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- Written by: Steve Mackay
- Category: Blog - Steve Mackay
Dear Colleagues
Often you have to write a short summary (referred to as an Executive Summary) for your managers or executives. These fellows (and gals) can be an impatient lot wanting the core ideas imparted with the minimal of technical jargon in action oriented prose. So that they can quickly act on the points you make with minimal cross fire from any one else. Thus you need to be hyper-efficient in your writing.
A few other issues you need to consider
- What do you want to achieve with the executive summary?
- How relevant is the topic to them? Do they have prior knowledge or do you need to give them appropriate background?
- It can be useful to give them some technical details in simple English if they are familiar with the field (being from an engineering background) or you can easily summarise the key assumptions you have made from the technical details.
- Initially do a brain dump of everything you can think of. Don’t worry about the clutter of detail initially. Just write everything down relating to the issue and then work through it after this.
- Choose the key facts from a conflicting maze of others – typically not more than three or four details suffice.
- Write in simple non-jargon based English. Get to the point and don’t get distracted with unnecessary rubbish. Preferably use verbs rather than inactive nouns.
- Review your summary to ensure it is objective with no bias.
- Finally, if you are to present this to a live audience; prepare meticulously beforehand. Practise, practise and also rehearse for any awkward questions that may be thrown your way.
Thanks to Susan de la Vergne of the IEEE for an interesting article.
Please avoid doing this at all costs: An author is a fool who, not content with boring those he lives with, insists on boring future generations. (From Charles de Montesquieu)
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Dear Colleagues
We all experience setbacks and bad things particularly in our engineering work and our personal lives. I do often. Here are some great strategies to work through these times quickly and effectively. The key is to work through these to increase your likelihood of success in the future.
If you haven’t had a bad moment; you may not be trying hard enough in your job and are stuck in some comfort zone.
Bad things Vary
Often referred to as failures, perhaps you had a bad project outcome; unhappy angry client; missed a deadline; ran over budget or got passed over for a deserved promotion. Or you might have lost the Olympic gold medal by less than one hundredth of a second!
Here are some good strategies to get back from the bad times as quickly as possible:
1. Change Channels
Do something totally different. Disconnect from your current activity and change channels to something different. Watch a good movie, listen to Deep Purple music or walk to a nice quiet spot and scream at the top of your lungs.
2. Work the bad vibes out of your system physically
Often the quickest way to get through this; is to engage in high level physical activity. Where you really sweat it out. A long run on the beach, a work out in the gym or a long hard walk. Or as I did this morning - a hard ride on my bike through the rain.
When you exercise you release the wonderful endorphins; which make you feel better and eliminate the negative emotions and vibes.
3. Breathe deeply
If you are an extraordinarily bad emotional state; then focus all on your energy on taking deep slow breaths by expanding your diaphragm. Concentrate on how the air enters your body and how you inhale and exhale slowly. Do ten deep breaths and contemplate life again. Often you will feel considerably better.
4. Do a post mortem of what went wrong
Contemplate carefully and objectively what went wrong – where did you fail and why? Did you not have sufficient information on your competition; were you overconfident; did you make a wrong calculation; did you depend on the wrong person? Often you need to get an independent opinion as to what happened.
The key is to learn from your mistakes and ensure you don’t repeat this one again.
5. Sweat the stuff you can control
Consider carefully what you have control over and what you don’t or can’t control. Many things in life; we can’t directly control and have to accept the situation. Without losing sleep or simply giving up on everything.
6. Seize the situation
Often things are extraordinarily painful to deal with. The project has gone bad and your client wants you to make some awkward decisions. The supplier of critical components has gone bust. Your key engineer on the project has left to join the competition. But you have to face up to the situation and simply deal with it. Things are not what you wanted and have ended up the wrong way.
But you know what – rarely does life pan out the way we want. Seize the situation and plunge in and deal with it. Now.
You will be the better for it.
William Shakespeare in "The Winter's Tale" suggests: What's gone and what's past help. Should be past grief.
Thanks Andrew May for an interesting article in the Sydney Morning Herald.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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- Written by: Steve Mackay
- Category: Blog - Steve Mackay
Dear Colleagues
An interesting little (simple) brain teaser for you – no matter whether what discipline or type of engineering professional you are.
The Challenge
A tank at atmospheric pressure contains 1 kg of air. The tank is then pressurized with an additional 3 kgs of air. What is the resultant gauge pressure (in bars) in the tank after this 3kgs of air has been added? Absolute pressure = gauge pressure + atmospheric pressure
A. 1 bar
B. 3 bar
C. 4 bar
You could use the Universal Gas Law in your deliberations:
PV = nRT
Where V is volume; P is absolute pressure; n is the number of moles (‘molecules’); R is a constant and T is the temperature.
Assume atmospheric pressure is 1 bar (the initial pressure) – naturally this is a number which could change depending on what altitude you are at.
Solution (suggested – you could do it in a myriad of different ways)
There is initially 1kg of air occupying V0 initial volume.
With 3kgs of air added; there is now a total of 4kg of air in the tank (thus the final number of moles or particles is effectively 4 times that of the initial number).
The volume (V0) and temperature (TO) of the tank still stays the same.
Thus:
P0 V0 = n0 R T0 (initial state)
P1 V0 = n1 R T0 (final state where n1 = 4 x n0)
Thus – dividing each side of equation 1 and 2 we get:
P1 V0 / P0 V0 = 4 x n0 R T0 / n0 R T0
P1 V0 / P0 V0 = 4 x n0 R T0 / n0 R T0
Thus P1 = 4 P0
Hence, the final pressure P1 = 4 bar absolute or 3 bar gauge pressure (thus answer B above)
Do you agree?
My humble appreciation to Dr Rodney Jacobs and David Spitzer (the flow guru) for their contributions and critique.
Albert Einstein remarked: I never teach my pupils. I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Dear Colleagues
As we all know, most electronic-based equipment and instruments generally contain some form of circuit board and bits of wire to tie the individual parts together. However, the assembly and manufacturing process in tying these individual wires and circuit boards together and then squeezing them into a tiny space can take considerable effort and consume a huge amount of space.
As we have discussed in earlier blogs, it is now possible to undertake 3-d printing of items ranging from phones to instrument cases – printing one layer at a time. This is possibly the prelude to a personal manufacturing revolution where everything is done on the fly anywhere anytime. Not in a low-paying sweatshop as is often the case.
It is now possible to print electronics in three dimensions to complement this 3-d printing revolution. Printing on circuit boards has been around for a long time. However, we can now do electronics printing in combination with the 3-d personal printing of the case (of the instrument, for example).
Conductive inks are critical
Xerox is currently experimenting with conductive inks to print electronic circuits directly onto plastic or textiles. Although copper is used extensively in circuits; silver is actually better as it is a improved conductor and can easily be used in the printing process. The silver is deposited in a tiny layer (five nanometers thick); thus being cheap. The printing of electronic circuits can be combined with the 3-d printing process thus enabling antennas, sensors and full electronic circuits to be printed “within” or “on” a plastic item (such as phone or instrument).
A Single Machine to make One Product
Instead of considering assembling electronics and building a case for an electronic device as separate processes; one can now do it all in one process. Printing all the millions of transistors contained in an electronic chip is obviously not possible at this stage. So a hybrid approach will be required.
Think of the huge potential possible with your applications…..
The uses of this technology are quite extensive and you can look around at the items you could make smaller or build on the fly and thus respond flexibly to demand and customise to individual requirements.
Thanks to the Economist for a great article on 3-d printing.
David McCullough’s remark is so true: Real success is finding your life work in the work that you love.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Dear Colleagues
If you have ever been involved with building a start-up firm you will probably realize that a lot of the stuff from business school is next to useless. Start-ups are not simply smaller versions of a standard business but something completely different. Universities have had a mixed record in transferring technology to the market.
It is my sincere belief that driving the creation of start-up firms – particularly in engineering are a critical part of our lives to create new products and services and to improve overall productivity. And we need to nurture and build these “animals”.
Driven only by passion and the smell of an oily rag
Engineering start up firms are driven by passion and belief. Business plans, while nice to have, often change dramatically once you have launched the product and come into contact with your first customer. For every venture that makes it to established small business (or bigger) status, there are hundreds of others that have gone bust. Leaving broken hearts and much financial loss.
There must be ways to improve the success rate of start-ups. Particularly in the critical engineering and technology areas.
We can’t only be focussed on the technology
It is vital to avoid being 100% focussed on the technology we have created with a start-up but to ensure we put solid (and competent) effort into finding customers, working out effective distribution channels, pricing and joint-venture partners. And to handle a ferocious amount of rejection from would-be disinterested customers.
But overall we have to unerringly focus on getting out of the lab or workshop and our product into the real commercial world. After all – no sales and no customers makes for a quick death of the start-up.
Failures are a key part of the start-up
We have to learn from the all too frequent failures in approaching the market. This will require making considerable adjustments to our original premises in how to sell the product – changes to how the product is used/what market should be approached/pricing etc.
We have to run a marathon rather than the 100 m sprint
Start-ups often take considerably longer than anyone ever anticipated and we have to factor in a longer time to get the product out in the marketplace and some degree of profitability creeping in.
A useful template
A successful approach to launching a start-up has come from Mr Steve Blank from Silicon Valley who is somewhat of a serial entrepreneur. He has created two complementary techniques: Business model design (to help understand who your customer really is) and Customer-development (real-world testing of your product in terms of sales and marketing).
If you are considering a start-up – do a google on his approach which is yielding great success.
Thanks to the Economist for an interesting take on a tricky problem.
With respect to start-ups, Benjamin Franklin’s comment should be noted: Energy and persistence conquer all things.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
A few weeks ago, I stupidly broke my right wrist (on a beach!) and a few years ago my ankle. Fortunately, after a few plates and screws all is well with no actual loss of a limb.
The purpose of this note is decidedly not to look for sympathy but to talk about the exploding opportunities for engineering professionals working in the field of prosthetics where loss of a limb is the focus.
What is a prosthesis?
A prosthesis, prosthetic, or prosthetic limb is a device that replaces a missing body part. It is part of the field of biomechatronics, the science of using mechanical devices with human muscle, skeleton, and nervous systems to assist or enhance motor control lost by trauma, disease, or defect. Prostheses are typically used to replace parts lost by injury (traumatic) or missing from birth (congenital) or to supplement defective body parts (thanks Wikipedia).
Thousands of new amputees every day
Each day, thousands of people around the world undergo an operation to amputate one or more of their limbs. For example, in the USA, almost two million Americans live with the loss of a limb. Causes of loss of limbs are not only due to trauma or accident but illnesses and cancer. And naturally, military action (although this is a very small component).
The rapidly growing field of prosthetics provides many solutions to those who have lost limbs.
The Feel-good profession
Some have called the field of prosthetics, the ‘feel-good’ profession as it can enable those who have lost limbs to recover much mobility and to operate on an equivalent level to a standard functioning human.
Modern prosthetic devices are highly computerised with microprocessors, sensors and actuators to provide human-like functionality. Experiments are starting to yield brilliant results in interpreting what an amputee actually wants to do with her limb using implants.
How does an engineering professional enter this fast growing field?
There are generally no specific education programs to train engineering professionals in this area. Most people come from a mechanical engineering background; and to a lesser degree also from electrical engineering and software programming. It is vital to know about electromechanical systems, anatomy and physiology and to understand the psyche of an amputee. A slight complication is that the field is quite an inexact science requiring customization to a particular individual and this may drive the more ‘precise’ engineering professional into a frenzy as a result.
Many engineering professionals got their entry into the field by volunteering.
Engineers working in this area have a pretty well 100% employment rate. In fact, there is a growing shortage of expertise in this area.
So think of working in this area if you are looking to put something back into the engineering profession, work at the boundaries of engineering and medical science and to help humanity. Such is the degree of satisfaction working in the area that there are few who enter the field and who leave it.
Thanks to John R. Platt of the IEEE for an excellent article on prosthetics.
It is good to recall John W. Gardner’s comment when dealing with seemingly massively challenging problems: 'We are continually faced with a series of great opportunities brilliantly disguised as insoluble problems'.
Yours sincerely
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
The art of negotiation can be a thorny topic. I always remember the comment from a guru who (sadly) remarked: “You don’t get what you deserve; you get what you negotiate”.
We don’t negotiate enough
I believe most of us engineering professionals don’t negotiate enough. We accept the status quo when purchasing or selling something. In our quantitative minds, we accept that the price must be right as it is generally set by others “who know better”. Or we believe it is unprofessional and demeaning to “haggle” over an item. And we often believe that it is about a win-lose scenario - if you beat the price down sufficiently, the other party loses. But believe me, even in established department stores, with a supposedly rigid pricing structure, you can negotiate if you have a reason (imperfections in goods, out of date goods, no spares available). People are looking for reasons to give you a great deal. And a better price. Obviously, you have to justify the reason for the lower price. Simply applying the battering ram approach and demanding a lower price isn’t going to be successful.
Understand the other point of view
It is critical to understand the other person’s point of view almost as well as your own – ensure you are clear about what he/she wants and then look for alternatives to the standard solutions.
Don’t destroy the other party
There is definitely no point in destroying the other party in negotiations. It is better to protect their interests, particularly if you are looking for a long term relationship – otherwise it may come back to haunt you. We were the consultants to the construction of a power station. The client was tough and wasn’t prepared to tolerate any relaxation of the original contract terms (delays in delivering the power station occurred due to unexpected wet weather and labour disputes). The contractor ended up with particularly severe terms in the negotiations for liquidated damages and went out of business shortly afterwards. This resulted in a power station that had to be completed by someone else at an enormously increased cost and with huge delays.
Proven Techniques for Negotiation
A few proven techniques with negotiating – no matter whether you are the buyer or seller:
- Avoid an adversarial – you-lose-I-win approach
- Build trust and co-operation - work as partners
- Try and uncover hidden issues when listening to the other party.
- Research your position and that of the other party thoroughly and work out possible solutions before you negotiate.
- Communicate your position clearly and simply and make sure the other party understands you. Clarify your understanding of the other party’s requirements. Indicate a proven commitment to coming to a win-win solution - What do you have that the other party wants? What can you give away at minimal cost to yourself, but which is worth a lot to the other party?
- Reframe the problem so that it is solvable by a win-win solution. What compromises are possible?
- Wait in silence when you have stated your price - do not talk.
- Look for solutions by “expanding-the-cake.”
- Write down the final agreement and confirm this is what has been understood
As far as negotiation goes, William Shakespeare’s advice (in Much Ado about Nothing) from the 1500’s is timeless, insofar as trusting a third party when interpreting a situation:
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
Every successful engineering career involves troubleshooting and fixing at some time. Perhaps mainly remedying your colleague’s mistakes? The trick, I believe, is to keep your mind completely open when tackling the problem - to avoid pre-conceived ideas, as these can throw you off track.
The suggested steps for general engineering troubleshooting are as follows:
1. Identify the exact issue
When someone reports a problem to you; you can bet your bottom dollar this may not be the actual problem. When seen through the eyes of a user the report of the situation may not reflect engineering reality. Ensure you get a careful explanation and if possible a demonstration of the problem. It is your job to ascertain what the real problem is in real engineering terms. Often a problem presents intermittently. Don’t walk away from it, however, presuming it has gone forever – it hasn’t.
Recently, when trying to tune a process control loop, which the operators had complained was sluggish, I unwittingly found that I was actually dealing with high frequency signals (an aliasing problem) - it wasn’t a tuning problem, after all, but a filtering one.
2. Reproduce the problem
It is best to reproduce the problem where possible. You can then observe the full sequence of events, view the error messages and analyse other variables that may be affecting it.
3. Localise, isolate and home in
Now you have to zone in on the equipment or software module that is responsible for the problem. The trick is to zone in on the precise element causing the problem. Penetrate the thicket of equipment and find the precise element. Remember that seemingly unrelated elements can cause problems. It is also vitally important to identify exactly what happened before the problem occurred - was a card changed out and the IP address not updated on the server?
4. Make a Plan
Ensure that you assess what is required carefully. As one of my regular correspondents remarked: Beware the Law of unexpected consequences. The process of fixing something may cause other unexpected problems (a colleague of mine located and remedied severe harmonic problems in a plant network, but blew up three of my precious variable speed drives with overvoltage). When going through your plan, step-by-step, to best remedy the problem, you may find other issues appear that you hadn’t considered.
5. Trace your steps
Ensure that when you fix the problem, you know exactly what you have done in case you need to retrace your steps later to put the equipment back into its original state.
6. Test and retest
Test and retest over a period of time before accepting that the problem has been fixed. If there is any doubt about whether the problem has been fixed or not, there is no doubt. It is, most probably, still a problem.
7. Document for an absolute moron
People who come after you may not be aware of what you have done and how you have solved the problem. The problem may reappear or something similar may happen to another piece of equipment. So - document for someone who may have no knowledge of what you have done.
8. Communicate with the client or user
Often the user is not convinced the problem has been fixed. Your job is to ensure you communicate honestly; what you have done and why the problem has been fixed. Don’t treat the user as a complete idiot, but as a real partner in operating your facility. This is important for your credibility (and for the engineering profession).
I like Anthony J. D'Angelo’s take on fixing things: ‘Become a fixer, not just a fixture’.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Dear Colleagues,
Something most of us intuitively grasp; but which is worthwhile mentioning is the inverse relationship between costs of products and services and experience.
In essence, the more experience a firm has in producing a particular product or service, the lower its costs are. Fairly obvious one would think, but something we often don’t consider when planning a large project or job (especially one which has a degree of repetition in it). The Boston Consulting Group noticed that a semi-conductor company’s unit cost of manufacturing fell by about 25% for each doubling of the volume produced. While there are obviously savings due to an increased level of production, a related conclusion was that costs can decline by 20% to 30% in real terms, each time the accumulated experience doubles. This law has been known since WW II when building aircraft. Effectively less labor is required for a given output, depending on the level of experience. Properly managed, experience can facilitate improvement.
Don’t dump your experienced professionals
So this shows the folly of a company replacing experienced engineering professionals with young hacks at (supposedly) far cheaper rates. Experience and a company’s value reside in its human capital. People. And if talent is not recognised, it leaves the firm and takes away a lot of the value and indeed, cost effectiveness of that firm.
Obviously there are ways of bypassing this law in applying new techniques, training staff intensively to pass on the knowledge and hiring more experienced people. And, innovation and change can invalidate the benefits of the experience curve as certain approaches become obsolete. Innovation can thus leapfrog the experience curve. For example, experience in manufacturing black and white TVs is not of much particular advantage today.
However, even with situations such as this, experienced professionals would be refining their skills and knowledge to ride out these technological changes and can thus help the firm to adapt. After all, the basic physics and mathematics underpinning engineering remains the same.
What can you do about it?
The important issue is to realise that you can achieve greater profits at a lower risk by trying to focus on building up your store of experience in your business.
And naturally, you can budget on the hours spent in reviewing/turning around certain repetitive tasks will decline as the project matures.
As the old saying goes: Good judgement comes from experience. Experience comes from bad judgement.
Thanks to the Economist, Joseph Sherman and Rahul Sha for some interesting discussions.
Yours in engineering learning,
Steve
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Dear Colleagues
I was lucky to participate in a recent graduation of eleven electrical engineering students from a major power utility engaged in one of our three year diploma programs (easily equivalent to the first two or three years of an engineering degree and in some respects superior as there was an strong hands-on job-related component).
My speech went as follows….
You (and indeed your partners) have worked exceptionally hard on this qualification over at least three years and we should celebrate. You may have felt that the Engineering Institute of Technology has probably been far more demanding in what we have required from you than most other colleges and indeed universities. This is because we are absolutely determined to build value into your qualifications so that they are marketable and useful on a national and international basis in your engineering career.
We should celebrate your successes from the rooftops as you have achieved a very powerful thing culminating in today’s ceremony.
Power Engineering and specifically the Electrical Supply Industry is typically an area characterised by significant skilled shortages. So your experience and associated qualification will stand you in excellent stead in the future.
A few suggestions relating to your engineering career as you go forward:
Remain positive and in top problem solving mode
Engineering professionals are generally brilliant at identifying problems but not always so good at creating novel solutions to fix problems. You do not want to be known as the ‘Dr No’ of your organisation who is always finding fault with designs and systems; but someone who is proactive about finding practical solutions to problems – often even before they become an issue. Be more foolish in what you do. Experiment with new approaches without fear.
Fit into the organisational culture
Although you may consider yourself to be a huge asset in your company and who can’t be bothered about all the trivial paperwork; you can’t simply ignore company procedures and policies. No matter how irritating they may be. Best to fit into the system and comply with the myriad of administrative procedures and requirements and keep your colleagues happy.
Build Value, innovation and excellence into everything you do.
We’ve all seen the financial crashes and rubbish generated on Wall Street and by people who juggle money without building value. You have a brilliant opportunity to build value into your work as you are working in engineering. Which is all about building value.
Business is a key part of engineering
Costs and financial issues are a critical part of an engineering project. You can’t simply rip out a piece of equipment in your plant and replace it with a new Rolls Royce item because it performs better from a technical point of view. There has to be a justified return on investment. Ensuring that you always consider the financial issues in your engineering career; will add enormous value to the organisation. Profits are what makes a company tick.
Communicate brilliantly and with panache
Engineering professionals are renowned for their love of technology. And are not so enthusiastic about the use of English and in communicating well. However, this is a key part of growing your career. Ensure your written and verbal communications are of the highest possible quality. Not verbose or using large complex words – but simple, thoughtful and clear. Similarly practice your presentation skills – either one- on-one or to a group. And reflect and check on what you write or say before sending your communications out. Overall, soft skills are a critical part of the successful engineering professional.
Value your engineering career more than your firm
We all want to work for a firm or client we love. Forever. However, often your career will develop in a different direction to your firm; especially as far as doing things you enjoy or excel at. You may decide that you have to seek opportunities elsewhere to optimise your career. Often, a firm may be sold to some other entity and they may decide they don’t need your particular skills any longer. Hence it is critical that you keep your engineering skills sharp and relevant to the marketplace. And keep doing outstanding work which not only your firm values but others in the industry notice.
Respect everyone in your firm and get their support
You need every bit of help you can get in your engineering career - from everyone in the firm. Ensure you are friendly and positive with everyone – from the security guard, cleaners, engineering colleagues to the CEO.
Your value is communicated more than only through your work
Sadly, your value to an organisation or client is not only communicated by the fine plant, building or piece of equipment you have designed and built. You need to follow up by clearly communicating why your work is of value to the firm. Remember that email is used frequently but is only one tool to use.
Ensure you have all information before making a decision
As we all know with engineering problem solving – when making a decision one doesn’t always have all the facts. However, you can’t wait forever to make a decision. Try and learn from experts in the field on how they make good decisions. Especially relating to costing’s and scheduling. Always try and look at the worse case scenario here.
Learning is a life-long love affair
Don’t believe your initial degree or diploma qualification is all the learning you need in your career. While problem solving, conceptual and financial skills are often timeless; straightforward technical skills often date extraordinarily fast and you have to keep learning to stay up to date. This can be achieved in an informal way by working closely with your peers and mentors and exchanging know-how in this way. Formal training and education is also useful to keep up to date and aware of the latest engineering trends. Remember that change is one constant in our engineering lives.
Put something back into your profession and help colleagues whether through mentoring or simply technical advice. Ensure you offer advice and support to everyone to improve the engineering (and specifically) the power engineering profession.
Keep learning and sharpening your knife.
Finally, follow your heart in all that you do. Life is extraordinarily short and you have to do what you enjoy. Ensure you keep asking yourself what you ideally want to do and orient your career (and indeed your life) so this is what you do.
Final words
Finally, please keep your alma mater, the Engineering Institute of Technology informed of your progress. We would be delighted to hear of your successes and challenges.
So the choice is all yours - you have complete control of your engineering destiny as to where you are going.
Remember: ‘Only you can change your life. No one can do it for you’.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Dear Colleagues
One of the concerns I always have when interviewing a stream of people for a job is the impact each of them have on the final decision you make. Or in deciding on the best project when confronted by a list of potential candidates.
Two psychologists, Uri Simonsohn and Francesca Gino, have noted that we are rather poor in using background information in coming to an individual decision. A good example is that of a judge concerned about appearing soft on crime; she would be more likely to send someone to prison if she had already sentenced five other (earlier) defendants to far more lenient sentences that day.
The Interview Situation
How does this work in an interview situation. Well, it has been proven that if you initially interview a number of stronger candidates for an engineering job (for example); you are likely to believe that the next candidate must be a ‘weaker one’.
This problem doesn’t only apply to interviewing people but also in deciding on projects and individual items.
A possible strategy to deal with this
A suggested approach is to assign a rating or score based on what you feel each one is worth without worrying at this initial stage on who is in the ‘pass’ or ‘accepted’ category. You tell yourself that you are merely considering a short list and not a final list. If you find your short list is considerably more than what you were originally targetting; then create a completely new set of criteria (but which are still useful) and apply this to the short list. Arrive at a ranked list in this way and select the top ten or whatever number you are targetting.
The concept is that in going directly from the general to the specific is always liable to bias. This approach described above enables you to avoid this situation.
Thanks to the Economist and Drs Uri Simonsohn and Francesca Gino for detailing this interesting and useful research.
An interesting comment from Olin Miller: To be absolutely certain about something, one must know everything, or nothing about it.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Dear Colleagues
I know you will recoil at yet another ‘good time’ story but surely James Dyson – the inveterate inventor (remember those bagless vacuum cleaners) - is an inspirational engineer. After I travelled through the UK recently and saw the gloom and damage bought on by the economic downturn; I have to admire this fellow for what he has accomplished in what is generally considered a tough time.
And from a financial point of view, he must surely be one of the most successful engineers with a few billion dollars to his name. Vacuum cleaners, bladeless air warmers and coolers are some of his most successful products. During this recent recession; his private firm has been expanding at a solid rate of over 30% year on year.
I quote from him recently:
I shouldn’t revel in the fact that we are in recession, and I don’t, but it is a time to think really carefully. It is a time to invest in new technology and engineering and good design because the companies that succeed in recession and are able to export are those with products that the world wants. And the world wants new technology, better engineering and products that use less energy and materials.
A poor background was perhaps the catalyst
He came from a poor background – his school teacher dad died when he was nine years old and inevitably there was no life insurance. Fortunately, the school where his dad had taught gave him free schooling. As he couldn’t get any other firms to make the products he designed; he created the Dyson company in 1992. Privately owned so no stock exchange shenanigans.
No stock market shenanigans
Design and engineering work is done in the rural Malmesbury in England but with manufacturing outsourced to Malaysia. Before those from Western countries cry shame on outsourcing manufacturing, bear in mind that he employs 700 highly skilled engineers and associated professionals and is looking for another 200 this year. He reckons the graduates leaving university are still positive, wonderful and wanting to take on the world. He employs them immediately on this basis and encourages them to work on ideas and concepts which have some commercial outcome. Presumably, he is quite ruthless about focussing on solid commercial outcomes rather than too much blue-sky R&D.
A key concept of his is that engineering professionals shouldn’t be making something ‘bigger, noisier or faster with more bells and whistles’ in order to sell it. The theme today is lighter, more energy efficient, less material and less of a carbon footprint. Creativity and thinking laterally is one the key processes encouraged.
Eureka
A good example of their creativity is in transforming a traditional product the ubiquitous hand dryer which evaporates the water off your hands. Why not use a blast of air to scrape the water off your hands instead ? Which formed the basis of Dyson’s successful Airblade hand dryer which I encountered throughout the UK on my recent travels (although I have some reservations about the e-coli possibilities of touching the sides of the dryer - but that is me being picky).
Thanks to The Deal June 2012 for some interesting reading on this topic.
I love this quotation from about 2000 years ago (obviously nothing changes over the millenia):
If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now.
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (121 AD - 180 AD).
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Dear Colleagues
Even in today’s tough economic times, engineering professionals who are top of their game, are sought after and not easily made redundant. However, companies do morph and change with astonishing rapidity and you may not always feel comfortable with changes in your current firm, and look to alternative opportunities and employment. Sometimes; personal things happen that cause you to decide to move on (something unpleasant at work / death of a close friend /unexpected windfall or a change in life occurring).
Some Suggestions when making the awkward move (or in helping a colleague who has to “move onwards”)
- Develop a pitch that highlights the positives of moving forward to new challenges. Do not become the victim as this ultimately wears you (and your colleagues) down.
- Ensure you build in a support network of a few colleagues who can keep you motivated, aware of other opportunities and in tune with reality.
- Take time out to formally think about who you are; what you have achieved; what your strengths are and what you really enjoy doing.
- Write down specific goals of where you want to go both personally and professionally. Be innovative and creative in your future career.
- Think about career boosts such as further education or training.
- Select a trusted individual to mentor and advise you; and who you can use as a sounding board.
- Redouble your efforts to building up a strong contact network with address and email contact details
- Manage your health well-being with good exercise and especial attention to your mental well-being.
- Support and be kind to your family and friends at this rather stressful time. Try and defuse the stress and uncertainty with fun activities.
- Make your transition interesting and inspirational to others.
- Maximise your entitlements; but while being firm don’t lose your friendliness and respect for others.
- Above all, don’t compromise, as I once did in my haste to leave. Take your time to reflect on where you going and how you are going to do it.
Thanks to Peter Tatham of National Career Development Week for a thought provoking article on the topic of redundancy – An Australian Government Web site.
As Steve Jobs remarked with some prescience: “Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life”.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Dear Colleagues
The Code of Hammurabi stated 5000 years ago, that ‘If a builder builds a house and the house collapses and causes the death of the owner, that builder shall be put to death’.
Certainly, the Romans were also quite ruthless with execution of engineers who failed in the adequate construction of viaducts and bridges. Penalties are perhaps less harsh today; but consequences of negligence can be far more deadly due to the greater number of people using engineered facilities. Simply put: An engineered system fails when it stops working. And failure is often due to negligence in the design and construction – and often through human factors.
Think of the disasters
Think of some of the disasters that litter the engineering landscape:
- Challenger Space shuttle explodes killing 7 crew. Due to failure of the O-ring leading to the explosion of liquid fuel tanks.
- Bhopal. Piping systems failure leading to toxic vapour linked to the killing of thousands.
- Piper Alpha. An offshore platform exploded, killing numerous personnel.
- Chernobyl. A nuclear cloud is released over Europe.
- Therac-25, a cancer irradiation device. Due to a software bug patients are killed by the doses of radiation.
And recently, some spectacularly ugly train accidents. How on earth; after so much investment in train safety systems; can we still have head-on collisions?
The Primary Causes of Engineering Disasters
The primary causes of engineering disasters (according to SUNY at Stony Brook) are due to (entirely or in part):
- Human factors (incl. both ethical failure and accidents)
- Design flaws (resulting often from unethical practices)
- Materials failures
- Extreme conditions or environments
A recent study pointed out that in 800 structural failures; engineers were at fault with the top four reasons being:
- Insufficient knowledge (36%)
- Underestimation of influence (16%)
- Ignorance, carelessness, negligence (14%)
- Forgetfulness, error (13%)
How do we guard against these human flaws?
So, in our engineering endeavours, how do we guard against these human flaws?
Some suggestions are listed here:
- Build redundancy into design with functionally isolated systems
- Make use of spares especially when components are inexpensive/fail often/can be replaced easily
- Know the details in your design, such as; corners, connections, reinforcements in your design – do not assume anything
- Find trustworthy suppliers and stick to them
- Watch out for problems of scale (and when changing from static to dynamic conditions)
- If people are critical in the operation; then run tests looking at the optimal numbers of personnel needed and the necessary skill levels of the chosen personnel
- Train and retrain personnel; test and retest them if operator error can cause problems
- Use redundant software algorithms to minimize the impact of bugs
- Take care in filtering or allowing alarms to be disabled
- Adjust documentation immediately when changes are made to the operation and design and ensure everyone is aware of the changes
- Exercise management controls for improvement of procedures and changes
- Use real independent verification – not just rubberstamping - in cross-checking work
- Take extreme care in maintenance especially .with the release of stored energy and the removal of energy inputs to a system
- Use materials well within their safety limits
- Only operate equipment within design limits
- Inspect and test to eliminate defective components
- Stick strictly to applicable codes
Hopefully, what Doug Adams says is not true about you and me: ‘He attacked everything in life with a mix of extraordinary genius and naive incompetence, and it was often difficult to tell which was which’.
Thanks to the late Rich Barrett for his thoughts.
Yours in engineering Learning
Steve
Mackay’s Musings – 15th May’12 #477
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Dear Colleagues
As engineering professionals, most of you will be somewhat surprised to realize that you have a considerable amount tied up in your intellectual property (IP). “What intellectual property?” you may think, with some exasperation. But you will be surprised at how often the simple ideas that you have developed over many years become intensely valuable property. IP represents the property of your mind or intellect.
Surely, Apple – with its plethora of computers, iPads, iPhones and iPads – one of the most valuable companies in the world (if not the most valuable) – demonstrates the incredible driving power of IP.
Various Types of IP
There are various types of IP, such as; patents, trademarks (letters/phrases/logos), designs (shapes or appearances of manufactured goods) and copyright for original material (programs and books). Most of us are familiar with patents, which grant an exclusive license to the patent holder for a period of 20 years (in the US, at least), but copyright is slightly different. A copyright (this can vary from country to country), gives a maximum of 95 years for corporate ownership, or for the life of the author, plus 70 years. It is interesting to note that copyright (and indeed circuit layout rights) are automatically granted to you upon the creation of the material.
Other IP rights (patents being the best example here) have to be registered with local and international governmental organisations. Registration does vary, however, from country to country. For example, in the US, copyrights are registered with “the government”, whereas in Australia, no registration is required. As you know, the global market is becoming increasingly aggressive and shrewd when it comes to stealing valuable ideas and knowledge (let’s not mention countries) - to gain that competitive edge.
Ownership of the IP rights give you the legal recognition of your ownership and goes a long way to protecting it from unfair competition. It is quite an expensive and onerous task, but a worthwhile consideration. A famous example (albeit a simple one) of where things went awry is the Kambrook power board. The product was enormously successful and led to Kambrook becoming a major world player in this consumer business (esp. in the Asia Pacific region). But the IP was not protected. It should have been patented and as a result, within a short time, it was copied unscrupulously and sold throughout the world by aggressively competing firms. The originator of the idea continues to lose tens of millions in royalties every year.
The Main Engine of Growth
There is no doubt that intellectual property is the main engine of growth for any business and is especially advantageous in challenging economic times. Clever thinking and an edge is essential - ranging from innovative engineering designs (e.g. improved efficiencies), to pioneering engineering technologies, such as: deep water drilling or space exploration. In essence, don’t simply give away your intellectual property, but treat it with as much respect as you would cash and your other assets.
A few strategies
- Assess what IP you have. Often this is what gives you and your business a competitive edge.
- Reflect on how you are protecting it.
- Avoid publicizing or telling others about your IP until you have protection in place.
- Implement strategies to harness the development of IP in your firm.
We should always remember the remarks of an old sage when it comes to our most valuable assets: The wise man carries his possessions within him.
Hold your IP close to your chest.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Dear colleagues
When I was considering studying electrical engineering (many years ago!); my dear father once reminded me with some prescience (although being a teenager it irritated me): ‘Remember my boy, with all your theory and design skills on paper; these are all nothing until you or one of the techies or craftsmen picks up the first screwdriver or soldering iron to start implementing your design’.
In engineering education, we emphasise theory, software and computer design skills to distraction. But sadly we often ignore the importance of experience and even more, the manual skills which build up our engineering experience. We learn a lot of theory at college as engineers and techies. But how many of us need to directly apply a Fast Fourier transform or a Laplace transform to our work today?
Experience seems to be in short supply, particularly if you observe a young engineer at work. In many cases (like a junior officer trying to read a map on the battlefield) he/she is often forbidden from doing any manual work due to concerns that there will be an accident and someone will get hurt. Why? He/she simply doesn’t have the experience.
So was all this theory worth while? I doubt it. But theory is considerably easier to teach than practical know-how - much of which is missing in the engineering curriculum. Admittedly, theory feels far harder to gain than practical knowledge (due to the incredible mental gymnastics one has to perform), but at the end of the day practical knowledge is the key to success in engineering. I was somewhat shocked when I finished engineering school and spent many months on the shopfloor learning basic welding, fitting, turning, milling and how to wield a soldering iron, screwdriver and spanner (to the right level of torque). I did, however, gain considerable proficiency as a result and learnt about real engineering and the difference between theory and practical engineering. And then working in a real process plant, I learnt the hard way about the real practical skills required to run the plant – from the tradespeople who were always thrilled to share their expertise.
There are so many valuable skills, particularly with tools, that are simply not taught in college or university. These skills are handled with panache by craftsmen, but are not easily taught by academics and instructors or books. They can only be gained the hard way - by brutal on-the-job experience, with a very patient mentor (or ‘apprentice master’). Many technicians, who spend their lives working closely with circuits, often develop an incredible and deep understanding of electronic processes – much of this is not easily found in textbooks and dry theory.
As Jack Ganssle rightly pointed out: “Experience is a critical part of the engineering education, one that's pretty much impossible to impart in the environment of a university. You really don't know much about programming till you’ve completely hosed a 10,000 line project, and you know little about hardware till you've designed, built, and somehow troubleshot a complex board”.
As engineers and techies, we are like the blacksmiths of old. We start off as apprentices and through experience learn all our craft. And then when we have acquired all this expertise and know-how we start passing it onto the next generation without holding back any expertise. A sacred (engineering) obligation.
We’re generally paid for what we can do and I would wager a considerable chunk of this is from experience - not from what we derive from theory. So, building up our experience as quickly as possible when we start off, makes considerable sense purely from a mercenary point of view. The top engineers and techies are valued for what experience they have gained over the years.
We have to learn from experience and understand that we will make mistakes in everything we do. As long as we keep trying, we are growing as engineering professionals. We need to ensure that all our young engineers and technicians are involved ‘practically’ and get their hands dirty, when they start their careers. This is to ensure they can relate the excesses of theory that they gained at college or university to the real world.
After all, as Barry LePatner remarks:
‘Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.’
My gratitude to Bob Landman and Jack Ganssle for their valuable input here.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
Mackay’s Musings – 8th May’12 #476
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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. So go a step further and drive yourself and your organisation into becoming more indispensable with a few strategies suggested below.
A few suggestions on being more indispensable in your job:
1. Make sure you are The Expert in your firm on an engineering or technology topic. Pick a “hot useful” topic, learn it inside out and use this know-how to contribute to your firm and clients. Become well known as the local and indispensable expert who takes delight in assisting and educating everyone on this difficult topic - both in your organisation and to your clients. Whether it be in the field of advanced process control, PID Tuning, industrial data communications or electrical harmonics on an oil and gas platform.
2. Write well and document what you do in simple English. Most engineering professionals hate writing and documenting things. Someone technical with this skill, therefore, quickly becomes well known and respected. For example, supplementing your text with clear drawings and diagrams and a neatly-structured spreadsheet listing I/O addresses and interface details would make your work useful and memorable.
3. Communicate brilliantly and passionately. Being able to communicate simply and effectively (avoiding jargon) is always highly regarded. Make opportunities to attend professional development classes that focus on critical thinking and presentation skills or join a group like Toastmasters International which will give you practice.
4. Observe and learn about the changes occurring in your field. Change is guaranteed and not always welcome - especially when you have spent your career investing in a particular skill. For example, a decade or so ago, you had to know about handling a drawing board and 4-20mA process loops. Today you need skills in handling information flow, Gigabit Ethernet, industrial wireless and TCP/IP addressing. So watch for changes, be prepared to change and where possible avoid backing a career dead end.
5. Hitch a lift with a magic carpet rider. There are employees going places in an organisation that can be fairly easily identified. They show clear signs of leadership with their enthusiasm, innovative thinking, competence and involvement in pioneering and ultimately productive projects. Endeavouring to work in their departments is far more intelligent than working for and with dead-end colleagues and managers – those who tend to be cynical, negative and disappointed with the firms they work for and with their own careers.
6. Discuss your career with your manager. Put a plan together of where you want to go with your career over a 6 to 12 month period. In the plan consider; type of work and experience, progress and a forecast, education or professional development and naturally salary. Don’t haggle with your manager on salaries, however, and play your firm off against a job offer from another firm - you are likely to be labelled mercenary and untrustworthy. Keep an eye on salaries, though, with comparable jobs in the market and ensure your management is aware of any discrepancies. In tough economic times flexibility with salaries is more challenging, but you may be able to negotiate on intangible benefits. These include things such as; more time off, longer holidays, opportunities for experience in other areas of the firm, training and education.
7. Make a point of understanding the business side of your firm. This is mainly what your senior managers are interested in - after all. Whether this involves financial, marketing or legal issues – gaining some knowledge in the relevant areas and contributing intelligently will make your managers sit up and take notice - your advice may even become invaluable and sort-after.
8. It is the long haul and persistence that matters. Don’t worry about short term setbacks in your career development. Reassess your direction every now and again, by all means; but ultimately set your objectives and keep trucking doggedly in their direction. Don’t give up or compromise.
Make sure that in your firm and with your clients you are considered one of the best there is in terms of reliability and technical know-how.
With the rapid changes occurring today in engineering, I reckon Theodore Roosevelt was spot on when he remarked: Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
Mackay’s Musings – 1st May’12 #475
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Dear Colleagues
First of all, I would say that this note is not only about getting a better job but also in attracting more work to your firm. Many jobs today are based around a particular project starting up and eventually completing.
Statistically, it is said that up to 80% of new jobs are never advertised. So what you see on the job’s website and in the newspapers is only a poor shadow of the real activity going on below the surface. Similarly, new projects and work, is often not advertised but given to existing suppliers or those who the company knows about.
Unadvertised jobs include jobs that only are created when the right candidate with the right fit of skills (and attitude) comes along. Or there is an impending vacancy that will happen some time in the future and the job is thus not advertised. Or, the hiring manager is casting around internally for someone suitable; and hasn’t got to the stage of formally advertising.
It is thus not routine practice for employers to screen resumes from strangers to find an appropriate candidate. Employers are extraordinarily risk averse these days looking for a solid referral from a trusted individual who can vouch for the ability of the candidate. Sadly, the old adage is true, “It’s not what you know that matters, but who you know”.
I often hear of job candidates applying for a job, being interviewed and then never hearing anything further. They find out later that some internal candidate has then been appointed to the job (or some “mate of a mate”).
So what can one do about this state of affairs?
- Keep actively involved on all the various social networking sites especially LinkedIn (very good for professional activities) and their various job and project forums
- Stay active and involved with your local engineering society and keep vigorously networking and attending presentations by experts
- Keep talking to all your peers in industry about current developments
- Scan newspapers, magazines and web sites for projects starting up and completing
- Keep an eye on people being employed (as advertised in New Appointments)
- And when looking at job adverts – look not only for jobs but details of new projects/services being created by companies
- Form relationships with employers – esp. if you are turned down for a job and stay in touch for other opportunities
Thanks to Debra Feldman and the IEEE for an excellent article.
And remember – no matter how much you already know, as George Santayana remarks so sagely: The wisest mind has something yet to learn.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
Mackay’s Musings – 24th April’12 #475
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Dear Colleagues
A key part of every engineering professional’s job is troubleshooting some problem. In fact, arguably many engineers’ sole function (and the reason some are often paid very well) is troubleshooting and fixing intractable problems. Somewhat irritatingly is that it is often identifying and fixing other people’s errors.
The optimum approach is to keep your mind completely open when tackling the problem - to avoid pre-conceived ideas, as these can throw you off track. Naturally, one has to avoid the brute force approach of changing out components randomly in a frantic rush to fix the problem.
The suggested steps for general engineering troubleshooting are as follows. At times it will be tempting to leave some out, but it is worth working through them methodically:
1. Identify the exact issue
When someone reports a problem to you; you can bet your bottom dollar this may not be the actual problem. When seen through the eyes of a user the report of the situation may not reflect engineering reality. Ensure you get a careful explanation and if possible a demonstration of the problem. It is your job to ascertain what the real problem is in real engineering terms. Often a problem presents intermittently. Don’t walk away from it, however, presuming it has gone forever - you can be assured that it will come back at the most inconvenient time. The problem could also be a combination of different issues. Recently, when trying to tune a process control loop, which the operators had complained was sluggish, I unwittingly found that I was actually dealing with high frequency signals (an aliasing problem) - it wasn’t a tuning problem, after all, but a filtering one.
2. Reproduce the problem
It is best to reproduce the problem where possible. You can then observe the full sequence of events, view the error messages and analyse other variables that may be affecting it. If the problem is intermittent, you may need to train the user to do basic diagnostics (such as operate a protocol analyser or vibration analyser) to collect the right statistics and data. A network card, for example, wouldn’t perform erratically until the afternoon sun had warmed up a control room and heated the card up. Without this knowledge it would be difficult to reproduce. Another example is the office network slowing down to a crawl at 2pm every day for 30 minutes, due to someone doing automatic backups at this time.
3. Localise, isolate and zone in
Now you have to zone in on the equipment or software module that is responsible for the problem. The trick is to zone in on the precise element causing the problem. Penetrate the thicket of equipment and find the precise element. Remember that seemingly unrelated elements can cause problems. It is also vitally important to identify exactly what happened before the problem occurred - was a card changed out and the IP address not updated on the server, for example, (a particularly awkward one that caused an aluminium refinery to shut down - the users didn’t understand MAC and IP addressing). Or was there a sudden power surge? Or was the RTU exposed to excessive heat?
4. Make a Plan
Ensure that you assess what is required carefully. Beware the Law of unexpected consequences. The process of fixing something may cause other unexpected problems (a colleague of mine located and remedied severe harmonic problems in a plant network, but blew up three of my precious variable speed drives with overvoltage). When going through your plan, step-by-step, to best remedy the problem, you may find other issues appear that you hadn’t considered. It is worth reflecting on each item of the fix to test for these unexpected consequences. In replacing a valve, for example, you may find the loop controller may need to be tuned again, as the parameters are slightly different. Or a replaced instrument has subtly different ranges, which require updating in the PLC code and SCADA configuration.
5. Trace your steps
Ensure that when you fix the problem, you know exactly what you have done in case you need to retrace your steps later to put the equipment back into its original state.
6. Test and retest
Test and retest over a period of time before accepting that the problem has been fixed. If there is any doubt about whether the problem has been fixed or not, there is no doubt - it is, most probably, still a problem. Many leave this step out and the result is irritating for everyone when the process needs re-commencing. And ensure the user actually confirms he or she is happy with the fix and it all works satisfactorily.
7. Document for an absolute moron
People who come after you may not be aware of what you have done and how you have solved the problem. The problem may reappear or something similar may happen to another piece of equipment. So - document with infinite detail for someone who may have no knowledge of what you have done. This is something which we, as engineering professionals, are not so enthused with. It is, however, critical to the process. Naturally, ensure the documented fix is easily accessible by anyone; and not hidden somewhere in an arcane folder on the server.
8. Communicate with the client or user
Often the user is not convinced the problem has been fixed. Your job is to ensure you communicate honestly; what you have done and why the problem has been fixed. Don’t treat the user as a complete idiot, but as a real partner in operating your facility. This is important for your credibility (and for the engineering profession).
I like Anthony J. D'Angelo’s take on troubleshooting and fixing things. He gives the following exhortation: ‘Become a fixer, not just a fixture’.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
Mackay’s Musings – 27th March’12 #471
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Dear Colleagues
I delight in those engineering professionals who have set up incredibly successful businesses (but am saddened by those – the majority – who have failed). In these tough times, I do believe that for our economies to grow we need far more entrepreneurs providing services and products that improve productivity (including safety). The spin-off will be the employment of more people and more opportunities for engineering professionals to practise their skills. Engineers, being highly creative (and making things that are ultimately useful), have an incredible role to play here.
But you can’t suddenly decide to become an entrepreneur. You have to have a genuine passion for a product or service and be prepared to persist. You may have such a brilliant service or product which you reckon has great possibilities and which tempts you to head out on your own. Importantly, though, becoming an entrepreneur does not necessarily entail striking out solely on your own. You can often do it within your existing company structure – genuine owners of businesses delight in welcoming like-minded engineering professionals to extend their businesses with new products and services.
Be ruthless about whether it is a feasible product you are proposing. Many companies have not been able to survive as their key products, whilst useful, have simply never been viable business ventures.
Some suggestions for you:
As engineering professionals we tend to focus on the technical aspects of the product. This is what gets us excited. However, it is the ‘filthy’ business case on which we need to center our attention – “Can this product or service be sold to make money?” - the overwhelmingly important question before launching an idea. Engineers often neglect the business factors as they are less interesting. Sadly, the market will not beat a path to your door because ‘you have designed a better rat/mouse trap’. Ideas are a penny a dozen - it is the business strategy and plan that is critical.
A business plan defining your product and strategy is absolutely essential. And it should fit on a single sheet of paper with all the key thoughts worked through and built in here. If you can’t explain simply what you are doing in a few words to your grandmother, it is probably going to be difficult to make it work. Items to be included in your business plan include; those aspects of the product that are unique, why you will be able to sell it, who your competitors are, the costs and predicted revenue, the cash available to fund the venture, how long it will take to develop the product, the members of your team, an outline of the operations and admin issues and finally, a simple implementation check list with dates.
Initially, try to finance the product yourself and demonstrate that it is workable and bringing in a solid profitability before going to others for funding. Borrowing money from others or getting partners onboard, when the product hasn’t been proven, is fraught with danger.
Put overwhelming effort into your marketing and sales. Persistent communications of your idea to prospects, for your products are essential.
Once you have your product out in the marketplace, you have to listen carefully. You may find that you have to change your strategy considerably as the market might want something else.
It is an extremely lonely mission setting up your own business. Make sure you have oodles of support from your life-partner and that she or he is absolutely committed.
Even when you have a highly successful business, it takes aeons to see the first dollars come in. Often you end up with two years of virtually no income as you build up the business. Can you cope with this and more importantly can your personal life cope with this? Cash flow is always a challenging animal to deal with, but it is always king in business.
And an issue I have tended to scorn in the past (to my detriment), is the operational and administrative side of running the business. You have to put in place systems to deliver your product or service easily and effectively, with a high and continuing level of quality and profitably.
You do need passion and persistence. Persistence is critical as you will get “kicked in the teeth” at least a dozen times a day in the course of running the business.
There is no doubt, that it is enormously satisfying as an engineering professional to run one’s own business, bring new products and services to the market and take control of one’s own destiny. I continue to see so many vibrant engineering businesses opening up that are absolutely inspirational. These range from consulting, to software and hardware development, to electronic product development, to education, to construction and shipbuilding.
When considering entrepreneurial ventures, as the famous General Patton counselled:
‘Take calculated risks. These are quite different from being rash.’
Yours in engineering learning
Mackay’s Musings – 2nd April’12 #472
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Dear Colleagues
We are flooded on a daily basis with too much data and because we are in such a hurry we often don’t verify the truth of an assertion. And then we take action based on these anecdotal assertions.
Some suggestions in your engineering work:
1. Assess anecdotal information carefully for facts, otherwise file it away as untested.
2. Trace and audit any data which you suspect is second hand - it may have been copied from another source and contain inaccuracies.
3. Use the ‘common sense’ test – this will quickly eliminate the faulty data or statement.
4. Be suspicious of any data or assumptions which appear to be ‘too clean’, predictable, smooth, spherical - nature is unfortunately unpredictable, jagged and bumpy.
5. Apply some quick calculation tests to your newly acquired data to see if it does fit
In the worse case, where the system is ‘infected’ with faulty data or assumptions, ensure you own up quickly and let everyone know so it can be rectified - this is the sign of a true professional - being honest about your mistakes.
Remember that in nature, as the venerable Mark Twain once observed with some exasperation: “Truth is more of a stranger than fiction.”
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
Mackay’s Musings – 9th April’12 #473
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Dear Colleagues
I must thank Andrew Brown for bringing this neat story (which many of you may have heard in the past). It reinforces the need to keep all your designs as simple and effective as possible (applying the famous “Keep it Simple Stupid” – KISS principle) and to apply common sense. Although an engineering design friend of mine often wryly remarks: Common sense isn’t so common around here.
The story goes as follows….
A toothpaste factory had a problem: they sometimes shipped empty boxes, without the tube inside. This was due to the way the production line was set up, and people with experience in designing production lines will tell you how difficult it is to have everything happen with timings so precise that every single unit coming out of it is perfect 100% of the time. Small variations in the environment (which can't be controlled in a cost-effective fashion) mean you must have quality assurance checks smartly distributed across the line so that customers all the way down to the supermarket don't get p....d off and buy another product instead.
Understanding how important that was, the CEO of the toothpaste factory got the top people in the company together and they decided to start a new project, in which they would hire an external engineering company to solve their empty boxes problem, as their engineering department was already too stretched to take on any extra effort.
The Usual Process in a Project
The project followed the usual process: budget and project sponsor allocated, RFP, third-parties selected, and six months (and $8 million) later they had a fantastic solution on time, on budget, high quality and everyone in the project had a great time. They solved the problem by using high-tech precision scales that would sound a bell and flash lights whenever a toothpaste box would weigh less than it should. The line would stop, and someone had to walk over and yank the defective box out of it, pressing another button when done to re-start the line.
Let’s look at the ROI of the Project
A while later, the CEO decides to have a look at the ROI of the project: amazing results! No empty boxes ever shipped out of the factory after the scales were put in place. Very few customer complaints and they were gaining market share. That's some money well spent, he says, before looking closely at the other statistics in the report. It turns out; the number of defects picked up by the scales was 0 after three weeks of production use. It should've been picking up at least a dozen a day, so maybe there was something wrong with the report. He filed a bug against it, and after some investigation, the engineers come back saying the report was actually correct. The scales really weren't picking up any defects, because all boxes that got to that point in the conveyor belt were good.
Now we are all very puzzled
Puzzled, the CEO travels down to the factory, and walks up to the part of the line where the precision scales were installed. A few feet before the scale, there was a $20 desk fan, blowing the empty boxes off of the belt and into a bin. Oh, that, says one of the workers, one of the guys put it there because he was tired of walking over every time the bell rang...
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Dear Colleagues
Thanks for all your feedback – I respond to every note within a few days.
The First Industrial Revolution
As wet-nosed kids at school, we all clearly remember hearing about the first industrial revolution in Britain during the 1800’s. Tasks done in a cottage industry basis such as weaving were brought together in large cotton mills in a ghastly factory setting. Similarly, with smelting iron ore – all converted into industrial factories with rigid rules of operation and filthy conditions. And we recall the coal mines with thousands labouring in dangerous conditions working long hours (with horrible stories of child labor).
And the Second Industrial Revolution
Occurred when Henry Ford implemented the assembly line and the concept of mass production to certain quality levels. He created the mass produced car (‘car-buyers can have any color they want, as long as it is black’).
And now for the Third and Final one
As you would guess – this is the digital industrial revolution. It will change everything from business to our personal lives. And create unprecedented opportunities for engineering professionals – especially those with a slight entrepreneurial and adventurous streak.
I know some of you will be puzzled by my mention of the “Final Industrial Revolution” but I think the “industrial” connotation is becoming less and less relevant with software / leisure / entertainment driving a paradigm shift based on clever software; automation; robotics; the internet & web and industrial communications; new materials (e.g. carbon fiber replacing steel) and new processes (such as 3-d printing and nano technology).
It will be the age of customisation – in some respects, we will be moving from the factory to the weavers’ cottages approach with considerably more customisation for small groups of consumers of our products. One-to-one marketing will be the way of promoting our products.
Thanks to the collaborative Internet, products can be developed on a computer network between engineering types located all over the world, with parts similarly created at far flung locations (including parts printed out on a 3-d printer) and delivered in a customised format to customers located anywhere.
There will be a need for a huge array of highly skilled professionals to conceptualise and bring the products to fruition. Grimy machines operated by men in oily overalls paid low wages in some third world country will be replaced by quiet offices manned by knowledgeable professionals with high rates of productivity. Direct labor costs (as in someone making and assembling the item) will form an increasingly smaller part of the overall cost of this customised product.
The boundaries between manufacturing and services will become increasingly blurred (e.g. Rolls Royce sells operational hours of its gas turbines rather than a chunk of equipment).
Finally, you won’t require millions of dollars of capital to create a new product but can do this extraordinarily cheaply and probably in a collaborative venture with partners all participating in the design and commercial risk.
Great Opportunities for you - NOW
This third industrial revolution is happening today. And the opportunities for you as an engineering professional are increasing dramatically if you can seize the opportunities here. You probably already know of a product / service which you can sell to the world. What is it?
Thanks to the Economist for an interesting set of articles on this topic over the past year.
Some feedback from previous commentary of mine:
Some nice commentary correcting me (thanks v.much, Stephen Anderson):
However, I must point out an error (I am probably not the first) in your most recent musing: “Why aren’t engineering professionals more Ambitious?”
Velcro was in fact invented by a Swiss electrical engineer, George de Mestral, in the late 40’s rather than a NASA spinoff (refer for example Wikipedia). The inspiration for his “invention” came from his curiosity and investigation of why seeds stuck to his clothing and his dog’s fur during a hunting trip. It took him 10 years to mimic nature and perfect his invention.
I think engineers, more than other mortals, have an insatiable desire to understand and mimic nature – maybe another topic for your column!
As far as looking to the future; great advice is from Hyman Rickover: Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Perhaps the subject line is a rather frivolous ‘throw away’ line to many of you. However, the focus on engineering these days is keeping within the budget (don’t we know when we overrun on costs or recommend equipment which is too high quality?); maintaining safety margins; unbelievably detailed documentation on everything related to the design and extensive and unrelenting risk management. Engineering has steadily become very conservative with many unwilling to take risks in conceptual design. Dare I say – we have become more unimaginative in our engineering? Especially today, with many projects being culled as too high risk or adventurous (apart from mining and oil and gas, I hasten to add).
Naturally, I am not advocating ignoring safety and putting people into dangerous situations; but being imaginative and ‘thinking big’ in what we dream and think and how we handle challenges.
One of the areas which I believe is particularly ambitious and challenging is of course, space and planetary exploration. Surely, this is pioneering stuff at the extreme for engineering? In the current depressed economy, this is a sure fire target by politicians for cutting budgets. We build up incredible skills and know-how in space engineering on an international basis with teams of engineering professionals stretching their ingenuity and communications skills across barriers of technology, culture and language.
Many people (including my feisty wife) believe that space exploration is somewhat of a waste of money and we should be devoting these billions to sorting out more immediate problems closer to earth. The spin-offs from space exploration include, accelerating developments in mobile phone technology, medicine and security and many tiny improvements to our lives. For example, how many know that the ubiquitous Velcro strip (to quickly connect two objects together) originated from space exploration in the sixties.
We need to dream big and be more imaginative in what we do. Tackle tasks and projects which would appear to be impossible. Look at things which we haven’t been able to accomplish before and attack them with renewed vigour using different approaches and tools.
We have to seize the initiative from the faceless men that run our lives – the accountants, lawyers and contracts people (and much maligned Wall Street banker types). The ones who refuse to consider anything risky in terms of engineering.
So my humble suggestions today:
- Renew your engineering vigour to tackle projects which you have found too difficult to consider
- Look at new approaches in tackling intractable engineering work
- Relook at synergies and focus on making 1 + 1 = 3
- Re-invigorate flagging projects which seem to be inundated with negative vibes and a sense of failure
- Be more ambitious in what you do and target the stars rather than the top of a molehill
At a risk of irritating a few folk on the subject of ambition; I do find Timothy Leary’s comment heartening: Women who seek to be equal with men lack ambition.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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I believe we get exposed to challenges to our ethics on a daily basis. Most of the time; we ignore these challenges but occasionally the price is high and we succumb ever so slightly (and silently).
In the nutshell – ethics is about - as the National Society of Professional Engineers indicates: Engineers, in the fulfilment of their professional duties shall hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public. This applies to all engineering professionals – no matter whether you are an apprentice electrician or Chief Engineer at NASA.
It is thus worthwhile recalling the life of Roger Mark Boisjoly (who died recently on the 6 Jan.’12). He was an engineer at Morton Thiokol, the manufacturer of the solid rocket boosters for the NASA space shuttle program. While examining, discarded booster rockets from the previous launch, he noticed that the O-ring seals in the rockets had been burned through. He concluded that flight operations in cold weather caused the O-rings to harden and contract, losing their seal and thus opening the door to catastrophic failure. Inevitably, before the next Challenger space shuttle blast-off, temperatures were close to freezing and Boisjoly was alarmed.
The evening before the launch, Boisjoly, urged that the launch be postponed. NASA decided to proceed any way despite objections from Boisjoly. Shortly after lift-off, the O-rings failed and Challenger exploded with numerous deaths. Something that will remain searing on my (and I am sure many of your) memories was the horrible sight of Challenger, an engineering icon, exploding so catastrophically.
The feeling was that the engineers were outranked by the managers who overrode their concerns and ethics were trampled underfoot.
The American Society of Civil Engineers reminds us (in a nutshell) to:
- Make the safety, health and welfare of our fellow citizens the highest priority
- Only work in areas in which we are competent
- Be truthful and objective in all our communications
- Adhere to the highest professional standards and avoid conflicts of interest
- Build outstanding professional reputations around real accomplishments and be fair and considerate in dealings with others
- Have zero tolerance for bribery, fraud and corruption and uphold the highest standards of engineering
- Continue enhancing one’s skills in a life long learning process and freely mentor others.
Thanks to the IEEE for an interesting article and Wikipedia for background reading.
You definitely don’t want to do as Darby Conley cynically suggests:
‘Ethics are so annoying. I avoid them on principle’.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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I am sometimes inclined to agree with Thoreau who noted that ‘most people live lives of quiet desperation’ - people who are unhappy personally and in their careers. As far as the engineering or technology field is concerned - for some of us, it is working in technology-intensive environments (design/installation/configuration), but for others, it involves working in maintenance and operations, a less intensive environment.
Great Personal Wealth
And occasionally - for some there is great wealth and the directing of large companies. The ‘good life’ is very personal and differs for each of us. Our jobs, however, are vital in achieving life satisfaction as they consume huge chunks of our days. I am sure many of you have dwelt on the various alternate activities you could engage in during your work days? I know the answer for many of us would be to take an extended break from the hum-drum and relentlessness (and inherent stress) of our work days.
Why not Retire?
Perhaps even retire and go fishing, or travel, or……... But I really doubt that deep down this is the solution. If you are unhappy with your current job, you do have the capability to change to something better - design the career you really desire (and indeed deserve). I believe, however, that we engineers and technicians achieve some fundamental satisfaction from our jobs as we are generally making or fixing something which leads to tangible benefits for the community. Indeed, we tend not to be involved in ripping people off with interesting financial feats (as with the ‘smokes and mirrors’ financier brigade) or becoming embroiled in legal shenanigans, as do lawyers, or bracing ourselves against the boredom of doctoring - seeing the thousandth patient with flu and sagely remarking: ‘this bug is going around at the moment’.
Inspirational Technologist
Some time back, I met this inspirational technologist – John - someone absolutely passionate about his job. He showed me around his paper mill with great pride. He started off, many years ago, as an electrician; but by dint of enthusiasm, a thirst for knowledge and panache for up-skilling himself he is now in charge of the entire data communications network for this massive plant and a team of highly qualified professionals. It underpins the state of the art Distributed Control System (DCS) with fieldbus, fiber optic and high speed industrial Ethernet networks – engineering at a world class level. He was a key player in drawing up the detailed specifications for the DCS upgrade for the plant when he worked with and directed engineers throughout the world. He has an enormously detailed knowledge of the latest technologies.
How did he Gain Career Success?
How did he gain this knowledge and get to this highly specialized technical position - bearing in mind that he was originally an electrician wielding a screwdriver and multimeter?
- Through some training - yes, I am obliged to add this
- Perhaps more powerfully, by draining experts of their know-how when they visited his site
- Regularly consulting the experts in the industry (when I visited him he was talking to one of the top engineering networking specialists in the country)
- Studying the various approaches and standards in detail (with a little flourish he showed me the thumbed standards of the latest and varied communication protocols he often refers to)
This all took him years to achieve, but as his plant managers saw how effective he was on-site, they were only too delighted to provide him with whatever tools he required. He is now absolutely crucial to the running of the plant, but despite this possession of enormously strategic information he has recorded everything meticulously and professionally for anyone to refer to. Furthermore, he delights in training others and his passion in this field makes him an inspirational technologist and teacher.
Probably old news for you, but reminders:
- Pause for a second and write down what you truly want to do in your career (and personal life) and then work out how to get there (make these realistic and achievable goals)
- Design your job so that it fits you – ‘A Designer Job’ - and work out the skills you will need
- Find some relevant training / education - if this is required to give you the background • Edge yourself into this environment by; reading, talking, appointing a mentor and getting experts to pass on their knowledge to you
- Work towards getting rid of the tasks that are hum drum and take on more challenging and interesting work
- Be useful, competent and enthusiastic to ensure you are fairly renumerated
- Maintain and update your skills – they are the same as those finely crafted pieces of furniture you make on the lathe – they date
Above all, ensure you are clear about your intended direction in your career. As Yogi Berra noted: ‘If you don't know where you are going; you'll end up some place else’.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence’ can really gnaw at you. How can you make sure that you’re being paid what you’re really worth? Theoretically, your remuneration is based on the contribution you make to the business you work in. Other factors that impact on pay include: education, formal and informal training, type of engineering, technical experience, size of the company, responsibility level and the part of the country or world that you work in, and finally simply – supply and demand.
Education
A few years ago – especially during the dot com era, many thought a qualification (either diploma or university degree) was increasingly irrelevant -especially in the IT area. There is no doubt, however, that a good qualification from a good college can be helpful. If you gain the ability to think logically, read and write competently and are able to commit to outstanding project management skills you will have a good future in the earnings stakes.
Interestingly, though, an advanced degree, such as a doctorate, may be counterproductive and scare potential employers off. A niche job often has to be found to fit this level of education and this may be difficult. Some engineering graduates may sneer at an engineering diploma – but this coupled with excellent experience and being in the right industry can signal enormous career success. I know of many diploma graduates who have done exceptionally well and lead teams of professional engineers (some with PhDs).
Formal and not so formal Training
Most firms appreciate their staff constantly sharpening their skills by attending (relevant and good) courses – formal training. On a more informal basis, however, learning from others in the firm is extremely beneficial and can result in some profound learning (esp. from the highly experienced specialists). Actively seeking out new know-how from experts and applying this new found knowledge vigorously to new projects is highly regarded. All of these represent you investing in yourself and making yourself more valuable.
Experience
This is often the hardest to attain, but generally the most valuable. Sadly, the technical part of experience ages very quickly. The trick is to avoid technical drudgery where you gain minimal new experience but are doing the same thing again and again. I would respectfully suggest, however, that the experience you acquire in management will only mature with use and make you even more valuable. Gaining experience overall is essential for job growth. Down the track this is often the one area that will make you stand out when being offered a job.
The part of the country/world that you work in
In Australia’s booming resource sector and on some of the Middle East oil and gas locations, the salaries are astronomical. This is true, but in these environments your costs are higher and your life style can be quite challenging – certainly compared with suburbia in a ‘nice western’ country. I know of operators working in ‘prison-like’ conditions being paid an absolute fortune – but I am not convinced this is sustainable. So weigh this up carefully. It always fascinates me when I see Indian nationals returning to India and leaving secure US jobs behind for the call of family and perhaps culture.
Business focus
Most technical professionals focus on the issues that are near and dear to them which include engineering projects and detailed technical issues. When assessing projects for your firm, however, it is important to actively ensure that it is aligned with the business in which you are involved. This is a skill which will again enhance your ‘value’ in your company.
And finally – supply and demand
New trends sweep the job market and engineers with skills in these areas become very valuable. When PLCs arrived on the scene in the early seventies, any engineer who could program these beasts and manage an entire engineering project was highly sought after. Now electricians can do a lot of this basic programming. During the dot com boom naturally it was the engineers with a strong Java and database skills who were in great demand. So when you have a highly sought after skill you can charge a premium. But be careful - others are quick to jump onto the band wagon and this can eventually reduce your ‘value’.
How do you gauge your worth?
The inevitable source of information on this are the job boards on the internet sites or employment columns. However user groups – of which there are a burgeoning number -on the internet, can be a great source of information. If all your engineering peers are on $150 per hour; you can bet your bottom dollar (so to speak) that this is the going rate and you had better do something about it if you aren’t earning this.
Furthermore, many professional magazines publish regular salary surveys and prove interesting reading. The jobs that have large variances in salary are often difficult to interpret, but are nevertheless worth some thought.
To sum up
Overall, I believe having a job is akin to surfing. You can ride a really good wave for a while, but eventually when you hit the shore you have to paddle back and look for the new wave – a wave with different characteristics and twists and turns. So keep your skills broad and deep enough to ride out the changes in the technology that will undoubtedly sweep through your firm. Furthermore watch the state of the market to ensure you understand what is required.
I remember when I left engineering school there was a massive demand for electronics engineers, but then suddenly it was software engineers; and then for those working on the internet and so forth. Some engineering jobs do, however, seem to truck along well through all sorts of economic storms – such as those engineers working in the (perhaps) less exciting electrical power and mechanical engineering area.
The advice from the US president Theodore Roosevelt on jobs is certainly an interesting one (a reflection of the Yankee ‘can-do’ philosophy perhaps?):
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell 'em, 'Certainly I can!' Then get busy and find out how to do it.
Thanks and acknowledgements to Patrick von Schlag for his input here.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Many of us get well rewarded for solving problems. In fact; arguably that is one of the top paying tasks in engineering. A good example - in the field of aviation - is that of Captain ‘Sully’ Sullenberger who saved hundreds of lives by bringing a passenger airliner down safely into the Hudson River after both engines had catastrophically failed - probably involving seconds in his entire career, or Red Adair putting out horrendous oil fires, or the astronauts bringing Apollo 13 back safely to earth. At the end of the day, as engineers, I believe problems are our stock-in-trade.
For some reason, we are taught that engineering is all about design and coming up with a nice construction - there is very little mention or discussion based on problems, until they occur. Think of your course at college – most of it was set in a pure world of building things and designing software where few problems exist. This is a huge oversight in teaching engineering. Students can be absolutely sure that a mammoth number of (irritating) practical problems will confront them, as engineers, on a daily basis. In some respects - if we don’t have problems, we don’t have a job. Interestingly, our most popular short courses (for engineers or technicians) are the troubleshooting and problem solving ones.
Fred Nickols (‘Solution Engineering: Ten Tips for Beefing up your Problem Solving Toolbox’) gives some really excellent (although perhaps rather dry) tips on a great sequence for problem solving which I have modified to my childlike (yes!) way of thinking:
1. Focus on the desired solved state
Most of the time we contemplate the problem with horror and ignore what we want to achieve. With this mind set we focus on the problem and then move from problem state to problem state. A better approach is to visualise clearly what you see as the final solution and focus on this unerringly throughout the entire problem solving process.
2. Be clear about ALL your objectives
To clarify this it is worth asking:
What are we trying to achieve/preserve/avoid/eliminate?
3. Expand your definition of the problem
The acclaimed ‘define the problem’ is the most poorly understood and executed step in the process. And as you solve the problem, this definition changes. Do the following:
Locate the problem/Isolate it/Describe it precisely/Define it
4. Bounce around like Sherlock Holmes in solving the problem
The information you need is not in one structured pile, but in a heap of little bits scattered far and wide; both written down and in many people’s heads. And changing. Be Sherlock Holmes – the brilliant detective; find it all and bring it together.
5. Picture it
We are engineers after all and tend to be visual thinkers. Diagrams and schematics should be used as much as possible.
6. Don’t always fret about the cause
Causes can sometimes be fixed and should be investigated. But don’t waste valuable time and effort looking into a cause where it is not going to help you solve the problem.
7. Avoid disconnects
We go through this every day. Top management gives instructions on fixing a perceived problem. By the time it gets down to the electrician on the shop floor, the problem has disappeared and he is merely doing a useless job for which the reason no longer exists.
8. Know your own vision
We all have built in biases and approaches to doing things. Sometimes good and sometimes not so good. It is best to be ruthless about what they are and understand the overlap between our personal and the rational objective world out there when assessing the problem. Stand back and watch yourself solve a problem and try to understand your biases for next time. Use your strengths, but guard against your weaknesses.
9. Create your own system
You know your skills and expertise the best. Develop your own system of fixing a problem.
10. Sharpen your knife
Keep refining your knowledge and expertise and sharpening your problem solving abilities.
I believe in what the famous mathematician and scientist, Rene Descartes observed:
‘Each problem that I solved became a rule which served afterwards to solve other problems.’
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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As I looked down our street and saw the rows of rubbish (or garbage) bins neatly parked with military precision waiting for them to be taken away, I wondered at the millions of other examples of rubbish throughout the world. I am also acutely aware of the massive increase in packaging used from groceries to plastic bottles for everything. In the old days (yes!); we used to use paper bags for groceries. I insist on carrying groceries and items from the local corner side shop (where possible) without any bags used (resulting in the inevitable casualties much to the irritation of my lovely wife). South Africa, due to the ferocious amount of rubbish flying about, interestingly enough banned plastic bags many years ago (and I am sure there are some unpleasant unexpected consequences as a result; but it is seemingly a great idea) and you have to pay extra for the bag at the checkout till resulting in people re-using their bags. Good on them.
Is recycling worth the effort?
Does it have any relevance to me as an engineer? Where is all the waste going? Apparently some of it is going into some gigantic tip in China? I clearly remember as a child hearing the phrase: "Where there's muck, there's brass" (normally said in a broad Yorkshire accent). Unfortunately this is not always true and our consumer society drives frenzied growth and with it more rubbish. There are no widespread financial incentives for all of us to cut back on waste. So most of the stuff is buried. And we are fast running out of space in the highly populated countries. And there is the additional hazard of toxic waste leaching into our water table. Often many years later, the rubbish dump is converted into another housing estate with all sorts of interesting results with poisons appearing in one’s backgarden. The other option, burning or incinerating (which I initially thought was an ingenious idea), sadly has other risks. Cancer producing dioxins are a possible product. So the final practical option is recycling.
The numbers are daunting.
Since 1960, the amount of municipal waste being collected in America has tripled reaching (not, that this means much to all us numbed by these statistics) 245m tonnes in 2005. In Europe, it is now 577kg per person per annum. America recycles 10% of its municipal waste against Austria and Netherlands which are at a wonderful 60%. Is recycling worth it on environmental grounds? According to credible research at the Technical University of Denmark, it is definitely better for the environment. It conserves natural resources, reduces the amount of waste burnt or stuffed into dumps, and conserves energy. Recycling aluminium can reduce energy consumption by as much as 95% (against extracting it from raw ore). Steel is at a pleasant 60% saving.
Originally, kerbside collection programmes required separate collection of paper, glass and cans. But now it is single stream. I was naturally suspicious when I saw this happening, thinking that the authorities had given up and everything was being dumped again. But new technologies can sort without human intervention and it is more convenient for consumers. And it works.
And onto China. There are concerns about shipping recyclables to China - now the largest importer of rubbish (well, recyclable rubbish) in the world. Does this all end up in landfills? Van Beukering, a specialist economist in the area says:’as soon as somebody is paying for the material, you can bet it will be recycled’. So this is apparently not such a problem. It is being re-used. Admittedly, still significant problem with poor migrants being exposed to toxic waste in China. You only need to watch TV footage of kids lurching around on filthy waste dumps in third world countries; to know there is a fiendish problem here.
Finally, products have to be designed by us as engineers so that they can be recycled. A complete rethink of industrial processes. For example, sustainable packaging is not only good for the environment but cuts down your costs significantly. Walmart believes that in cutting the amount of packaging it uses by 5%, will save as much as $3.4 billion and reduce CO2 by more than half a million tonnes.
In conclusion, as engineering professionals, I challenge you to:
- Work out ways to minimise the junk we produce - recycling and re-using as much as possible
- Design products so that they can be recycled - this requires a rethink of our current design processes
- Boycott products which are poisonous and non-recyclable
- Design new technologies to process the garbage and make money from it
- Use the waste tips to generate energy
- Convince our peers to recycle, design for more sustainability and use less
- And be prepared to pay slightly more to stick to our principles of looking after our environment and ultimately ourselves. The jury is out as to whether the free enterprise capitalist system is that attuned to dealing with waste and pollution (well; at least that is what our economics lecturer remarked – thirty odd years ago). So we have to take it on ourselves as engineering professionals.
There is no doubt that recycling protects the environment by cutting down on energy, raw materials and pollution. But where we as engineers come in - we need to recycle better.
My gratitude to The Economist and the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) for assistance in this article.
As The Economist remarked: ‘Waste is really a design flaw’. And that is where we as engineers are both culpable and have a key role in fixing.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Many of us tolerate unbelievably bad ‘broadband’ in remote locations with so-called DSL. Very high speed fiber-to-the-kerb is only a dream. There is thus much animated discussion about the possibilities with the relatively new Long-Term Evolution (LTE) Wireless standard that is going to be the solution to all our problems. This particular standard promises download speeds of 100 Megabits/second and peak rates of up to 300Megabits/second. It is reckoned that this will challenge copper, coaxial and perhaps even optical fiber. Surely this means that that no telecommunications provider in their right mind is going to dig trenches and provide fiber any longer with this (wireless) elephant in the room.
What exactly is LTE - in a few words?
It comes from a 3G form of mobile telephony called GSM (Global System to Mobile Communications) although it is often (officially) referred to as a 4G technology. It uses two separate radio links – one for downloading from the cell tower and the other for uploading. The uplink tolerates a weak signal from the cell phones as it has gigantic antennas and powerful receivers.
So what exactly are the problems with Wireless systems such as LTE?
The problem is that the high throughput with wireless is only achievable with low congestion. Definitely not a problem for fiber optic which can achieve orders of magnitude greater throughputs because of the size of the physical pipe. When the number of wireless users in an area, exceed a tower’s capacity, the throughput drops off dramatically.
So, especially in densely populated areas, the available bandwidth while it is supposedly gigabits/second for a few users, rapidly reduces to a crawl, when the number of users exceeds the available slices of spectrum.
Finally, the cost per bit of wireless is dramatically more than copper or fiber. Well, for a typical installation (obviously not one remote user hundreds of kms away from the mobile tower). Some suggest, wireless is of the order of two orders of magnitude more expensive than landline.
So all in all – don’t discard the incredible possibilities offered by Fiber. Wireless is still a compromise. Naturally, if you don’t have a choice (you are located in a remote location, are a mobile user or don’t have any cable), you will have to live with wireless.
Note that FTTC (Fiber to the Corner) or FTTH (Fiber to the Home) has so much potential bandwidth that even a few fibers can easily give you huge bandwidth. Far more than LTE Wireless can ever hope for.
Thanks to the Economist for a tremendous set of articles on the topic.
Bear in mind in this rapidly developing area, as Donald R. Gannon remarks: Where facts are few, experts are many.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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I watch my 14yo son with some bemusement when he expertly uses Google to search for information for school projects or simply to find out about something that intrigues him. He is reluctant to use my favourite source of information – books. There is a massive paradigm shift that is occurring at present where people are using search engines from Google, Yahoo and Microsoft to secure the knowledge, information and data they require by simply typing a request into a search engine. Know-how all available at your fingertips – or fingertip knowledge.
Elliot Masie, a learning futurist, indicated his astonishment after presenting to a group of 200 learning professionals. He asked them a simple question: ‘If tomorrow you needed to learn something new, what would be your first step?’ He expected a range of typical responses including books, e-learning, classroom-based learning and asking a colleague. But more than 90% of those present indicated that they would simply do a Google search. This is a profound change from consulting your peers or locating the information in a book – either online or in a library.
Engineering professionals want information immediately - available at their fingertips. Most organizations do have information available, but most storage systems are hierarchical menu-based systems that require one to memorise key navigational paths or key steps. What makes search engines such as Google so incredibly powerful is their simplicity and ease of access. Whether at home, in an office or travelling through an airport, access to Google is easy. Furthermore, when searching, the engine facilitates even fairly loosely defined strings and some misspellings - there is a lot of ‘forgiveness, including typo’s and formats’ (Masie 2006).
Fingertip knowledge is also now diversifying. Knowledge is being secured using devices such as iPhones, iPads or smart phones.
However – with this deluge of information it is vital to use the information wisely.
So how can we improve our searching for know-how on the web?
- You need to learn the rules and tricks for searching to understand how you can effectively get information. For example, using quotations around key words will allow you to search for a fixed combination of terms. In Google, have a look at the advanced search facilities. These allow you to exclude words and do other nifty searches rather than the boring old searches we do on a daily basis.
- You have to learn the tips and tricks to identify good information from bad such as articles which are well written and are from reputable sources such as universities and companies with good track records.
- Ensure that that this ability to search quickly and effectively is available to you wherever you are. For work efficiency, the use of smartphones or iPads and quick access to notebook computers, whilst on site or travelling, is becoming essential for the busy engineering professional.
- You need to work out mechanisms to make your engineering knowledge within an organization easily accessible by your colleagues and even by yourself for later retrieval. For example, tags containing information such as the author, the key words describing the document and perhaps an expiry date (after which the information is no longer usable) should be created. This would allow any one else in the organization to search for the stored information using a Google type search. Be systematic about how you save details of web sites and information sources so that you can quickly go back to them without engaging in another arduous search from scratch.
In conclusion, Elliot Masie (2006) makes the point that ‘…we need to start to develop the ability to be very good at Fingertip Knowledge: both very good at finding resources and also very good at the critical thinking that goes to figure out: are they true, are they relevant, are they biased or unbiased?’
And remember when looking for that very hard-to-find item of information, Abraham Lincoln's comment: 'Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing'.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Yesterday I was slumped listening to a highly experienced engineer doing a rather mediocre presentation for motivating the development of a new product. He received a rather cool response although I know his product concept was excellent. He would have got far better results if he had followed some simple rules as far as presentations.
What was wrong?
The presentation which lacked lustre used a plethora of power points and words, often delivered in a monotone and all tightly compressed into an hour – slides were thrust out to the bemused audience in machine gun succession. And inevitably there was no interaction with the audience. The poor reviews were predictable.
A galvanizing speaker
On the other hand, however, one of the best speakers I have encountered was an engineer hailing from the Mid West of the good old US of A. He galvanized the audience with an excellent and humorous opening quote; he showed passion for his subject and then after presenting two slides, efficiently broke the 80 strong audience into small groups of five. Each group was given two short, four minute assignments to illustrate the points made. Each group had to write up its findings on flip charts during which time the presenter circulated, assisting the groups as they prepared their findings. The results were then displayed around the room.
The interaction was fearsome, the delegates, without exception, were talking vigorously with each other about the topic at hand. A small prize for the best group was also helpful in achieving a carnival atmosphere. There was the hum of real learning going on. The participants were following the ‘constructivist’ approach of learning - constructing their own knowledge and understanding of the topic.
People walking into the room at the end of the proceedings would have been surprised – the presenter was delivering the last part of his presentation, surrounded by the audience, from the middle of the room - using a remote microphone and controlling the slides remotely. And the room was festooned with at least 40 large sheets of paper summarizing each group’s findings. The reviews afterwards were outstanding.
A few suggestions for your next presentation:
- Interact with your audience from beginning to end
- “Sell” the topic to the audience – why it will be important to them
- Show everyone that you have passion for your subject
- Challenge the audience, with every slide you use, to come up with their own comments and understanding
- Give the delegates tasks to enable them to construct their own learning - perhaps in the form of small groups
- Make the delegates interact with each other
As far as a stimulating presentation is concerned; Dorothy Parker hit the nail on the head with: ‘The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity’.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Many of us work in manufacturing and probably wonder where this sector is headed. I am not an economist and I would be the last to confidently predict the future. But a few thoughts here.
As engineering professionals we are all acutely aware of how rapidly changing technology continues to shape how goods are manufactured. Probably, at an increasing rate, change in technology is even more profound with growing influences from previously ‘technology followers’ such as China and India; who are now actively involved in the global manufacturing scene.
What will happen to engineering professionals?
Machines, automation and artificial intelligence are increasingly replacing humans in the workforce. So what will happen to us in the engineering world?
A few objective trends are especially relevant to understanding what is happening here:
Productivity is zooming up
Productivity in manufacturing is increasing constantly throughout the world. For example, the productivity index has gone from nearly 60% in 1970 to almost 110 for 2010 (despite the so-called ‘Great Recession’).
The traditional economist’s view is that increasing productivity should drive down prices, increase product demand and lead to a new leap in employment in manufacturing. As has happened in the 1900s. Sadly, today this hasn’t been happening in many countries, especially in the western world; where manufacturing employment has been dramatically reducing (e.g. in the USA in 1970 it was almost 18m and is now under 12m in 2010).
Besides the obvious comment that jobs are moving to lower cost countries such as in Asia; it would also appear that what is happening is that automation (and robots) are replacing people. Not only in the USA, Europe and Australia but also especially in Asia. No more people problems in terms of unions and payroll taxes etc.
But demand for high level skills also zooms up
The statistics (e.g. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OECD) clearly show a leap in the percentage employment of higher level skilled professionals such as science, computing, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in manufacturing. And a significant decline in lower skilled jobs.
But here is the kicker…..absolute employment in manufacturing is still down in the western world (including in STEM careers).
What should we do about this?
I honestly believe as engineering professionals we should still be enthused about the opportunities that this change provides us with. A few suggestions on dealing with the change in manufacturing:
- Manufacturing is a key attribute of every advanced economy around the world. We can’t live only on financial and entertainment services. Manufacturing is not necessarily only about making cars and heavy industry; but high technology items such as medical devices / precision manufacturing / instrumentation etc.
- Skilling and reskilling ourselves is critical in this environment. Not only through formal education and training but through informal means such as talking to and learning from our peers.
- Back winning companies in your engineering career. Stay with companies that are constantly innovating and improving their products.
- We need to actively encourage all engineering and science professionals to think entrepreneurially and to actively create their own high value products and services which they can sell on a global basis.
Thanks to the Economist and Nicholas Diakopoulos of the IEEE for an interesting article.
As the Real Life Preacher says about all this: 'This isn't good or bad. It's just the way of things. Nothing stays the same'.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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First of all – best wishes for the Christmas festive break. I hope 2012 is a fearsomely good year for you and the world economy starts to grow strongly again.
Whether you are a brickie, fitter or chief electronics design engineer you will have undoubtedly heard of ‘apps’. There is now a huge growth in demand for app writers. A skill and job that wasn’t around even five years ago. When ever one thinks of an app; one would think of flashy (mobile) games running on a smart phone. However, the app field has morphed into many areas such as serious business productivity applications and is of major interest to traditional businesses. An app is thus not simply about narrow games development but considerably more than this. Apps range from informational, marketing, productivity to engineering design. Initially for the Apple iPhone platform but increasingly now for the Android, Blackberry and Windows platforms ranging in hardware from phones, computers, and tablets. Even for Amazon’s Kindle. And they are really customised products catering for niche markets.
The field is still extraordinarily new so employment recruiters are unlikely to demand much experience.
Attributes for a successful app developer
Although this is a new and rapidly growing field, the age old skills common to all engineering career are still uppermost in the recruiters minds for engineering professionals wanting to get into this area. Typical skills that would make you a successful app developer include:
- Ability to adapt to the different products with a dizzying range of functionality required. Much of it being green fields
- Focus and passion on what you are doing. You need to be incredibly innovative, fired up and motivated
- Communication skills are essential to be able to communicate to the client what you are doing – and how you are tackling the various challenges
- Being a user of apps yourself so you can measure and understand what is happening in the marketplace
- Attention to detail is essential
- Ability to write lean code which is not memory hungry due to the limited mobile hardware on which an app runs
- An understanding of back-end servers and knowledge of security requirements
- Finally, you need to devote time to refining your knowledge and keeping up to date with the fast developments in the industry
How do you make yourself irresistible for an apps job?
The tools to create apps are freely available so anyone can upload an app to the iTunes or Android stores – so create your own app to show a would-be recruiter how motivated and capable you are.
Some further suggestions for you to consider:
Consider your products and services. Can you write an app (or project manage the writing of one) and put them on a mobile platform to enhance what you are currently doing?
Thanks to the Economist and John R. Platt of the IEEE for an entertaining article on apps development work.
With the rapid development in the field of computing apps, the following comment from Robert X. Cringely is vaguely amusing: ‘If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside’.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Many of us work in manufacturing and probably wonder where this sector is headed. I am not an economist and I would be the last to confidently predict the future. But a few thoughts here.
As engineering professionals we are all acutely aware of how rapidly changing technology continues to shape how goods are manufactured. Probably, at an increasing rate, change in technology is even more profound with growing influences from previously ‘technology followers’ such as China and India; who are now actively involved in the global manufacturing scene.
What will happen to engineering professionals?
Machines, automation and artificial intelligence are increasingly replacing humans in the workforce. So what will happen to us in the engineering world?
A few objective trends are especially relevant to understanding what is happening here:
Productivity is zooming up
Productivity in manufacturing is increasing constantly throughout the world. For example, the productivity index has gone from nearly 60% in 1970 to almost 110 for 2010 (despite the so-called ‘Great Recession’).
The traditional economist’s view is that increasing productivity should drive down prices, increase product demand and lead to a new leap in employment in manufacturing. As has happened in the 1900s. Sadly, today this hasn’t been happening in many countries, especially in the western world; where manufacturing employment has been dramatically reducing (e.g. in the USA in 1970 it was almost 18m and is now under 12m in 2010).
Besides the obvious comment that jobs are moving to lower cost countries such as in Asia; it would also appear that what is happening is that automation (and robots) are replacing people. Not only in the USA, Europe and Australia but also especially in Asia. No more people problems in terms of unions and payroll taxes etc.
But demand for high level skills also zooms up
The statistics (e.g. Bureau of Labor Statistics, OECD) clearly show a leap in the percentage employment of higher level skilled professionals such as science, computing, engineering and mathematics (STEM) in manufacturing. And a significant decline in lower skilled jobs.
But here is the kicker…..absolute employment in manufacturing is still down in the western world (including in STEM careers).
What should we do about this?
I honestly believe as engineering professionals we should still be enthused about the opportunities that this change provides us with. A few suggestions on dealing with the change in manufacturing:
- Manufacturing is a key attribute of every advanced economy around the world. We can’t live only on financial and entertainment services. Manufacturing is not necessarily only about making cars and heavy industry; but high technology items such as medical devices / precision manufacturing / instrumentation etc.
- Skilling and reskilling ourselves is critical in this environment. Not only through formal education and training but through informal means such as talking to and learning from our peers.
- Back winning companies in your engineering career. Stay with companies that are constantly innovating and improving their products.
- We need to actively encourage all engineering and science professionals to think entrepreneurially and to actively create their own high value products and services which they can sell on a global basis.
Thanks to the Economist and Nicholas Diakopoulos of the IEEE for an interesting article.
As the Real Life Preacher says about all this: 'This isn't good or bad. It's just the way of things. Nothing stays the same'.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Jay Leno, the ubiquitous and entertaining but abrasive (?) talk-show host uses his ‘Big Dog Garage Team’ to maintain his fleet of very old cars and motorbikes. Recently his team had to fabricate a feedwater heater for his 1907 White Steamer. An innovative approach was done using a 3D scanner to create a detailed digital model of the part; this was then fed to a 3D printer which made an exact copy in plastic (over 30 odd hours) which was then machined from solid metal.
A Rapid Drop in price
This type of rapid prototyping technology has dropped dramatically in price over the past year or two. For example, an industrial 3D printer has fallen from $100k to less than $2k for use in a home environment (and there are kits available to build 3D printers for ~$500).
3D Printing
The 3D printing is done in an additive way. A modified ink jet printer deposits successive layers of material until the 3D object is built up. No wasteful scrap generated from the traditional approach of milling/grinding/boring and cutting. The material used is usually a thermoplastic ($30/pound) or polycarbonate. Metallic powders have been used as well.
One of the critical aspects is the 3D software and this can be done with a variety of packages ranging from the free-ware Google’s SketchUp or Blender. Alternatively Autodesk and Solidworks are available – but at a price. Autodesk have even released a zero-cost program called 123D Catch that can turn multiple photos of an object (at different angles) into a 3D printing file. It should be noted that the scanning process is still an imperfect process so some cleaning up is required.
The Revolution
Suggestions are that personal manufacturing is currently going through the same revolution the PC went through in the 1980’s. Based on the massive growth and enthusiasm in this area; this certainly seems true. This is where the engineering entrepreneurs can go berserk creating new ideas in their garage and then ‘building them’ almost immediately.
The uselessness and expensiveness of it all?
Obviously, there will be comments about the uselessness and expensiveness of this technology as to actual cost of each item created (compared to a mass produced item) and the real application to the every day person. But the same comments were made about personal computers in the seventies and eighties. And I can clearly see incredible opportunities for the engineering professional in prototyping and creating new parts which would have been enormously difficult, time consuming and expensive to produce in a factory.
When you hear about technologies such as 3-d printing, Arthur C. Clarke’s comment comes to mind: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Have you been working for a number of years as an engineering professional and have steadily moved into interdisciplinary practice? Where you examine the total system rather than simply one element of it. Further to this; are you proactive, demonstrate leadership & initiative, can communicate well, think laterally and outside the box and are solutions oriented? If so; perhaps you should consider that you are indeed a systems engineer. Or are rapidly on your way to becoming one.
The best career in engineering
Money magazine (from Platt) referred to Systems Engineering as the best career in the USA based on US stats data (2009) showing rapid growth of 45% (yes !) over the following five years and strong salary growth. This is meteoric compared to the more sluggish growth in electrical engineering, for example.
Complex Modern Systems
Increasingly complex modern (engineering) systems require a holistic view. Something not provided by the standard one-dimensional electrical/mechanical or electronics engineer for example. Systems Engineering connects all the different components of a system together. The classical example occurs in aerospace; where the systems engineering process investigates the customer’s needs and problems that need to be solved. The alternative approaches are then examined; the system is modelled and the various components are integrated. The optimum (prototype) system is then built and its performance assessed and further optimization examined.
Seven Tasks to Systems Engineering (referred to as SIMILAR)
The seven tasks to systems engineering include:
- State the problem.
- Investigate Alternatives
- Model the system
- Integrate the system
- Launch the system
- Assess performance
- Re-evaluate
How to become a Systems Engineer
The best way to become a systems engineer is to build up a broad interdisciplinary engineering background. Electrical / mechanical / software / mechatronics / control systems with a strong theoretical and practical background in each area. And then have a good understanding how the different systems interact with each to produce an optimum product. One has to be able to be able to work with multiple disciplines and show leadership to them. Thus communications is an essential part of the job. Tough decisions often have to be made – decisions which because they relate to the entire project – may not be understood (or indeed appreciated) by an individual discipline engineering professional.
Systems engineering would appear to be mainly in the aerospace and military spheres but it is across all fields of engineering ranging from car manufacturing, building plants & infrastructure, oil and gas, mining and transport and in many newer areas. A great example of a growing field of systems engineering is the smart grid – dynamic, complex with many different disciplines involved in its creation coupled with a high degree of uncertainty and a great opportunity to optimise.
Certainly true of systems engineering: The wisest mind has something yet to learn.
(George Santayana).
Thanks to the IEEE, John R. Platt for a great article on Systems Engineering and the systems engineering web site: http://www.sie.arizona.edu/sysengr/whatis/whatis.html
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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Recently, there have been some rather twitchy concerns that the current high levels of unemployment in many countries such as the USA and Europe are here to stay. And there has been much discussion that the high levels of automation of tasks (from IT to industrial automation) are the main cause of the collapse in the need for as many workers as in the past.
The Luddites
This is often referred to as the Luddite Fallacy, where improving productivity would mean that we are all out of work today. Henry Ford supposedly disproved this in the 1920s, because he produced cars (the Model T Ford) with dramatically improved productivity and lower prices and paid his staff double the going rate. As a result he attracted the best toolmakers to Ford and improved his cars further. So in this case - great improvements in productivity, based on automation and innovation, resulted in falling prices of goods; resulting in increased demand and thus more workers to be hired.
The problem
But here is the problem. It has been observed that these massive increases in productivity (due to increasing levels of automation) have actually had no impact on the high levels of unemployment. This could be due to the fact that the massive jumps in automation, industrial networks, artificial intelligence are now making many jobs obsolete – far more than are being created. Forever. Routine work is not only being automated, but highly creative tasks as well. From Radiologists who could earn $300k p.a. reviewing cancer tumour slides and X-ray pictures; are now finding automated pattern recognition software can do the work better to workers who are finding that automated factories are doing much of the thinking and manual work. Both on the shopfloor and at the higher managerial levels.
However
My thought however is that we need to learn to work with machines and be innovative and creative about what we are doing. For example, Amazon and eBay have created employment for over 600,000 people dreaming up products for a massive consumer database. And it is probably more likely that these jobs in the USA and Europe that have disappeared have probably gone off to China and India where wages are lower.
So where are the great opportunities?
One of the challenges with today’s world is that most people do not have technical capabilities to take on the new (mainly technical) jobs that are appearing. And the major proportion of the 7 billion people on the earth do not have access to the great things we have and who want them now. Surely an enormous opportunity (truly an ocean of opportunity) for us engineering professionals to provide these goods and services?
Think of some of the massive gaps that need to be solved in Asia and Africa; especially:
- Clean water
- Electricity
- Telephones and the Internet
- Health care
- Good food
- Personal entertainment and hobbies
- Transport
- Education
- Banking
This of course means greater globalisation and the need to have superb engineering skills (and some entrepreneurial abilities) but we have the capability of attaining them. Obviously there are challenges in that many of the simpler jobs have been outsourced to the third world at a lower rate. But surely in raising the productivity of the third world we are just demonstrating a greater global application of making a Model T Ford. Producing goods at a lower cost and higher quality. Anyone who wants to earn more or have more leisure needs to learn to think and work smarter. And education can help us here.
Education is a great opportunity
Other challenges which we have to grasp are ensuring colleges and universities produce graduates who have real leading edge skills aligned with industry. Not mumbo jumbo theoretical concepts of no use to man or beast. Further to this education, we need to encourage everyone to think like an entrepreneur and to harness those creative genes which we all have, so as to identify new opportunities.
Our Standards of Living (and work) can go up
With the lowering of costs for provision of services and goods; it means that our standards of living go up as well. This means more time for leisure and with our kids or on holidays etc. And when we work; we should have a higher quality work environment and a more interesting job. Inevitably, I don’t think there is any end in sight to what people need or want. From material to spiritual things.
In tackling this fast changing world with verve and vigour, remember the words of Anais Nin: ‘Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage’.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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I must confess that I was always faintly disparaging of motor sport as a ‘real’ sport but driving with forces of more than 4.5g, heart rates exceeding 180 beats per minute, dehydration an ongoing threat and gigantic leaps in blood pressure (~50%) must surely mean that as a rally driver you have to be superbly fit. Coupled with the ongoing threat to your life (remember these horrific crashes over the past few weeks) and the need to be utterly focussed on your driving and the variation between lap times of sometimes less than a tenth of a second. Hence the growth of technology providing an array of wireless-based instrumentation to track not only the car’s engine, suspension, but also the driver’s physical condition.
This instrumentation technology has been steadily migrating across all sports ranging from sailing, running, swimming, rugby, football, cycling and even the hallowed grounds of cricket. Particularly sophisticated systems are used in sailing to track rudder movements, wind speed, strain of sails and motion. The rules can be rather restrictive of allowing the crews to monitor their performance in real time; but can add significantly to the performance.
Instrumentation Galore
Instrumentation for sports(wo)men ranges from pulse monitors, blood pressure, surface temperature to tracking physical position. Measuring core body temperature accurately can still be tricky; as the optimal spot is still one’s rectum, which is not particularly practical for an athlete running a marathon.
Combine the sensors in a wearable shirt
The current breaking idea is to combine all these sensors into a wearable smart shirt which combines all the sensors (heart rate, blood oxygen level, respiration and temperature) from the individual. This data is then sent out via an encrypted wireless message (so that competing coaches can’t access this valuable information).
The ongoing challenge is to interpret this data effectively and to build up metrics of stamina, fatigue and look for areas where the sportswoman may be wasting her energy. Naturally, humans can’t be treated like machines and a soaring heart rate doesn’t mean that they won’t perform well. But the proper application of this technology may even detect life or health threatening states of an athlete in an extreme sport. And also help teams in improving their strategies with detailed data (what is the exact sequence of steps to score a goal).
Naturally, there will be those who feel that this technology will give an unfair advantage to the team with the superior technology and this is a consideration to be assessed.
Apply this technology to your field
So, my suggestion to you, good friends is to apply this new breaking technology in your areas of expertise. For example, monitoring one’s engineering team out on site working in a particularly hot environment in the Great Sandy Desert or deep underground or in freezing Artic-like conditions on an oil rig. Surely there is merit in applying this technology in the engineering workplace?
To those of you that are still somewhat doubtful about taking sport so seriously, may I quote Bill Shankly: Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.
Thanks to The Economist, Brian Kaplan, Adrian Cast and Mike Martin for some interesting comments on this great new field of engineering endeavour.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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have always maintained that we don’t sell ourselves enough. And let’s face it; selling yourself isn’t about simply flogging a product or service or trying to schmooze yourself on a disbelieving recipient. But about being adept on promoting ourselves in terms of one’s skills/a pet project or simply one’s abilities to perform a job. Engineering professionals tend to avoid any hint of salesmanship as it is considered demeaning and we think that at the end of the day technical excellence will undoubtedly convince a would-be client of our value. Sadly, this is not the case. As those of you who are experienced engineers working in the trenches know only too well. You only need to look at the ‘politicians’ in your business who often lack much ability to know how successful they are.
Some great suggestions (from Gavin Ingham) on how to distinguish yourself and your projects, products and services and convince others of their value:
- Ensure that you are adding absolutely extraordinary value to what you are offering someone
- Make sure you are the absolute engineering expert and know precisely what your product and service is about
- Make sure that you are in demand and that there is a market for your products/services and simply for YOU
- Take a long term view of what you are offering
- If you get an unreasonable response to what you are offering; simply walk away – don’t compromise your ‘soul for a mess of pottage’
- Carefully plan how you can add value to someone or their business or process - Who?/Why?/How?
- Practise what you are doing to absolute perfection – ensure you are highly trained, experienced and knowledgeable in what you are offering
- Demonstrate and have a deep abiding passion for what you are doing. Ensure that everyone knows about your enthusiasm and love for what you are doing. If you don’t have this; move on to something where you do have a passion
- Keep improving your performance so that you are top of your game.
Something worth remembering; when talking to disbelieving colleagues and clients about a concept or idea that you implicitly believe in; as Arthur Schopenhauer remarked:
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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The first patent was granted in Florence in 1421; a few years later King Henry VI of England granted the first modern patent for making coloured glass for cathedral windows. And recently, one of the most sweeping changes to United States Patent Law was signed into law by Barack Obama on September 16th. But there are huge problems with patents – especially software ones, that as an engineering professional you need to be aware of.
A patent has three main requirements: that it is for a novel process or item and it is both useful and non-obvious. There has been wide interpretation about each of these three terms. The main reason for patents has been to promote innovation and to protect genuine inventors. This works by getting the inventor to make full disclosure of his idea; allowing others to see and benefit from it - either by working out a legal way around it or buying a licence to harness the idea. The inventor has 20 years in which to exploit the idea. This has generally worked well for centuries; especially well for pharmaceutical and chip manufacturing companies but has been increasingly jammed up in the software world. Thus prompting some debate about whether patents actually help or retard innovation.
Improvements to US Patent Law
The US patent law has now been changed from ‘first to invent’ to ‘first to file’; thus bringing US Law into line with the rest of the world. Costs have been reduced significantly by allowing inventors to challenge the validity of a patent at the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO); rather than in court (where you would incur incurring millions – literally - in legal fees). And new inventors have reduced fees in their applications.
Madness in granting patents – especially software patents
We have all heard of the crazy patents granted over many years. Such as upgrading a computer’s software over the Internet.
Many so-called patent ‘troll’ companies have amassed patent portfolios simply to harass others into paying licence fees or being sued. Software is a particularly easy target for trolls, as each program incorporates thousands of sub-routines which can easily be challenged by the trolls with catch-all patents. Much of the chaos around software patents has been the lack of rigorous assessment by the government patent office as to whether it is both novel and non-obvious. Hence many software patents are at best trivial or tiny variations of long standing practice. These then lock away permission to this idea for 20 years.
Another problem with software patents is that they are probably too long. 20 years for a software-based product is horrendously long. Software is properly looked after by copyright law which is probably more than adequate protection. It is also relatively easy to spot whether there is any infringement. On a pedantic note – remember that strictly speaking, it is not the software itself that is patentable, but the process or machine of which software is a (key) component.
How does this help you?
- Well; patents are considerably easier to get through now in the USA – especially for the ‘smaller guys’ – whether you are a sparkie, tech or design engineer
- Ensure that you are first past the post with a new idea and get it to the patent office quickly
- You can also use copyright law to protect your intellectual property
- And remember that patent law still needs some further development to make it more useful to us engineering types
An intriguing commentary about inventing by Charles F. Kettering: An inventor is simply a fellow who doesn't take his education too seriously.
Thanks to the Economist for some interesting reading.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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A few weeks ago, an al Qaeda operative sitting on his pick-up truck deep in Yemeni desert was taken out by a missile from an American drone. There has been a rapid escalation in the use of drones which are also referred to as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Typically with a support crew of almost 200 people to keep them flying, they each cost millions of dollars apiece and have a virtual pilot located up to ten thousand kms away operating at their controls and another officer reading the data pouring in from the sensors (including radar). These aircrafts can hang around aloft for up to 24 hours sending back full motion video to their controllers. It is virtually impossible to see these drones in the sky as they can view objects from kms away.
These drones are also referred to as the Predator or Reaper aircraft. Loaded with highly effective sensors, missiles and bombs, they regularly launch strikes particularly in the hard to patrol tribal areas in Afghanistan (and those which are littered with push-button volatile devices). Indeed any work which is ‘dull, dirty, dangerous, difficult or different’. There has been a huge increase in combat air patrols with UAVs with more hours being flown here than by their manned strike aircraft equivalents. The size ranges from large (wingspan up to 30m) to micro devices (the size of an insect).
There is naturally huge controversy over the next generation of drones being provided with artificial intelligence to provide a high level of autonomy.
I am sure at this point; there are a few of you dear readers who are shifting uneasily in your seat about another example of combat descending to another level of brutality. But surely we can use these drones for peacetime purposes as well….
Great opportunities for extending the peace
Drones can surely be used in considerably more areas than conflict with possibility for these versatile beasts in law enforcement, rescue missions, border patrols, environmental surveillance, traffic control and mining studies. I have even seen some stupendous aerial photography from a drone done of a surfer ‘riding’ down the crest of a gigantic wave. These aircrafts can stay up longer, operate in extremely inhospitable environments and eventually are expendable. Drones also automate much of the trivial work by taking off and landing automatically and getting to the target area without intervention of their (distant) pilots.
Some major technical weaknesses which have to be confronted
The technical weaknesses include the need for two-way satellite communications. If the link is lost, the distant pilot loses direct control, and a failsafe system has to be employed to sustain operation until communications is recovered. There would also be the problem of latency in responses between pilot and aircraft (presumably of the order of a second on some occasions). The other concern with this proliferation of unmanned drones is the likelihood of a rogue aircraft hitting a passenger aircraft. Without a shadow of doubt, the drug-cartels are using drones to fly their deadly cargoes in undetected and to work out ways to break the law.
And with the incredible leaps in the use of remote controlled software for these applications, I liked the ironic comment: Now about that computer bug that infected a fleet of drones.
What about your engineering work which is ‘dull, dirty, dangerous or different’?
Think about your engineeering applications for drones ranging from a few mms to metres in size. In the engineering world we have a ferocious number of applications for work which is: ‘dull, dirty, dangerous, difficult or different’.
With this rapid growth in aircraft technology, Arthur C. Clarke’s comment is true: ‘Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.’
Thanks to The Economist, Romney Schield (and Channel 9’s 60 Minutes) for some interesting comments and references on this topic.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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I never realised how protracted and complex the litigation would be when I was approached by a contractor to support them as an expert witness in securing payment for a massive installation they had done for a so-called 'smart bridge'. The client felt the bridge wasn't smart enough (and was susceptible to undetectable dangerous conditions such as high winds).
Smart bridges (including other smart structures) are where all the different areas in engineering neatly converge – mechanical, electrical, electronics, instrumentation, chemical and civil engineering. Sensors in the structure identify potentially catastrophic structural problems and warn of incipient dangerous conditions. You may remember the spate of recent bridge failures. For example, the 8-lane steel truss-arch bridge across the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed during the evening peak traffic flow time with 13 people killed and 145 injured. The central span suddenly gave way after the gusset plates connecting the steel beams suddenly fractured. The replacement bridge has strain and displacement gauges, accelerometers, potentiometers and corrosion sensors to detect corroded concrete and strained joints (costing less than 1% of the overall cost).
Building smart structures and bridges now represent a strongly growing business in engineering. The bridge spanning the Gulf of Corinth in Greece, has over 300 sensors alerting its operators to earthquakes and high winds so that it can safely be shut down.
Wireless is the way to go
The new generation of sensors are based around wireless and new energy efficient and innovative technologies. Such as cement-based sensing skins which can detect strain changes on structures. This gets round the problem with cracks appearing between sensors with problems which then get missed. Another clever strategy is to put sensors on vehicles that regularly cross bridges and monitor resultant changes.
The challenge is in the data
One of the challenges with sensors is the huge amount of data generated by these sensors and the need to efficiently mine the data to obtain trends and useful warnings well in advance.
How can you take advantage of this?
Tiny sensors – low cost, self powered and wireless-based are moving into everything we do. Take advantage of them in your next civil or mechanical engineering project to offer an additional service to your client on the health of the structure.
With the masses of money poised to be spent by national governments on our rusting and rotting infrastructure – roads; rail and bridges are poised to be flooded with sensors. And at a typical 1% cost for sensors (of a huge amount of money in building all this infrastructure); this discipline is going to be a busy area of engineering.
In terms of your next engineering project, do as Jack London remarked: 'You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club.'
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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It happened in a flash, a few months ago. A colleague and I were vigorously debating some engineering issue in a little café on the sidewalk, and there was a commotion next to our table. He turned to refer to his laptop computer to and it was gone. Stolen and never to be retrieved. Actually, the computer itself was fairly worthless but the data on it – gathered laboriously over weeks on soil resistivity measurements - was very valuable and was gone forever. There was no one lurking behind us. No one scurrying away carrying a computer. Both thief and computer had disappeared. This reinforced an important point: Never lose actual contact with your belongings – esp. when their contents are worth more than the actual goods.
In public places (and not so public places); your phone, laptop, tablets and computing accessories are all fair call for the unscrupulous onlooker with devious intentions. Remember last year, how we all got a preview of the Apple iPhone4, when an Apple engineer had his prototype stolen in a bar (and more recently, an iPhone5 was stolen out of a bar also). As an aside, one can see a certain pattern here.
As engineering professionals, I believe we are very trusting and are often trekking in obscure strange places so are highly exposed.
A huge number are stolen
According to the FBI in the USA, a ferociously large number of over 600,000 laptops are stolen annually in the USA with only 3% ever recovered (and a further 26m pa – yes – mobile phones also ‘go missing’). Generally from airports, cars, and hotels; where you are operating in unfamiliar territory and are distracted. So the rule is to treat these assets like money and to hide them. Out of sight and out of the mind (of the would-be) thief.
Nothing is too small to steal. When working on a plant construction task with tight deadlines, I had an entire HV cable drum weighing tonnes stolen out of our yard late one night. So – also watch your large weighty suitcase containing your test gear.
Tracking software
With electronic gear (and phones and computers can be worth up to $800 or more); it is worthwhile considering use of some of the tracking software on the market (with varying degrees of usefulness and availability in different countries):
- Prey (open source and free) on Macs, Windows and Linux machines
- LoJack for Laptops ($25 pa) – installed on the computer and operates once a theft is reported – built into the BIOS – even operates when the hard disk is replaced
- LapTop Cop
- Hidden
- Find My iPhone
- Where’s my Droid
Fortunately, most thieves are opportunistic and are not tuned into doing detailed technical analysis of what is stored on your computer or phone; as these packages can presumably be disabled by a determined malicious IT-type.
Use the Cloud
Other suggestions are to try and use ‘the cloud’ rather than your PC to store valuable data. When I take a trip, I email scanned copies of my identifications to myself and this sits in ‘the cloud’ (that word again) in case the worse scenario comes to pass and these are stolen and I need to retrieve quick copies.
As thieves operate with incredible speed and dexterity; when travelling you have to demonstrate extreme vigilance and common sense.
Some amusing and not so amusing comments
An amusing suggestion, is that as most criminals are male; always carry a pinkish coloured laptop as this is unlikely to be attractive to a macho thief. And in a country like Israel or Afghanistan, you will find your unattended suitcase containing your computer won’t get stolen – but blown up by the police squad.
When protecting your assets, it is perhaps good to remember the old adage: ‘He that steals an egg, will steal an ox’.
Thanks to the Economist for some interesting reading.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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It is often refreshing to rip out old technology and replace it with a state of the art system when the bean counters (unwittingly, perhaps) sign off on a new project. As we know, it is often a frustratingly slow business interfacing new equipment to an existing system; so starting fresh is often an exhilarating prospect. However there is a significant amount of older automation equipment still around from the 1990’s (and indeed, even earlier when you look at some oil and gas and mining installations). Proprietary industrial networks started disappearing in the late nineties and now most are open and based around Ethernet.
A Strong Drive
However, there is an enormous drive today to tie data all the way from the instrument on the shopfloor to the company’s boardroom and business systems (maintained by the IT department). However, existing PLC systems, I/O, instruments, valves and drives from over two decades ago are often still chugging along happily and to simply replace these in the name of interconnectivity with a modern Ethernet network is not viable and would boost the costs of a project into the stratosphere.
IT versus Control Systems
There is still the age-old challenge of the IT guys working reluctantly with the control system group. The skills and know-how required to maintain an IT system (with ERP/email/Microsoft Office and database management) is often considerably different to that for working with SCADA systems, PLCs, drives and instruments. The plant electrician of today often has a Notebook computer in his toolkit and is becoming exceptionally skilled in IT issues. Much to the bemusement of our IT brethren; who often come from more rarified surrounds.
Legacy Systems Galore
These include older PLCs which interfaced to serial RS-232/Profibus/Modbus type networks plus a slew of proprietary networks such as Modbus Plus / Allen Bradley DH485 or DH+; but sadly didn’t have any direct interface to Ethernet at the time. Plus there are an enormous of proprietary control systems written in C and running on proprietary hardware with vendors that have long since disappeared.
Gateways Galore to the rescue
If you are looking to upgrade, a good strategy is to first approach your existing vendor for an upgrade path. Many of the blue chip vendors know that everyone needs to be able to upgrade and often have a variety of solutions to connect to older equipment. If the vendor doesn’t exist any longer or they don’t have a credible solution; there are numerous third-party proven solutions out there able to integrate between Ethernet, DeviceNet, EtherNet/IP, Profibus, ProfiNet, Modbus and Foundation Fieldbus et al - the list is seemingly endless. However, ensure that your proposed gateway solution actually does work consistently and has proven performance with data for the entire range of operation (hardware as well as protocol types).
Other approaches that can work
Some strategies that work are to carefully upgrade the existing PLC (e.g. a Rockwell SLC 5/03 with an SLC 5/05) which can then interface to Ethernet and thus to the SCADA system and to avoid disturbing your existing I/O and simply running your old program on a new processor. OPC can then be used to exchange data.
Another strategy is to capitalise on the low cost industrial wireless systems appearing on the market and to install wireless data acquisition nodes on the machine control and sensor panels (minimal wiring and effort). The robustness of industrial wireless means it can easily and dynamically handle the chaotic plant environment with tanks, conveyers, piping and other metal structures scattered at every conceivable place.
However
However, as noted in the previous section, before doing any massive re-engineering of your existing systems, check for whether there are no easily available gateways or interfaces currently available from the device to Ethernet and TCP/IP and whatever protocol you are using on top of this. Remember of course, that simply providing Ethernet and TCP/IP is only part of the story. You still need to define what protocol runs on top of TCP/IP (at the application layer of the good old OSI model).
Finally, ensure when you open up your previously proprietary network, that you are aware that you are now releasing data into a more public field (and exposing your system to the outside world) and need to be aware of network safety.
As painful as it often is, we need to constantly re-invent ourselves by creating new approaches; as Cecil DeMille remarked: Creativity is a drug I cannot live without.
Thanks to Don Hebert of ControlDesign and Automation.com for a series of interesting discussions.
Yours in engineering learning
Steve
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The Engineering Institute of Technology (EIT) and IDC Technologies have been running a successful series of complimentary 45 minute Engineering webinars. So far we have run 12 sessions which have had hundreds of registrations for each session.
Upcoming topics include:
- Troubleshooting PLCs - A toolbox of suggestions to look for in troubleshooting your PLC ranging from CPU, I/O Modules to communications
- 10 Tips for Tuning of PID Loops - A quick toolbox of tips and tricks when tuning process control loops which you can immediately apply to your work
- Essentials of Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) Systems - A quick summary of the Essentials of Closed Circuit TV (CCTV) Systems
- Troubleshooting Modbus Data Communications Systems - A quick toolbox of tips and tricks when working with Modbus communications systems
- Project Management Essentials - A quick summary of the essentials of project management
- Troubleshooting of SCADA and Data Acquisition Systems - A review of troubleshooting SCADA and Data Acquisition systems
- Routers and Switches - A quick set of suggestions when troubleshooting routers and switches based on the TCP/IP suite of protocols
See full details and REGISTER HERE: http://www.eit.edu.au/free-courses
Blog - Steve Mackay
EIT's Technical Director, Steve Mackay, enjoys keeping his blog up-to-date with useful tips and current industry matters for his fellow colleagues. He has a loyal and expanding following base reaching over 300,000 people around the world.
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