company and who can’t be bothered about all the trivial paperwork; you can’t simply ignore company procedures and policies. No matter how irritating they may be. Best to fit into the system and comply with the myriad of administrative procedures and requirements and keep your colleagues happy.

Build Value, innovation and excellence into everything you do.
We’ve all seen the financial crashes and rubbish generated on Wall Street and by people who juggle money without building value. You have a brilliant opportunity to build value into your work as you are working in engineering. Which is all about building value.

Business is a key part of engineering
Costs and financial issues are a critical part of an engineering project. You can’t simply rip out a piece of equipment in your plant and replace it with a new Rolls Royce item because it performs better from a technical point of view. There has to be a justified return on investment. Ensuring that you always consider the financial issues in your engineering career; will add enormous value to the organisation. Profits are what makes a company tick.

Communicate brilliantly and with panache
Engineering professionals are renowned for their love of technology. And are not so enthusiastic about the use of English and in communicating well. However, this is a key part of growing your career. Ensure your written and verbal communications are of the highest possible quality. Not verbose or using large complex words – but simple, thoughtful and clear. Similarly practice your presentation skills – either one- on-one or to a group. And reflect and check on what you write or say before sending your communications out. Overall, soft skills are a critical part of the successful engineering professional.

Value your engineering career more than your firm
We all want to work for a firm or client we love. Forever. However, often your career will develop in a different direction to your firm; especially as far as doing things you enjoy or excel at. You may decide that you have to seek opportunities elsewhere to optimise your career. Often, a firm may be sold to some other entity and they may decide they don’t need your particular skills any longer. Hence it is critical that you keep your engineering skills sharp and relevant to the marketplace. And keep doing outstanding work which not only your firm values but others in the industry notice.

Respect everyone in your firm and get their support
You need every bit of help you can get in your engineering career - from everyone in the firm. Ensure you are friendly and positive with everyone – from the security guard, cleaners, engineering colleagues to the CEO.

Your value is communicated more than only through your work
Sadly, your value to an organisation or client is not only communicated by the fine plant, building or piece of equipment you have designed and built. You need to follow up by clearly communicating why your work is of value to the firm. Remember that email is used frequently but is only one tool to use.

Ensure you have all information before making a decision
As we all know with engineering problem solving – when making a decision one doesn’t always have all the facts. However, you can’t wait forever to make a decision. Try and learn from experts in the field on how they make good decisions. Especially relating to costing’s and scheduling. Always try and look at the worse case scenario here.

Learning is a life-long love affair
Don’t believe your initial degree or diploma qualification is all the learning you need in your career. While problem solving, conceptual and financial skills are often timeless; straightforward technical skills often date extraordinarily fast and you have to keep learning to stay up to date. This can be achieved in an informal way by working closely with your peers and mentors and exchanging know-how in this way. Formal training and education is also useful to keep up to date and aware of the latest engineering trends. Remember that change is one constant in our engineering lives.

Put something back into your profession and help colleagues whether through mentoring or simply technical advice. Ensure you offer advice and support to everyone to improve the engineering (and specifically) the power engineering profession.

Keep learning and sharpening your knife.

Finally, follow your heart in all that you do. Life is extraordinarily short and you have to do what you enjoy. Ensure you keep asking yourself what you ideally want to do and orient your career (and indeed your life) so this is what you do.

Final words
Finally, please keep your alma mater, the Engineering Institute of Technology informed of your progress. We would be delighted to hear of your successes and challenges.
So the choice is all yours - you have complete control of your engineering destiny as to where you are going.

Remember: ‘Only you can change your life. No one can do it for you’.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

One of the concerns I always have when interviewing a stream of people for a job is the impact each of them have on the final decision you make. Or in deciding on the best project when confronted by a list of potential candidates.

Two psychologists, Uri Simonsohn and Francesca Gino, have noted that we are rather poor in using background information in coming to an individual decision. A good example is that of a judge concerned about appearing soft on crime; she would be more likely to send someone to prison if she had already sentenced five other (earlier) defendants to far more lenient sentences that day.

The Interview Situation
How does this work in an interview situation. Well, it has been proven that if you initially interview a number of stronger candidates for an engineering job (for example); you are likely to believe that the next candidate must be a ‘weaker one’.

This problem doesn’t only apply to interviewing people but also in deciding on projects and individual items.

A possible strategy to deal with this
A suggested approach is to assign a rating or score based on what you feel each one is worth without worrying at this initial stage on who  is in the ‘pass’ or ‘accepted’ category. You tell yourself that you are merely considering a short list  and not a final list. If you find your short list is considerably more than what you were originally targetting; then create a completely new set of criteria (but which are still useful) and apply this to the short list. Arrive at a ranked list in this way and select the top ten or whatever number you are targetting.

The concept is that in going directly from the general to the specific is always liable to bias. This approach described above enables you to avoid this situation.

Thanks to the Economist and Drs Uri Simonsohn and Francesca Gino for detailing this interesting and useful research.

An interesting comment from Olin Miller: To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything, or nothing about it.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

I know you will recoil at yet another ‘good time’ story but surely James Dyson – the inveterate inventor (remember those bagless vacuum cleaners) - is an inspirational engineer. After I travelled through the UK recently and saw the gloom and damage bought on by the economic downturn; I have to admire this fellow for what he has accomplished in what is generally considered a tough time.

And from a financial point of view, he must surely be one of the most successful engineers with a few billion dollars to his name. Vacuum cleaners, bladeless air warmers and coolers are some of his most successful products. During this recent recession; his private firm has been expanding at a solid rate of over 30% year on year.

I quote from him recently:

I shouldn’t revel in the fact that we are in recession, and I don’t, but it is a time to think really carefully. It is a time to invest in new technology and engineering and good design because the companies that succeed in recession and are able to export are those with products that the world wants. And the world wants new technology, better engineering and products that use less energy and materials.

A poor background was perhaps the catalyst
He came from a poor background – his school teacher dad died when he was nine years old and inevitably there was no life insurance. Fortunately, the school where his dad had taught gave him free schooling. As he couldn’t get any other firms to make the products he designed; he created the Dyson company in 1992. Privately owned so no stock exchange shenanigans.

No stock market shenanigans
Design and engineering work is done in the rural Malmesbury in England but with manufacturing outsourced to Malaysia. Before those from Western countries cry shame on outsourcing manufacturing, bear in mind that he employs 700 highly skilled engineers and associated professionals and is looking for another 200 this year. He reckons the graduates leaving university are still positive, wonderful and wanting to take on the world. He employs them immediately on this basis and encourages them to work on ideas and concepts which have some commercial outcome. Presumably, he is quite ruthless about focussing on solid commercial outcomes rather than too much blue-sky R&D.

A key concept of his is that engineering professionals shouldn’t be making something ‘bigger, noisier or faster with more bells and whistles’ in order to sell it. The theme today is lighter, more energy efficient, less material and less of a carbon footprint. Creativity and thinking laterally is one the key processes encouraged.

Eureka
A good example of their creativity is in transforming a traditional product the ubiquitous hand dryer which evaporates the water off your hands. Why not use a blast of air to scrape the water off your hands instead ? Which formed the basis of Dyson’s successful Airblade hand dryer which I encountered throughout the UK on my recent travels (although I have some reservations about the e-coli possibilities of touching the sides of the dryer - but that is me being picky).

Thanks to The Deal June 2012 for some interesting reading on this topic.

I love this quotation from about 2000 years ago (obviously nothing changes over the millenia):

If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 AD - 180 AD).

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

Even in today’s tough economic times, engineering professionals who are top of their game, are sought after and not easily made redundant. However, companies do morph and change with astonishing rapidity and you may not always feel comfortable with changes in your current firm, and look to alternative opportunities and employment. Sometimes; personal things happen that cause you to decide to move on (something unpleasant at work / death of a close friend /unexpected windfall or a change in life occurring).

Some Suggestions when making the awkward move (or in helping a colleague who has to “move onwards”)

• Develop a pitch that highlights the positives of moving forward to new challenges. Do not become the victim as this ultimately wears you (and your colleagues) down.
• Ensure you build in a support network of a few colleagues who can keep you motivated, aware of other opportunities and in tune with reality.
• Take time out to formally think about who you are; what you have achieved; what your strengths are and what you really enjoy doing.
• Write down specific goals of where you want to go both personally and professionally. Be innovative and creative in your future career.
• Think about career boosts such as further education or training.
• Select a trusted individual to mentor and advise you; and who you can use as a sounding board.
• Redouble your efforts to building up a strong contact network with address and email contact details
• Manage your health well-being with good exercise and especial attention to your mental well-being.
• Support and be kind to your family and friends at this rather stressful time. Try and defuse the stress and uncertainty with fun activities.
• Make your transition interesting and inspirational to others.
• Maximise your entitlements; but while being firm don’t lose your friendliness and respect for others.
• Above all, don’t compromise, as I once did in my haste to leave. Take your time to reflect on where you going and how you are going to do it.

Thanks to Peter Tatham of National Career Development Week for a thought provoking article on the topic of redundancy – An Australian Government Web site.

As Steve Jobs remarked with some prescience: “Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life”.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear Colleagues

The 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. And failure is often due to negligence in the design and construction – and often through human factors.

Think of the disasters
Think of some of  the disasters 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?

The Primary 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 that in 800 structural failures; engineers were at fault with the top four reasons being:

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

How do we guard against these human flaws?
So, in our engineering endeavours, how do we guard against these human flaws?

Some suggestions are listed here:

• Build redundancy into design with functionally isolated systems
• Make use of spares especially when components are inexpensive/fail often/can be replaced easily
• Know the details in your design, such as; corners, connections, reinforcements in your design – do not  assume anything
• Find trustworthy suppliers and stick to them
• Watch out for problems of scale (and when changing from static to dynamic conditions)
• If people are critical in the operation; then run tests looking at the optimal numbers of personnel needed and the necessary skill levels of the chosen personnel
• Train and retrain personnel; test and retest them if operator error can cause problems
• Use redundant software algorithms to minimize the impact of bugs
• Take care in filtering or allowing alarms to be disabled
• Adjust documentation immediately when changes are made to the operation and design and ensure everyone is aware of the changes
• Exercise management controls for improvement of procedures and changes
• Use real independent verification – not just rubberstamping - in cross-checking work
• Take extreme care in maintenance especially .with the release of stored energy and the removal of energy inputs to a system
• Use materials well within their safety limits
• Only operate equipment within design limits
• Inspect and test to eliminate defective components
• Stick strictly to applicable codes  

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’.

Thanks to the late Rich Barrett for his thoughts.

Yours in engineering Learning

Steve

Mackay’s Musings – 15th May’12 #477
125, 273 readers

Dear Colleagues

As engineering professionals, most of you will be somewhat surprised to realize that you have a considerable amount tied up in your intellectual property (IP). “What intellectual property?” you may think, with some exasperation. But you will be surprised at how often the simple ideas that you have developed over many years become intensely valuable property. IP represents the property of your mind or intellect.

Surely, Apple – with its plethora of computers, iPads, iPhones and iPads – one of the most valuable companies in the world (if not the most valuable) – demonstrates the incredible driving power of IP.

Various Types of IP
There are various types of IP, such as; patents, trademarks (letters/phrases/logos), designs (shapes or appearances of manufactured goods) and copyright for original material (programs and books). Most of us are familiar with patents, which grant an exclusive license to the patent holder for a period of 20 years (in the US, at least), but copyright is slightly different. A copyright (this can vary from country to country), gives a maximum of 95 years for corporate ownership, or for the life of the author, plus 70 years. It is interesting to note that copyright (and indeed circuit layout rights) are automatically granted to you upon the creation of the material.

Other IP rights (patents being the best example here) have to be registered with local and international governmental organisations. Registration does vary, however, from country to country. For example, in the US, copyrights are registered with “the government”, whereas in Australia, no registration is required. As you know, the global market is becoming increasingly aggressive and shrewd when it comes to stealing valuable ideas and knowledge (let’s not mention countries) - to gain that competitive edge.

Ownership of the IP rights give you the legal recognition of your ownership and goes a long way to protecting it from unfair competition. It is quite an expensive and onerous task, but a worthwhile consideration. A famous example (albeit a simple one) of where things went awry is the Kambrook power board. The product was enormously successful and led to Kambrook becoming a major world player in this consumer business (esp. in the Asia Pacific region). But the IP was not protected. It should have been patented and as a result, within a short time, it was copied unscrupulously and sold throughout the world by aggressively competing firms. The originator of the idea continues to lose tens of millions in royalties every year.

The Main Engine of Growth
There is no doubt that intellectual property is the main engine of growth for any business and is especially advantageous in challenging economic times. Clever thinking and an edge is essential - ranging from innovative engineering designs (e.g. improved efficiencies), to pioneering engineering technologies, such as: deep water drilling or space exploration. In essence, don’t simply give away your intellectual property, but treat it with as much respect as you would cash and your other assets.

A few strategies

• Assess what IP you have. Often this is what gives you and your business a competitive edge.
• Reflect on how you are protecting it.
• Avoid publicizing or telling others about your IP until you have protection in place.
• Implement strategies to harness the development of IP in your firm.

We should always remember the remarks of an old sage when it comes to our most valuable assets: The wise man carries his possessions within him.

Hold your IP close to your chest.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Dear colleagues
 
When I was considering studying electrical engineering (many years ago!); my dear father once reminded me with some prescience (although being a teenager it irritated me): ‘Remember my boy, with all your theory and design skills on paper; these are all nothing until you or one of the techies or craftsmen picks up the first screwdriver or soldering iron to start implementing your design’.
 
In engineering education, we emphasise theory, software and computer design skills to distraction. But sadly we often ignore the importance of experience and even more, the manual skills which build up our engineering experience. We learn a lot of theory at college as engineers and techies. But how many of us need to directly apply a Fast Fourier transform or a Laplace transform to our work today?

Experience seems to be in short supply, particularly if you observe a young engineer at work. In many cases (like a junior officer trying to read a map on the battlefield) he/she is often forbidden from doing any manual work due to concerns that there will be an accident and someone will get hurt. Why? He/she simply doesn’t have the experience.

So was all this theory worth while? I doubt it. But theory is considerably easier to teach than practical know-how - much of which is missing in the engineering curriculum. Admittedly, theory feels far harder to gain than practical knowledge (due to the incredible mental gymnastics one has to perform), but at the end of the day practical knowledge is the key to success in engineering. I was somewhat shocked when I finished engineering school and spent many months on the shopfloor learning basic welding, fitting, turning, milling and how to wield a soldering iron, screwdriver and spanner (to the right level of torque). I did, however, gain considerable proficiency as a result and learnt about real engineering and the difference between theory and practical engineering. And then working in a real process plant, I learnt the hard way about the real practical skills required to run the plant – from the tradespeople who were always thrilled to share their expertise.

There are so many valuable skills, particularly with tools, that are simply not taught in college or university. These skills are handled with panache by craftsmen, but are not easily taught by academics and instructors or books. They can only be gained the hard way - by brutal on-the-job experience, with a very patient mentor (or ‘apprentice master’).  Many technicians, who spend their lives working closely with circuits, often develop an incredible and deep understanding of electronic processes – much of this is not easily found in textbooks and dry theory.

As Jack Ganssle rightly pointed out: “Experience is a critical part of the engineering education, one that's pretty much impossible to impart in the environment of a university. You really don't know much about programming till you’ve completely hosed a 10,000 line project, and you know little about hardware till you've designed, built, and somehow troubleshot a complex board”.

As engineers and techies, we are like the blacksmiths of old. We start off as apprentices and through experience learn all our craft. And then when we have acquired all this expertise and know-how we start passing it onto the next generation without holding back any expertise. A sacred (engineering) obligation.

We’re generally paid for what we can do and I would wager a considerable chunk of this is from experience - not from what we derive from theory. So, building up our experience as quickly as possible when we start off, makes considerable sense purely from a mercenary point of view. The top engineers and techies are valued for what experience they have gained over the years.

We have to learn from experience and understand that we will make mistakes in everything we do. As long as we keep trying, we are growing as engineering professionals. We need to ensure that all our young engineers and technicians are involved ‘practically’ and get their hands dirty, when they start their careers. This is to ensure they can relate the excesses of theory that they gained at college or university to the real world.

After all, as Barry LePatner remarks:
‘Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.’

My gratitude to Bob Landman and  Jack Ganssle for their valuable input here.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Mackay’s Musings – 8th May’12 #476
125, 273 readers

Dear Colleagues

We all know that no one is indispensable – companies and people come and go. Even the owner or “boss” of a business is often a fragile commodity.  So go a step further and drive yourself and your organisation into becoming more indispensable with a few strategies suggested below.

A few suggestions on being more indispensable in your job:

1.  Make sure you are The Expert in your firm on an engineering or technology topic. Pick a “hot useful” topic, learn it inside out and use this know-how to contribute to your firm and clients. Become well known as the local and indispensable expert who takes delight in assisting and educating everyone on this difficult topic - both in your organisation and to your clients. Whether it be in the field of advanced process control, PID Tuning, industrial data communications or electrical harmonics on an oil and gas platform.

2. Write well and document what you do in simple English. Most engineering professionals hate writing and documenting things. Someone technical with this skill, therefore, quickly becomes well known and respected. For example, supplementing your text with clear drawings and diagrams and a neatly-structured spreadsheet listing I/O addresses and interface details would make your work useful and memorable.

3. Communicate brilliantly and passionately. Being able to communicate simply and effectively (avoiding jargon) is always highly regarded. Make opportunities to attend professional development classes that focus on critical thinking and presentation skills or join a group like Toastmasters International which will give you practice.

4. Observe and learn about the changes occurring in your field. Change is guaranteed and not always welcome - especially when you have spent your career investing in a particular skill.  For example, a decade or so ago, you had to know about handling a drawing board and 4-20mA process loops. Today you need skills in handling information flow, Gigabit Ethernet, industrial wireless and TCP/IP addressing. So watch for changes, be prepared to change and where possible avoid backing a career dead end.

5. Hitch a lift with a magic carpet rider. There are employees going places in an organisation that can be fairly easily identified. They show clear signs of leadership with their enthusiasm, innovative thinking, competence and involvement in pioneering and ultimately productive projects. Endeavouring to work in their departments is far more intelligent than working for and with dead-end colleagues and managers – those who tend to be cynical, negative and disappointed with the firms they work for and with their own careers.

6. Discuss your career with your manager. Put a plan together of where you want to go with your career over a 6 to 12 month period. In the plan consider; type of work and experience, progress and a forecast, education or professional development and naturally salary. Don’t haggle with your manager on salaries, however, and play your firm off against a job offer from another firm - you are likely to be labelled mercenary and untrustworthy. Keep an eye on salaries, though, with comparable jobs in the market and ensure your management is aware of any discrepancies. In tough economic times flexibility with salaries is more challenging, but you may be able to negotiate on intangible benefits. These include things such as; more time off, longer holidays, opportunities for experience in other areas of the firm, training and education.

7. Make a point of understanding the business side of your firm. This is mainly what your senior managers are interested in - after all. Whether this involves financial, marketing or legal issues – gaining some knowledge in the relevant areas and contributing intelligently will make your managers sit up and take notice - your advice may even become invaluable and sort-after.

8. It is the long haul and persistence that matters. Don’t worry about short term setbacks in your career development. Reassess your direction every now and again, by all means; but ultimately set your objectives and keep trucking doggedly in their direction. Don’t give up or compromise.

Make sure that in your firm and with your clients you are considered one of the best there is in terms of reliability and technical know-how.

With the rapid changes occurring today in engineering, I reckon Theodore Roosevelt was spot on when he remarked: Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Mackay’s Musings – 1st May’12 #475
125, 273 readers

Dear Colleagues

First of all, I would say that this note is not only about getting a better job but also in attracting more work to your firm. Many jobs today are based around a particular project starting up and eventually completing.

Statistically, it is said that up to 80% of new jobs are never advertised. So what you see on the job’s website and in the newspapers is only a poor shadow of the real activity going on below the surface. Similarly, new projects and work, is often not advertised but given to existing suppliers or those who the company knows about.

Unadvertised jobs include jobs that only are created when the right candidate with the right fit of skills (and attitude) comes along. Or there is an impending vacancy that will happen some time in the future and the job is thus not advertised. Or, the hiring manager is casting around internally for someone suitable; and hasn’t got to the stage of formally advertising.

It is thus not routine practice for employers to screen resumes from strangers to find an appropriate candidate. Employers are extraordinarily risk averse these days looking for a solid referral from a trusted individual who can vouch for the ability of the candidate. Sadly, the old adage is true, “It’s not what you know that matters, but who you know”.

I often hear of job candidates applying for a job, being interviewed and then never hearing anything further. They find out later that some internal candidate has then been appointed to the job (or some “mate of a mate”).

So what can one do about this state of affairs?

• Keep actively involved on all the various social networking sites especially LinkedIn (very good for professional activities) and their various job and project forums
• Stay active and involved with your local engineering society and keep vigorously networking and attending presentations by experts
• Keep talking to all your peers in industry about current developments
• Scan newspapers, magazines and web sites for projects starting up and completing
• Keep an eye on people being employed (as advertised in New Appointments)
• And when looking at job adverts – look not only for jobs but details of new projects/services being created by companies
• Form relationships with employers – esp. if you are turned down for a job and stay in touch for other opportunities

Thanks to Debra Feldman and the IEEE for an excellent article.

And remember – no matter how much you already know, as George Santayana remarks so sagely: The wisest mind has something yet to learn.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Mackay’s Musings – 24th April’12 #475
125, 273 readers

Dear Colleagues

A key part of every engineering professional’s job is troubleshooting some problem. In fact, arguably many engineers’ sole function (and the reason some are often paid very well) is troubleshooting and fixing intractable problems. Somewhat irritatingly is that it is often identifying and fixing other people’s errors.

The optimum approach is to keep your mind completely open when tackling the problem - to avoid pre-conceived ideas, as these can throw you off track. Naturally, one has to avoid the brute force approach of changing out components randomly in a frantic rush to fix the problem.

The suggested steps for general engineering troubleshooting are as follows. At times it will be tempting to leave some out, but it is worth working through them methodically:

1. Identify the exact 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 - you can be assured that it will come back at the most inconvenient time. The problem could also be a combination of different issues. Recently, when trying to tune a process control loop, which the operators had complained was sluggish, I unwittingly 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.

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. If the problem is intermittent, you may need to train the user to do basic diagnostics (such as operate a protocol analyser or vibration analyser) to collect the right statistics and data. A network card, for example, wouldn’t perform erratically until the afternoon sun had warmed up a control room and heated the card up. Without this knowledge it would be difficult to reproduce. Another example is the office network slowing down to a crawl at 2pm every day for 30 minutes, due to someone doing automatic backups at this time.

3. Localise, isolate and zone 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, for example, (a particularly awkward one that caused an aluminium refinery to shut down - the users didn’t understand MAC and IP addressing). Or was there a sudden power surge? Or was the RTU exposed to excessive heat?

4. Make a Plan
Ensure that you assess what is required carefully. Beware the Law of unexpected consequences. The process of fixing something may cause other unexpected 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 overvoltage). When going through your plan, step-by-step, to best remedy the problem, you may find other issues appear that you hadn’t considered. It is worth reflecting on each item of the fix to test for these unexpected consequences. In replacing a valve, for example, you may find the loop controller may need to be tuned again, as the parameters are slightly different. Or a replaced instrument has subtly different ranges, which require updating in the PLC code and SCADA configuration.

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. Many leave this step out and the result is irritating for everyone when the process needs re-commencing. And ensure the user actually confirms he or she is happy with the fix and it all works satisfactorily.
 

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 with infinite detail for someone who may have no knowledge of what you have done. This is something which we, as engineering professionals, are not so enthused with. It is, however, critical to the process. Naturally, ensure the documented fix is easily accessible by anyone; and not hidden somewhere in an arcane folder on the server.

8. Communicate with the client or user
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).

I like Anthony J. D'Angelo’s take on troubleshooting and fixing things. He gives the following exhortation: ‘Become a fixer, not just a fixture’.

Yours in engineering learning

Steve

Mackay’s Musings – 27th March’12 #471
125, 273 readers

Dear Colleagues

I delight in those engineering professionals who have set up incredibly successful businesses (but am saddened by those – the majority – who have failed).  In these tough times, I do believe that for our economies to grow we need far more entrepreneurs providing services and products that improve productivity (including safety). The spin-off will be the employment of more people and more opportunities for engineering professionals to practise their skills. Engineers, being highly creative (and making things that are ultimately useful), have an incredible role to play here.

But 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. You may have such a brilliant service or product which you reckon has great possibilities and which tempts you to head out on your own. 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. Engineers 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 rat/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.

Put overwhelming effort into your marketing and sales. Persistent communications of your idea to prospects, for your products are 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. Persistence is critical as you will get “kicked in the teeth” 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 the famous General Patton counselled:
‘Take calculated risks. These are quite different from being rash.’

Yours in engineering learning

Mackay’s Musings – 2nd April’12 #472
125, 273 readers