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Dear Colleagues,
Many years ago, in an isolated part of the outback on the inevitable mine site in hot and dry conditions, one of our guys inserted a communications board into the PLC rack and inadvertently destroyed one of the key memory chips by electrostatic discharge (ESD). Fortunately, we had one backup board left. But it was a salutary lesson in being vigilant about the effects of ESD. No back up board could have meant significant down time while we waited for a replacement to be shipped to site.
The costs of electrostatic discharge (ESD) can have a significant impact on your business and work. ESD is the sudden flow of electrical energy between two objects after the build up of static electricity on the one object. The most common example is that of a person walking across the floor, who generates static electricity as his/her shoes intermittently make contact with the floor. Just sliding an electronic component in and out of a bag can destroy the electronic components. Believe it or not, but walking across the carpet (with up to 25% Relative Humidity) can generate 35,000 volts. We all work with electronic components and boards. And the newer components are becoming more and more sensitive to ESD problems.
A decrease in humidity tends to make the problem worse by increasing the level of static electricity (as the water molecules in the air vapour normally conduct some of the static charge away to ground thus reducing the problem – thus dryer air makes for less conductivity and more static electricity).
An Invisible Foe
Many times a day, ESD incidents occur below the human sensitivity threshold of 3000 V. Mostly never seen but causing enormous damage to circuit boards and sensitive electronic components. Remember that a small 100 volts can destroy an electronic component. It is claimed that the mere wave of the arm can generate sufficient ESD to damage an electronic component.
Costs Can Be Huge
It is claimed that high tech companies could be incurring costs up to 6% of their revenue due to ESD damage. Remember that the loss of a single component on a circuit board could results in a significant additional cost (well beyond that of the cost of the individual component) because of the need to replace or repair the entire board. This means the cost of failure of a $5 component could be hundreds of times greater.
An ESD To Do List
Some suggestions for dealing with the problem are listed below.
- Learn as much about your exposure to ESD at your firm. Consult widely. Esp. the internet and experts in the area.
- Identify sensitive work areas such as assembly, packaging stations, engineering and testing areas. Any where you handle electronic products which are unshielded or unprotected.
- Identify sources of ESD within your Work Areas. This includes such items as non-conductive materials (plastic parts, tape, cardboard and Styrofoam). Also computer monitors or laser printer paper.
- Assess the level of protection for each work areas. This may require innovative solutions such as using fibre optics or wireless to connect to sensitive devices.
- Prepare a Plan of Action. Put together a plan including easily understood procedures, responsibilities of key staff, training and checks that the plan is indeed being actioned.
- Implement Solutions. Install grounding mats and work surface mats where required. Ensure staff use wrist straps, heel straps and ESD-protective clothing (and shoes) to conduct static electricity away. Clearly signpost areas where potential damage may occur. Consider air ionization to neutralize charge build up on objects in the work area. Finally, educate staff in the key principles of ESD protection.
Maintenance is the key
Finally remember that you must maintain your ESD program. Wrist straps and other personal grounding devices require regular testing and replacement. Use a static charge meter to indicate the effectiveness of your system.
Thanks to an interesting white paper by Versalogic entitled: The Invisible Foe – Understanding and Controlling ESD Damage.
When fixing the problems with your ESD issues, Henry J. Kaiser's comment comes to mind: Trouble is only opportunity in work clothes.
Yours in engineering learning,
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
In some of my more desperate moments, I sometimes think the universe is a malevolent force. Tough and unforgiving. Admittedly, I am at that age (mid fifties) when friends and colleagues are ‘falling off their perches’ or getting sicker than usual. The so-called global financial disaster also pushed a lot of very good engineering businesses into a death spiral making people quite sad. And added to this; the rapid change due to technology (i.e. mainly the internet and IT related) has also made things considerably more challenging (perhaps interesting?) from a career and personal point of view.
Recently, I have had a few good friends encounter significant set backs in their lives – such as suicide of partners, murder of a beloved family member, kids killed, businesses go insolvent and serious illnesses galore….not that I want to dwell on these issues. So I thought it would be good to revisit an old blog of mine here. Mainly focussing on the engineering issues but touching on the personal side as well.
We all Experience Setbacks
We all experience setbacks and bad things particularly in our engineering work and our personal lives. I do often. At the risk of sounding like a ‘jolly hockey sticks’ fan, here are some strategies to work through these times quickly and effectively and perhaps come out feeling a bit better.
Bad things Vary
Often referred to as failures, perhaps you had a bad project outcome; unhappy angry client; missed a deadline; ran over budget or got passed over for a deserved promotion. Or you might have lost the Olympic gold medal by less than one hundredth of a second!
Here are some good strategies to get back from the bad times as quickly as possible:
1. Change Channels
Do something totally different. Disconnect from your current activity and change channels to something different. Watch a good movie, listen to Deep Purple music or walk to a nice quiet spot and scream at the top of your lungs. Take a vacation in a nice positive environment.
2. Work the bad vibes out of your system physically
Often the quickest way to get through this; is to engage in high level physical activity. Where you really sweat it out. A long run on the beach, a work out in the gym or a long hard walk. Or as I did this morning - a hard ride on my bike through the rain and wind. A bit daunting though.When you exercise you release the wonderful endorphins; which make you feel better and eliminate the negative emotions and vibes.
3. Breathe deeply
If you are an extraordinarily bad emotional state; then focus all on your energy on taking deep slow breaths by expanding your diaphragm. Concentrate on how the air enters your body and how you inhale and exhale slowly. Do ten deep breaths and contemplate life again. Often you will feel considerably better. Do this often.
4. Do a post mortem of what went wrong
Contemplate carefully and objectively what went wrong – where did you fail and why? Did you not have sufficient information on your competition; were you overconfident; did you make a wrong calculation; did you depend on the wrong person? Often you need to get an independent opinion as to what happened. Are you being too harsh on yourself.
The key is to learn from your mistakes and ensure you don’t repeat this one again. Or to be more philosophical in future.
5. Sweat the stuff you can control
Consider carefully what you have control over and what you don’t or can’t control. Many things in life; we can’t directly control and have to accept the situation. Without losing sleep or simply giving up on everything.
6. Seize the situation
Often things are extraordinarily painful to deal with. The project has gone bad and your client wants you to make some awkward decisions. The supplier of critical components has gone bust. Your key engineer on the project has left to join the competition. But you have to face up to the situation and simply deal with it. Things are not what you wanted and have ended up the wrong way.
But you know what – rarely does life pan out the way we want. Seize the situation and plunge in and deal with it. Now.
You will be the better for it.
William Shakespeare in "The Winter's Tale" suggests: What's gone and what's past help. Should be past grief.
Yours in engineering learning,
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
I am always rather cautious about politicians’ speeches as they are often self-serving or meaningless. However, one can modify President Kennedy’s powerful speech in 1960 with my words italicized:
…..ask not what your country can do for you as far as a job—ask what you can do for your country.
There is an Expectation
There is an expectation that when you graduate with an engineering degree or diploma that you then need to seek out employment and a good job (preferably with a blue chip company).
Due to the rapid changing and often chaotic job market, I believe it is critical that we imbue our young ones with the entrepreneurial flair to create their own jobs. I know this can be extraordinarily difficult (and believe me I have been there many times and it can be exquisitely painful to set up a profitable company) but if we can encourage everyone at school or college to start thinking about setting up their own operations and innovating, we will make the economy more vibrant and unemployment less of an issue in the tough times. It doesn’t have to be a massive megacorporation – it can be a sole trader – just you, yourself.
It is certainly not easy being an entrepreneur and creating your own employment. It can be massively difficult with lots of challenges thrown your way. However, I believe the era of large corporations offering unlimited employment to all our school and college graduates has long since passed. The large companies are unable to adapt to sudden economic shocks and to stay in business will often suddenly lay huge numbers of people off.
I do still remember our young kids operating a lemonade stand on our street making a few dollars or busking with their violins in the city (and making a huge amount of money). Admittedly, under close parental guidance. Most of our kids have the entrepreneurial impulse when they are younger. This needs to be nurtured.
Your Entrepreneurial To Do List
This requires you or your kids to think along the lines of:
- Identify the gap in the market (it may only be for a short time)
- Ensure the job or company you create is something you are passionate about
- Create an innovative solution
- Be flexible in your thinking and operations
- Do not be afraid to fail
- Seek advice from others who have proven track records
- Persist in seeking out the best solutions
- Work hard on marketing and business development
- Communicate well to staff, clients and suppliers
- Understand the need to be profitable
- Look after your personal health and well being at all times
One of the finest areas of endeavour is naturally engineering and technology. So go for it. Encourage your kids and your young ones to think hard on being entrepreneurial and running their own businesses. Hopefully employing others and enjoying themselves.
Yours in engineering learning,
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
I know many of you will think I have lost the plot when discussing the KISS principle but it is a vital engineering philosophy. Most of you will know it means: Keep it Simple, Stupid (other variations are Keep it Short and Simple). This should be a key goal in all engineering design. Of course, there is no suggestion that the design engineer or the user of the equipment is stupid. It is just that this is a very effective principle.
In passing, I often say that we should make the product or service orang utan proof (with apologies to the orang utan). Able to be used by anyone under the most stressful and trying of circumstances.
Historically Speaking
Apparently the acronym KISS was first used by Kelly Johnson, the lead engineer for the Lockheed U-2 and SR-71 Blackbird spy planes. His philosophy was that the aircraft his team was designing must be repairable by an average mechanic under highly stressful conditions (war or combat) with a limited set of tools. Other related commentaries have come from Albert Einstein who remarked: Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler; and Leonardo Da Vinci who noted: Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.
I am sure most of you have been confronted with a design that is simply too complex to be usable. Especially, when the operators having to use it are not highly sophisticated or trained. Or the operators are in a tough environment (e.g. mining or the harsh marine environment) and have limited time for the niceties in operating the equipment.
An area which I am sure most of us have come across are badly designed SCADA operator screens which make it very difficult for an operator to visualize exactly what is going on in the plant. And then when an emergency occurs, the deluge of information makes it very difficult to rectify the situation.
Avoid Creeping
The enemies of the KISS principle are function creep or scope creep. This is especially true in software development. This refers to uncontrolled growth in the scope of the project often due to the user demanding more features or changes. This requirement for changes to the project; generally are not accompanied by any increase in resources, schedule or budget. This generally results in a project which is over budget and well outside the deadlines for completion. And in the case of software development; it is often associated with a failed software development. The resultant product developed (after scope creep) is often too complex to be usable.
The solution is when developing a product is to be absolutely ruthless in the development to make the product as simple and effective as possible and to avoid all attempts at giving it more features. And in the development process not to allow any changes. Only allow changes when they have been carefully considered and costed and do not make the product more complex.
Not that this is an advertisement for the Apple range of products; but the late Steve Jobs spent an inordinate amount of time in the development of these products (such as the iPod) in making them as simple to use and operate as possible.
Thanks to Wikipedia and the Princeton Review for a discussion on the KISS principle.
Jessie Sampter summarises the situation well: Simplicity is the peak of civilization.
Yours in engineering learning,
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
I am not suggesting that, as an engineering professional, you get put to death through negligence in your design or maintenance. But the old Code of Hammurabi stated 5000 years ago, that ‘If a builder builds a house and the house collapses and causes the death of the owner, that builder shall be put to death’.
Certainly, the Romans were also quite ruthless with execution of engineers who failed in the adequate construction of viaducts and bridges. Penalties are perhaps less harsh today; but consequences of negligence can be far more deadly due to the greater number of people using engineered facilities. Simply put: An engineered system fails when it stops working according to agreed standards. And failure is often due to negligence in the design and construction – and often through human factors.
I would note that there are often failures which are not due to engineering negligence – simply lawyers finding unreasonable fault.
Disasters Litter the Engineering Landscape
You can reel off a list of disasters caused by negligence that litter the engineering landscape:
- Challenger Space shuttle explodes killing 7 crew. Due to failure of the O-ring leading to the explosion of liquid fuel tanks.
- Bhopal. Piping systems failure leading to toxic vapour linked to the killing of thousands.
- Piper Alpha. An offshore platform exploded, killing numerous personnel.
- Chernobyl. A nuclear cloud is released over Europe.
- Therac-25, a cancer irradiation device. Due to a software bug patients are killed by the doses of radiation.
And recently, some spectacularly ugly train accidents. How on earth; after so much investment in train safety systems; can we still have head-on collisions? I can also list many bridge failures and building collapses due to negligence (and not only in the so-called Third World but in highly sophisticated economies such as the USA and Canada).
The Main Causes of Engineering Disasters
The primary causes of engineering disasters (according to SUNY at Stony Brook) are due to (entirely or in part):
- Human factors (incl. both ethical failure and accidents)
- Design flaws (resulting often from unethical practices)
- Materials failures
- Extreme conditions or environments
A recent study pointed out engineers were at fault with the top four reasons being:
- Insufficient knowledge (36%)
- Underestimation of influence (16%)
- Ignorance, carelessness, negligence (14%)
- Forgetfulness, error (13%)
(this is from a study of 800 structural failures)
How to Guard against these human flaws?
A simple starting point, I would respectfully suggest is to question everything you and your colleagues do in your engineering work. Never accept anything at face value.
Hopefully, what Doug Adams says is not true about you and me: ‘He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which’.
Yours in engineering learning,
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
Despite the depressed economy, up skilling is still very much alive and well. Although, who pays for it has changed dramatically over the past few years. An interesting recent report by Kelly Global Workforce Index, shows that more and more engineering professionals (amongst others) are proactively grabbing training opportunities themselves without relying on employers to provide them.
This is different to only five years ago, when companies used to budget for training of their staff. However with tough times for many employers, this approach to training has dropped off dramatically. Perhaps you have been affected with fewer training opportunities due to lower profits of the firm you are working for?
Employees are now taking responsibility for their own up skilling and paying for it themselves. It is critical in today’s fast moving technological world to keep sharpening your knowledge and skills to take advantage of the growing and changing job opportunities – particularly in engineering.
Up skilling and Staying with your current company
Interestingly, this report notes that a large percentage (60%) of people are not up skilling to find new jobs – on the contrary, they are loyal and hoping for promotion within their current company. And no surprise to most of you - the most valued source of training (as expected) is on-the-job training.
Don’t give up when your initial training request is turned down
Today, managers don’t have the big budgets for training; so they often have to reluctantly turn down training requests. Hence, if you are putting in a request for training, you need to make a clear case of the benefits to the organisation – otherwise you are wasting your time. Putting a request in generally shows the company that you have initiative and are keen about up skilling and thus benefiting the company. So keep trying and your persistence will be rewarded. Naturally, the training junkets in Bali and Hawaii are generally a thing of the past.
Up skilling can also be cheap
Bear in mind that expensive training is not a requirement for up skilling. It can be as simple as buying a book. Or engaging in on-the-job training or finding a mentor to help you gain a particular skill. This is often the most powerful form of training.
Find the Time
When working, it can be difficult to block off the time to put the effort into up skilling yourself or gaining the requisite knowledge. The best way I find, is to build a habit of studying at a particular time and particular place. Often first thing in the morning before coming to work or at lunch time. Make time by getting rid of some extraneous activity such as perusing emails, or trawling news-sites and Facebook. Many companies are requesting vendors to come in and provide lunch-and-learn sessions about a particular technology. A great idea; as long as there isn’t a huge amount of selling their products or services but focussing on real training.
Technical Skills are Vital but so are Soft Skills
As engineering professionals, technical skills are critical to you but communication skills can also make or break you – especially when you want to move up the career ladder. Soft skills are thus a critical part of your career armoury.
Up Skill Collaboratively in a Team
An innovative way is to work in teams to up skill. This can be a very motivational experience in improving your skills in a team and working together on assignments or problems in a collaborative way. Your colleague can be your coach.
Thanks to John R. Platt of the IEEE for an interesting article on skills.
Remember, Joseph Badracco's famous comment: In today's environment, hoarding knowledge ultimately erodes your power. If you know something very important, the way to get power is by actually sharing it.
Yours in engineering learning,
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
There is no way I can give you a silver bullet to writing well. As you can probably guess - I struggle enough as it is. My wife (an ex English teacher) reckons I am too convoluted and verbose. But one sure-fire way to improve your writing skills is to read more good books from outstanding authors. Unfortunately, this generally excludes often poorly written web copy, blogs and technical journals (with a few notable exceptions).
Why Bother about Writing Well?
It is vital to work on your writing skills, as this has a major impact on your engineering career. And many engineering professionals, I am sorry to say, are virtually illiterate (some even using mobile phone texting syntax in their letters and correspondence).
A few characteristics of good writers
While I certainly can’t give you a cut and dried formula to success, some suggestions about how good writers excel are:
- They write simply and get to the point quickly.
- They don’t litter their prose with clichés
- They don’t use standard templates in their writing
- They make their ideas interesting and useful
- They commence with a catchy or intriguing comment
- They make you think
- They show leadership and provide important lessons
Get a good book from one of the greats of literature (Austin, Orwell, Hemingway, Vonnegut, Twain, Rowling) and ponder their words.
Thanks to an interesting article by Susan De La Vergne of the IEEE for a great article on writing well.
It is hard work in persisting with improving your writing skills. As William Zinsser points out: If writing seems hard, it’s because it is hard. It’s one of the hardest things people do.
Yours in engineering learning,
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
Diverging and dreaming outside the engineering box is a key attribute of innovation and creativity. A critical part of the creative process is to diverge from the initial concept – moving out from the initial point and examining the problem from many different directions (many probably hopelessly ludicrous and foolish as Steve Jobs remarked); branching out, discovering new ideas and then refining these different approaches.
Converge Creatively
Once you have a whole heap of solutions to your problem or design; the issue is then to converge to a solution by eliminating approaches which are not going to work effectively.
You may need to move between diverging and converging approaches many times until you refine your solution to arrive at a functioning product (or service).
Apply this to Next Presentation
One area where we are constantly creating and being reasonably creative is in presentations. Most of the time; we put a ferocious amount of effort into creating a sequence of slides and then re-arranging them to try and putting them into some logical order. Then we deliver the presentation with gay abandon. Often the slides and presentation are disorganized, clunky and confusing. People are not quite sure what you are trying to tell them and what you want them to do.
Diverge and Converge with your Next Presentation
A good strategy with your next presentation is collect all your ideas on separate pieces of paper (or electronically) in such a way that you can easily move them around. Put only one idea on each piece of paper.
Then rearrange the pieces of paper into:
- Introduction of idea
- What is the Benefit in going through this
- The Key Ideas
- Concluding Points and Summary
- Call To Action
Eliminate any superfluous or irrelevant information.
This Approach Works Well in a Team
If you’ve ever watched a BBC TV (generally fictitious) crime investigation; you will see how they enhance the creativity of the team of detectives. Every bit of information or observation (and picture) gets pinned to a whiteboard and then the entire team trys to work out the sequence of events and the linkages between the individual elements. You can do the same with a team presentation. Take all the individual contributions for the proposed presentation on (sticky yellow) pieces of paper and put them up prominently on the whiteboard for all to see and critique and then try and sequence them logically as noted above.
Naturally you will have to throw away dysfunctional or irrelevant information and content. This does sometimes require a clinical approach but shouldn’t detract from your overall creativity.
As George Lois rightly says:
Creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality, overcomes everything.
Thanks to Susan de la Vergne of the IEEE for a thought provoking discussion on the importance of divergence and convergence in creating a product or service.
Yours in engineering learning,
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
Objects around you are increasingly being embedded with a myriad of sensors and actuators – from your roadway, body to your industrial process. Data from these sensors is then being transmitted over the internet using the familiar TCP/IP protocols.
There are incredible opportunities opening up in engineering and industry to apply these technologies and data to your work. When formerly inanimate objects can sense the environment and communicate, they become tools for discerning what is happening in remote environments and making decisions on the data. And quickly. It should be added that much of the decisionmaking is without any human intervention at all.
You are already probably aware of the tiny microcameras that you can swallow to view your gut to pick up sources of illness. Or remote farming equipment that takes into account weather and rain conditions. Cars that brake automatically when detecting an object ahead. Billboards that adjust their messages based on consumers passing.
For better or worse this will affect you – no matter whether you are an operator on a process plant or marketing director of a blue chip company.
Six Applications Lurking Out there
According to McKinsey there are six types of applications with the Internet of Things:
1. Tracking Behaviour
Sensors track usage of equipment ranging from cars to the level of thrust of a jet engine to products moving through supply chains (using RFID). This data is then relayed back to make decisions on fees to charge for usage of a jet engine to instructions to adjust shipments of goods.
2. Environmental (or Situational) Awareness
Data from sensors (e.g. video/audio/flow) can indicate soil moisture, ocean currents, weather, rain, traffic intensity or intruders in a particular zone. Action can then be taken to re-route traffic or alert people affected.
3. Mass Gathering of Complex Data for Decision Making
Masses of sensors can gather data - for example for oil and gas and mining exploration (to locate high grade deposits) and feed this back for mapping. analysis, and decisionmaking. Similarly, with gathering data on thousands of shoppers on buying habits. From a health perspective, there is an opportunity to continuously gather patient blood pressure, heart rate and sugar levels; analyse this complex maze of data and then take action.
4. Process Optimization
We have been monitoring data from instrumentation for years but the lowering cost and smaller size makes for even better process control and optimization of flow, level, temperature, pressure and even faster ways of processing previously inaccessible data for slow moving analytical data (gas chromatography). Lower levels of process variation means savings in cost. Also increased safety.
5. Smart Metering and the Smart Grid
Smart meters are increasingly being used to provide details of energy usage and real time costs to consumers and power companies. And allows one to reduce one’s costs by using power at low usage times.
6. Complex Autonomous Systems
Application of sensors and actuators to the car industry means automatic breaking and eventually self driving cars (perhaps allowing us to cut down on the million deaths per year due to car accidents). Or allow robots to roam freely in complex dangerous underground environments making their own decisions about where to go and what to do.
Big Concerns
Obviously one of the major concerns is the privacy of the data gathered and rogue sensors/actuators (robots ?) endangering life and limb.
These technologies are not pie in the sky but being rolled out today. See if you can apply them in your next project.
Thanks to McKinsey Quarterly March 2010 for an interesting article.
John F. Kennedy's comment could be applicable to the Internet of Things: We need (wo)men who can dream of things that never were.
Yours in engineering learning,
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.
(Attributed to Benjamin Franklin) is the basis of good mentoring for engineering professionals. Mentoring ranges from someone who wants to share his or her know-how and experiences (the mentor) with someone younger and less experienced. This ranges from helping kids and students to understand what engineering is about to counselling young engineering technicians and engineers of a firm (who are often referred to as ‘mentees’).
Many successful engineering tradespeople will tell you of the enormous benefit they received from a mentor when they were apprentices.
This short note is to encourage everyone in engineering to increase the amount of mentoring – it builds a strong profession. To encourage highly skilled and experienced professionals to act as mentors and for young engineering professionals starting out in their careers to actively seek out a mentor.
Mentors are for Everyone
Having a mentor can play a significant role in your long term success in engineering and your job satisfaction level. No matter whether you are a fitter, electrician, technician or junior engineer. Research shows that engineering professionals who started with mentors end up with higher levels of self-esteem, better professional standards and excellent linkages to engineering resources and people. They also tend to stay longer with their organisation and communicate far better with their peers.
People starting out in their careers can have a lot of anxieties, questions, pressure and stress. A mentor can give a quick answer and short circuit a lot of the angst that could otherwise arise for a young greenhorn employee. Mentoring students could range from giving workshops about writing a better resume, job interviewing strategies and personal suggestions on firms to approach for work.
In an organization, it is important to understand the corporate structure, gain specific skills (such as report writing/troubleshooting equipment/filling in forms and the application of specific standards). Other areas where young professionals can be helped is in tapping into personal networks, setting up professional goals, and in moving outside comfort zones.
Other more contentious areas (for firms) are ensuring a work-life balance and being successful at work while working a standard day. This may require some strategies to intensify your work output and productivity and thus to keep your hours under control. Mentors can help here.
Who is a Good Mentor?
Good mentors listen well, are reliable, have enormous experience which they are keen to pass on, are passionate about their careers and have some understanding about what their mentees are going through. On the other hand, the mentee is able to listen and respect and be committed to the relationship and apply these skills.
Being a Good Mentor can Benefit You As Well
It forces you to think through your experiences and to do a sanity and reality check on best processes and ways of doing things. It gives you a far better understanding of elements of engineering which you previously took for granted. Oddly enough, it also enables you to ventilate some of your frustrations and beliefs with an active and enthusiastic sounding board.
Become a Mentor Now
Anyone can mentor anyone else. There is always someone who is younger than you and who would be keen to listen to your words of wisdom and hard-won experience.
- If there isn’t a mentoring program in your firm; set it up.
- Decide how much time you have to commit before you start.
- Mentoring is not only about a face-to-face encounter but it could be done through email/skype chat/phone call/web conference.
- At the beginning of the relationship, take some time to agree on the ground rules and goals with your mentee.
- As with much volunteer work; you will feel good about yourself and your profession.
By becoming a mentor, you will be doing a great service to the engineering profession.
Thanks John R. Platt of the IEEE for an excellent article on STEM mentoring and in providing evidence.
Yours in engineering learning,
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
Are you as frustrated as I am with the bewildering collection of communication and power cables between electronic equipment and computers around your office and home? Something we engineering professionals have to contend with as computer-based technology is a key part of our lives. Although I notice now that my 15yo teenage son has dispensed with all cables with his wireless headset (after breaking the cables for the umpteenth time).
A solution to this issue of eliminating the thicket of cables will impact on everyone – from the child to the PhD working on high speed data communications in her lab.
Well; a solution (inevitably) is rapidly coming into view. With incredibly high speed radio communications harnessing the 60Giga herz (GHz) spectrum. Oddly enough another issue driving a solution is that the (mainly copper) cables simply can’t keep up with the increasing demands made for more and more data at higher speeds (high resolution and rich multimedia files).
Fast Becoming History?
The HDMI (hi-definition multimedia interface) cable has been used to date for cables for transferring pictures and audio between digital recorders and video game recorders to TVs and computer monitors. Wi-Fi has steadily replaced USB cables for connecting computers to printers, keyboards and mice.
Although that workhorse of the office and shopfloor - Ethernet – the tough old bird she is – is affordable and can easily zoom from 1Gigabit to 100 Gigabit. So this is unlikely to be replaced easily.
60GHz Coming Up …Fast
The solution lies in the frequency range in the EHF (Extremely high frequency – 30GHz to 300 GHz) band of the spectrum. It is totally unexploited because it has been considered worthless. The main reason why it has not been used is that oxygen molecules resonate at 60GHz and water vapour (rain and high humidity) absorbs at this frequency. Line-of-sight between transmitter and receiver is thus essential.
Health Hazards
I have this uneasy feeling that there are some health hazards with all this radiation. But no evidence as yet. Oxygen can be a pretty dangerous substance to excite with radiation.
Practical Issues
As the wavelength of 60GHz is 5mm (c = frequency x wavelength), the antenna can be quite tiny and thus embedded in the chip. Two wireless technologies look like bringing the bacon home as far as applying this frequency to creating a wireless office. WirelessHD and WiGig (the latter from the IEEE entitled 802.11ad). Both standards transmit at 7Gigabit/s (peaking at 30Gigabit/s) – many times faster than the Wifi networking. A pencil thin beam is used to transmit the data – thus avoiding any hackers (as with Wifi).
Without a doubt, this new technology promises to make as big an impact on communication as Wifi did a decade or so ago. Now the only thing to work on is transmitting power wirelessly.
Thanks to the Economist for a great article on the topic of WiGig.
This new wireless technology echos Arthur C.Clarke's comment: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Yours in engineering learning,
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
I believe we have all had what we considered an excellent resume (cv) rejected at some time or other in our career. While I am not suggesting that you need to leave your current good job; it is good to keep in mind what is required and perhaps, in these uncertain times, to help a buddy who may need some support in writing his or her resume. This skill is vital whether you are an electrician or a chief engineer.
If you do an Internet search for ‘resume or cv writing’, you will have thousands of links – all guaranteeing you a top job. This short note is to help you create a winning engineering cv with a business edge. Which I believe is vital to success.
What is a Resume?
It is essentially a one-page summary of who you are and why your skills and know-how are aligned with the job under offer. The key element is to understand your audience (interviewer or would-be employer) and to market yourself in an eye-catching way which reduces the perceived risk of your would-be employer.
Different audiences require different information in your resume. You have to compete with many other resumes and ensure that your write-up hits the target and gets the potential employer reaching for the phone to talk to you further.
The content is not as important as the way you present it. I am not suggesting you lie, cheat or steal to get the job you want; but you need to carefully consider what the would-be employer is after.
Suggestions, Suggestions and more suggestions
Some suggestions for writing your next resume.
- Focus on what the job requires. A generic cv will never make it.
- Keep the overall document simple and easy to understand.
- Ensure your grammar and spelling is 100%. The tiniest of mistakes here can poison an otherwise good resume. Get a competent friend to check this aspect.
- Avoid excessive information about you which is not related to the job. You are probably detailed-oriented but employers don’t have time to read through masses of information.
- Leave lots of white space between sections. Balance, symmetry and a professional appearance are critical. White space between sections is a good thing. You want the feeling of spaciousness. Bold and italicized print is fine, if done in a way that is complementary.
- Preferably format in block style using bullets. Avoid long drawn out paragraphs and ensure they have fewer than six sentences. Concentrate on providing action oriented words showing how you clearly benefited your previous organisation and had clear responsibility for an outcome.
- A short summary at the top of your document giving your key skills is useful to get the reviewer quickly up to speed with who you are and what you can do.
- Jobs should include the name of employers, dates of employment and location. Watch out for giving the impression you are a job-hopper. If you are a job-hopper, you need to justify why you left the jobs. Honesty is always vital here.
- Focus on your strengths rather than tasks you don’t enjoy doing. Demonstrate integrity with what you do. It is pointless applying for a job where you are going to be engaged in tasks you would hate.
- Try and link your previous jobs to positive business achievements (increase in revenue or profitability or outstanding products or time saving solutions).
- Remember that a truck load of qualifications is pretty useless when not linked to specific experience and results.
I like Leonard Bernstein's wry comment: To achieve great things, two things are needed; a plan, and not quite enough time.
Thanks to Elizabeth Lions of the IEEE for an excellent article on the topic.
Yours in engineering learning,
Steve
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Dear Colleagues
As you well know – many engineering companies talk about their incredibly innovative products and services; but these are often anything but innovative. Many companies avoid innovation until they are condemned to the scrap heap. And by this time it is too late.
Innovation is one of the key building blocks of a successful company. And perhaps one of the most uncertain and difficult.
Early Exposure Kills Innovation
The challenge when you try and innovate is that often early release of your idea within your company will attract the doomsayers. Many remarking that it is a stupid idea or something that has no chance of success. These comments are often unreasonable but people are somewhat jaded by the talk of innovation in terms of ideas and need to be convinced. The trick thus is to build up a more cast iron case for success of your innovation to ensure it hits the light of day and is a successful product or service.
How many times have you had a great idea for an innovation which are you enthusiastic and passionate about and then had cold water poured on it from a disbelieving boss or colleague?
You Need to Check First
So when considering releasing a particularly innovative idea for an improvement to an engineering system, you should check that:
- You have done detailed stealth testing of your innovation. This requires you to test your innovation out extensively so that you have considerable support in terms of data and operation. But it needs to be done quietly and as extensively as possible without alerting any of the negative forces or opposition.
- You have all the data to prove it has a good chance of working. An airy fairy idea is not an innovation. You need hard data, demonstrated research and costings.
- Support from the middle and lower echelons of the company. This is where you will obtain the necessary resources, support base and who understand what your idea is about. It is not always likely that the top management will understand the innovation that well (apart from the financial savings you will make).
Next time; before you release your innovation consider whether you have built up a strong case for it by stealth.
Thanks to Paddy Miller, an old professor of mine, for a great concept.
Remember as Charles Lamb points out: There is nothing so nice as doing good by stealth and being found out by accident.
Yours in Engineering Learning
Steve
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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On the 23rd November, EIT held their first annual Graduate Gala in two locations - Perth, Australia and also in Johannesburg, South Africa.
The Perth Gala was held in the Panorama room of Metro Hotel overlooking the Swan River and the city of Perth. Graduates arrived from all over the region of WA to attend the celebrations and hear from speakers such as Barry Tonkin (WA Division President of Engineers Australia), Justin Shute (former EIT student and lecturer), and Dr Steve Mackay (Dean of Engineering of the EIT). The inventor of the PLC, Richard Morley pre-recorded a special video address for the gala, discussing his lifelong search for freedom and how he has found it working for himself at The Barn (barn.org). Richard joined us on the night, along with many other graduates from all over the world, in attending the celebrations online, through Blackboard Eluminate.
The lead-up to the event was not without drama, with the venue experiencing a total blackout a day before the event was scheduled – only to regain power a mere 4 hours before the Gala was due to start. Despite these behind-the-scenes complications, the night was a resounding success, with much joy and cheer shared by all. Graduates received their special gift from the EIT, presented by Dr Mackay and Mr Tonkin, to applause from their fellow graduates, coordinators and loved ones.
At the South African Gala, the students were so proud to receive their certificates and graduation gifts. They were also delighted to meet their instructors face to face and expressed their gratitude for the encouragement and guidance through the duration of their Diplomas.
Many photos were taken by each student and everyone was in top spirits. We look forward to hosting our next Graduation event in 2013 to congratulate our new batch of students and wish them well as they progress up their engineering career paths.
Both of the Graduate Galas brought together Learning Support Officers, industry guests, graduates, and lecturers of online learning, to connect face to face, and share in the celebration of our graduates’ achievements.
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On November 18th, 2012, IDC Technologies and the Engineering Institute of Technology (EIT) were proud to take part in a heart-warming community project: the Eighteenth SPECIAL NEEDS CHILDREN’S CHRISTMAS PARTY. This is an annual event planned for children who have special needs and are suffering from life threatening illnesses in order to provide them with one of the happiest days of their lives.
Over 3000 people came together at the Herb Graham Recreation Centre in Mirrabooka, Western Australia, including children, parent’s carers, volunteers and sponsors. The children received not only 1 but several free gifts per child in anticipation of the festive season ahead.
There where also multiple rides, an animal farm, fairy floss, ice-cream, and stage acts all for the enjoyment of attendees at no cost thanks to the support from companies like IDC and the EIT.
To find out more about IDC’s or the EIT’s involvement in this event or engineering education, please contact Carolina Asenjo at
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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
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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
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- Category: Blog - Steve Mackay
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
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- Written by: Steve Mackay
- Category: Blog - Steve Mackay
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
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- Written by: idc-streets-perth
- Category: Announcements
The IDC Street Team took to the streets of Perth last week to promote our upcoming electrical courses; Safe Operation and Maintenance of Circuit Breakers and Switchgear; and Practical Earthing, Bonding, Lightning and Surge Protection.
We visited the offices of Western Power with giveaways of the IDC Electrical Engineering Pocket Guides Volume 3. The Pocket Guide provides an in-depth practical coverage of Power Quality, Power Systems Protection, and Substation Automation, and can be downloaded for free (along with the 5 volumes) from idc-online.com/pocket_guides.
The street team wore attention grabbing high-vis vests emblazoned with the IDC Logo and hard hats with a DIY sign affixed above. This is the second successful street promotion for IDC Technologies, with the first in Perth’s city centre handing out free Formula Pocket Guides.
To view more information on the courses mentioned above please visit here:
Practical Earthing, Bonding, Lightning and Surge Protection - 26th and 27th November
Safe Operation Maintenance of Circuit Breakers and Switchgear - 3rd and 4th December
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- Written by: Steve Mackay
- Category: Blog - Steve Mackay
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
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- Written by: weve-extended-our-ebook-giveaway
- Category: Announcements
eBook offer extended!
5 winners have been drawn for their FREE copy of the eBook "Practical Project Management for Engineers and Technicians".
Due to an overwhelming response, we are offering another 3 COPIES to another 3 entrants!
To enter, simply go to the News menu at the top of the screen and select the eBook Giveaway - Enter Now! tab and enter your details.
Second round of entries close on Wednesday the 17th of October - enter now!
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- Written by: Steve Mackay
- Category: Blog - Steve Mackay
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
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- Written by: become-eit-instructor
- Category: Announcements
Turn your technical and engineering expertise, excellent communication skills and experience into a rewarding part-time instructing opportunity. We're expanding our instructor force to meet the growing demand for our training programs all over the world via our E-learning opportunities.
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- Written by: Steve Mackay
- Category: Blog - Steve Mackay
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
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- Written by: Steve Mackay
- Category: Blog - Steve Mackay
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
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- Written by: giveaway-time-your-free-ebook
- Category: Announcements
We have recently launched our eBooks in a new PDF format making it easier for you to take practical know-how with you where ever you go!
Our eBooks are now compatible with the following devices:
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NB: To gain access to our eBooks you will need to install Adobe Acrobat or Reader software and the FileOPen plugin (www.fileopen.com)
In conjunction with our sister company, the EIT, we are giving away 5 copies of one of our most popular eBooks "Practical Project Management for Engineers and Technicians"
To enter, simply go to the News menu at the top of the screen and select the eBook Giveaway - Enter Now! tab and enter your details.
Entries close on Tuesday the 9th of October - enter now!
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- Written by: Steve Mackay
- Category: Blog - Steve Mackay
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
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- Written by: Steve Mackay
- Category: Blog - Steve Mackay
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
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- Written by: Steve Mackay
- Category: Blog - Steve Mackay
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
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- Written by: Steve Mackay
- Category: Blog - Steve Mackay
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
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- Written by: engineering-s-future-leaders-mater-dei-college
- Category: Announcements
Engineering Education and Careers on Show
The Engineering Institute of Technology’s Dean of Engineering Dr. Steve Mackay visited Edgewater’s Mater Dei College to speak to year 10 and 11 maths, science and engineering students about the value of engineering education and the numerous advantages of choosing a career in engineering.
Approximately 45 students attended the presentation, covering a number of topics such as studying engineering at university, the advantages of an engineering career, and examples of failures in engineering - demonstrating the high degree of accuracy required of the profession. Dr. Mackay pointed to financial rewards, travel requirements, job satisfaction, and the opportunity to think creatively and innovate as major benefits of a career in engineering, as well as naming communication and interpersonal skills as attributes every engineer should possess.
The presentation comes at a time when Australia’s skill shortage of engineers and technicians in the resources sector is a current cause for concern in the industry. Encouraging high school children to undertake engineering study is an important step in combatting this issue, and one that is welcomed by the industry.
The Engineering Institute of Technology (EIT) is an institute of higher learning that delivers leading edge engineering and technological education online. It is the sister organisation of IDC Technologies, a global provider of technology training to corporate clients, and practicing engineers and technicians.
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