Australia No Shortage of Engineers

Following on from politics of professions, and defining engineering, it should be clear that Australia does not have a shortage of engineers hindering the launch of potential mining and construction boom.

The construction is associated with the mining, it is the dependent infrastructure required by the mining activity. It includes bridges, roads and railways, and ports and harbours, and associated stormwater drainage and water resources management.There may also be need for storage and processing buildings along with offices. All established technologies with an established body of scientific knowledge concerned with planning, design, analysis, evaluation and management.

The mining is either open cut, underground. Underground mines seem to more typically have sloping access shafts than vertical shafts. The sloping shafts make it viable for vehicles to access the mine: thus trucks can be loaded in the mine. The alternative is a need for rail carts to be loaded or vertically raised skips. When these get to the surface they have to be unloaded, possibly onto belt conveyors and transferred to storage or loaded onto road vehicles for transport elsewhere. Thus extra handling compared to loading road vehicles in the mine. Though not all mines suitable for sloping access shafts. Any case the point is relatively ancient and established set of technologies, no "engineering" required.

Now it has been indicated in recent article I read, that there is increased use of the industrial internet of things (IIoT). New technology maybe, but not exactly as demanding as programming CNC machines, or programming PLC's. It is mostly plug and play technology, hooked up to the internet and controlled by software as a service. And it's not really new as sensors were added to remote belt conveyors some 20 years ago to monitor wear. Whilst factories, industrial plant and mechanical handling systems have been getting increasingly automated for decades. So once again no "engineering".

Just to be clear: Engineering takes place at the frontiers of science and technology.

Roads, Railways and Traffic Controls

Who as a member of the public believes it takes 4 years to learn how to design a road properly? If it takes 4 years to learn how to design a road, would you expect your local streets and roads to be the hazard they are?

Hopefully you agree it doesn't take 4 years, and if they do take 4 years then the roads should be better designed than they are. It does not take four years to learn the technical aspects of road design, the social, cultural, political and psychological aspects of road design may require further study but such are not covered. Since these latter subjects are not covered we have hazardous road network. In the current discussion however not concerned with demolishing the existing network and improving the network, just concerned with getting more of what we already have. Furthermore the roads concerned with are remote area roads, with heavy vehicular traffic and few users. Roads which once the resource is mined out will likely cease to be of any value.

Sure there are some roads in populated areas in the vicinity of ports and harbours. These roads may need widening to allow increased traffic flows, they may also need strengthening to carry higher loads. There will also be a need for modification and improvement to traffic control systems.

There will be need to assess the relative merits of road transport over rail transport. Railway locomotives can typically haul longer trains with heavier loads. Not aware of 1 km long road train. Once again road and railway technologies are established technologies with no need for "engineering".

For certain there is need for project specific drawings to be produced, and there are the so called "numbers" which need doing. But we as a society know what numbers, need doing. We don't have to survey learned journals to find new scientific theory, we don't have to devise a scientific hypothesis and conduct experiments to verify. The theory is established, and how it shall be applied to the established technologies is also established. Just have to look in the appropriate industry manuals, review regulations, and national codes of practice.

The people required are technicians, people conversant with the relevant tools and techniques for designing, analysing and evaluating proposed adaptations and implementations of the established technologies. If you don't like the generic meaning of technician, and prefer occupational classifications and refinement of words: then the people we need are Technologists, Associate Technologists, and Applied Scientists, Design Technicians and Trade Technicians, absolutely NOT Engineers.

Sure an engineer maybe able to do the job, but to be able to do so, they need a large amount of on the job training to become conversant with the established technology for which they will be held responsible. The point and purpose of educating and training the other occupations is that they are already conversant with the technology and how the science shall be applied to the design of such technology. Their education is not inferior to that of engineers, it is different, and better matched to the task at hand.

To reiterate my other essays. The 4 year B.Eng (AQF-8) typically consists of a common first year concerned with science and mathematics, leaving 3 years to cover some 2 to 5 major areas of practice. So that is 3/5ths to 1.5 years to cover each area of practice. So a programme in a specific area of practice can be designed to be a 2 year (AQF-6) or 3 years (AQF-7) programme. Such programmes if anything being superior to the 4 year B.Eng, because they provide greater coverage of the area of practice, more knowledge of the specific technologies. With all programmes having the same first year, an AQF-5 qualification in science and mathematics. Having the same foundation, it becomes easier to articulate to another area of practice.

Back to the roads and railways, these ribbons of impermeable surface pose a stormwater management problem. On the one hand stormwater needs to be managed around the roads and railways to prevent from getting inundated with water, which will hinder vehicle movement. On the other hand the road surface drains water to places it didn't previously flow.

So there are earthworks to be designed and managed during construction. There are materials to be provided to remote regions as well as people required for all the work: there are thus logistics problems to be solved. In a consulting organisation most of these tasks are carried out by different people, not by one person, but by teams of people. That is after graduation, someone with a B.Eng gets locked into a specific area of practice and specialises, and are typically hindered from moving to another area of practice: so a large part of their degree ceases to be of value. So industry not willing to retrain them in another area of practice and technology, and lack of appropriate study and qualification programmes to extend their knowledge themselves.

Thus there will be specialists in:

1. Roads
2. Railways
3. Traffic Management and Controls
4. Stormwater Drainage
5. Earthworks & Geotechnology
6. Bridges
7. Construction
8. Logistics

All of which are established areas of technology, with established bodies of science. For all of which it should be possible to design a 2 year programme to educate and train a suitably qualified Associate Technologist. This isn't entirely new, Australia's Engineering Associates were already so capable, until the 1980's, when Engineers Australia elitist objectives scuttled them. If really want an "engineer" to be in charge, then we have enough available already: as the majority are not doing anything remotely worthy of the description engineering.

With appropriate AQF-5 qualification in science and mathematics, the capabilities of many drafters, planners and other technical officers can be increased. With AQF-6 qualifications in specific areas of practice and technologies, then the capabilities of many practicing engineers can be improved, whilst an army of people with appropriate skills can be educated in the first instance. Those with the B.Eng will be able to fast track through the AQF-6 programmes as they will only need to study the those subjects extending the area of practice and covering the specific technology. Those with the AQF-5 will only require one year of extra study to articulate to a specific area of practice.

Consideration of Required Numbers

I have previously suggested the world land area be divided into cells 5 km in diameter, of which I get 7,585,452 such cells. The world population is approximately 7.53 billion, so would get around 993 persons per cell. {Though when looking at in detail cells should be hexagonal not circular}

For Australia there are 391,752 cells, most of these cells are not populated, but at least one park ranger and/or environmental scientist could be appointed to each cell. With population of 24,234,900 people, we could assign 62 people per cell.

I believe membership of Engineers Australia is around 100,000 members, and top heavy, biased towards B.Eng. I also believe it only represents about 30% of those who graduated in engineering. So there seems potential to appoint one civil engineer to each cell. On the other hand there is probably less than one third of the cells requiring any significant development over the period of 40 to 50 year career. Whilst the hub of a city may require more than one technical specialist, it does require not more than one engineer.

By comparison compare India: 167,419 cells, and population of 1,409,517,397, enabling 8,419 persons assigned to each cell. Plus it reportedly graduates 1 million engineers each year, so it definitely has the potential to assign 1 civil engineer to each cell in India and for that matter also each cell in Australia.

These people however don't need to be engineers, and need to work as part of a team. There appears to be around 2.8 million people between the age of 15 and 24 in Australia. So around 13.7% should  be studying:

1. Surveying
2. Cartography
3. Environmental Science
4. Agricultural Science
5. Geotech
6. Civil Infrastructure

Not sure how current system works. But those in grade 12 used to study either all arts and humanities subjects with one science subject, or all science subjects with one arts and humanities subject. My arts and humanities subject was geography, my science subjects were: maths 1&2 (otherwise known as double maths), physics and chemistry.

So my proposed AQF-5 would expand on grade 12 science and mathematics in one year, then a further year to AQF-6, would have people capable of contributing to the above areas of practice. Furthermore, such AQF-6 level academic programmes are also more appropriate to foreign students who are supported by their respective governments to go get an education and return to help develop the nation. 

Getting Side Tracked with Other Issues

Mapping and charting the continent of Australia and its resources: sure we have such data already, but individual development projects require more detailed information. Development requires identifying location for new roads and railways, water catchments and flood mitigation technologies, along with farming and mining activities. The whole environment needs zoning and developing accordingly. For example why has agriculture been permitted to go beyond the Goyder line and become dependent on pumped irrigation? How do we sustain food production dependent on fossil fuels, both for fuel and feedstock for agrochemicals? Choices of individuals in the market does not lead to collectively sensible behaviour. Rather the results are not in the best interests of the population at large nor are they ultimately of benefit to the individual.

We have land, coastline and coastal waters to both manage, develop and otherwise look after.

Note that I didn't include mining in the list. This is because the priorty is to identify resources and zone the environment. Then get infrastructure to access the regions for agriculture and mining. For example passenger trains travelling at 200 km/h to 300 km/h are important to getting people to the remote interior. Whilst civil aircraft may have cruise speeds from 300 km/h to 900 km/h, it is railways and roads which open up the country not isolated airports. Australia can basically be enveloped by a rectangle E/W: 4000 km by N/S: 3860 km (includes Tasmania). So the interior is around 2000 km from the coast line. Typical rural road speed 100 km/h, so the interior is around 20 hours away. By rail, at 200 km/h it is reduced to 10 hours, and air at 900 km/h down to 2.2 hours. However we are not typically travelling that far into the interior for farming and mining, a lot closer to 500 km to 1000 km from the coast. Whilst the remote central interior is 500 km to 1000 km radius of Alice Springs.

Put simply to make it more attractive for people to work in the remote mining and rural tends we have to make them less remote: by developing the infrastructure which connects them to the more populated coastal regions: and they have to be connected, so that goods can be delivered from these regions to the coastal regions. Once we have supportive infrastructure in place, secured our water supply and food production, then we can consider new mines and expanding existing.

We already have 1,687,893 people educated to AQF-5 and AQF-6, and 2,882,838 people educated to AQF-7. The primary problem is they don't have the necessary experience and expertise in the established technologies. With 1,675,632 people in engineering and related technologies, and 634,774 in architecture and building, and 222,831 people in Agriculture, Environmental and Related Studies.

So it seems if anything there is a shortage of people in agriculture. Farmers have been advising there is a shortage and a lack of interest, with concerns where the next generation of farmers will come from. The problem with farming is that it is now mostly a one person activity, with lots of machinery. So assuming a 40 to 50 year career, the next generation have a long time to wait, for their parents to retire. They want jobs now, and the lifestyle the big cities promise. Hence the largest area being Management and Commerce with 2,149,808 persons.

Though statistics outside of education, indicate the largest areas of employment are: education, health care and retail. Mining and agricultural collectively account for less than 5% of the population. However these industries have flow on effects, as in mining needs infrastructure so there's a flow on construction boom. Whilst mining and agricultural materials need processing, so there's a potential increase in local manufacturing.

Any how, we may have a small population, and if they were busy doing the right work, there wouldn't be any shortages of people. The apparent shortfall of people in agriculture just means that there are fewer people looking after the potential tracts of land, plus the populated coastal cells more in need of architects and civil "engineers" than agriculture and environmental science: thus no shortfall.

If we were to increase the workforce by 1 million people we could assign at least two people to each of the planning cells. That is one environmental scientist, and either a agricultural "engineer", a mining "engineer", or a civil "engineer". That is we could employ one years production of engineers from India. But what we going to get them to do?

Got a block of land 5 km in diameter in the middle of nowhere and in less than one year of surveying to identify its of no consequence, and just needs a park ranger assigned responsibility.

Have a block of land in the middle of a cattle or sheep station. Is it a matter for environmental science or agricultural science? Once all the land is zoned, it then primarily becomes the responsibility for park rangers, and environmental scientists.

Our coastal waters are the responsibility of environmental scientists and civil/coastal "engineers". Our farm land the responsibility of environmental scientists, agricultural scientists along with agricultural "engineers". Our mining lands the responsibility of environmental scientists, and mining "engineers". We operate in the natural environment, we draw resources from the environment, we exhaust waste to the environment. We need to understand and monitor the environment. First and foremost we need an army of environmental technicians and scientists.

These people will either hinder development of land for: farming, mining, cities and industrial plant, or they will significantly boost the ability to implement. At present there is public opposition to increased mining, wind farms and various farming operations. It isn't decreased monitoring activity we need it is increased activity which is required.

For example we have protests which suggest we should stop mining coal. This is naive and suggests we only use coal as a fossil fuel. Coal however is an important source of carbon (not an abbreviation for carbon dioxide) based materials. Similarly oil and gas are also feedstock for material production including agrichemicals. So we cannot just stop the mining, we still need the raw materials. Amongst the raw materials are polymers used for insulation, required for energy efficient buildings. We have to better understand the industrial food chain, not simply halt production.

We need better monitoring of our rivers and the use of water for irrigation, and better stormwater management and water resource management. Much of the work required could be provided by Certificate IV (AQF-4) qualifications. Some monitoring could be provided by appropriate sensors and the industrial internet of things (IIoT): but such need installing under the supervision and operating by some one at least at AQF-4 level. The IIoT reduces the number of people required to run around taking remote measurements.

So remote cells can be monitored by remote controlled cameras atop tall towers, alternatively remote controlled flying drones can provide the means of monitoring. The land becomes occupied and under surveillance. One person could then potentially survey more than one cell in a day, or if not necessary to survey each day, they can survey several cells each year: and then cycle round again each year.

We have the population to occupy and survey the land. More to the point there are 798,400 Aboriginal And Torres Strait Islander, so they can occupy the land with at least two people per cell.

Whilst there are 673,100 unemployed persons, who can occupy the land with at least one person to each cell, with two to some cells. Assuming these people want to work, then we have the required army to train to Certificate IV (AQF-4) and Associate Degree (AQF-6) level. So why haven't we? Partly because wasting national resources educating people, supposedly to AQF-8  over 4 years, and then scrapping half that education once they have found employment. Better to spend 2 years educating people to AQF-6 in the areas of practice we actually need skills. In 12 months we have planners, drafters and trade technicians. In 2 years we have the designers we need.

It should also be noted that whilst some of the AQF-4 qualifications take 4 years, these programmes are outside the classroom and on the job doing work. It isn't 4 years of academic study, it is mostly on the job training, developing proficiency in the work. So we can get the trades people for getting on with the work in short time. The people required to supervise takes slightly longer, and the people required to determine the work which needs doing, will take longer still, but should not take more than 2 years.

Now the cells are just for a planning exercise: to declare the land can be occupied and that at least one person is responsible for each block of land. I can however plan a square kilometre with a 500 x 500 m hub, to have more than 5000 single storey sole occupancy units. The maximum densities so far recorded around the world are 100,000 people for each square kilometre. These people are clearly not mining or farming as they are not occupying suitable land. And as they are already occupying buildings they don't need buildings.

Given 5000 single storey dwellings are suitable for couples with a baby, and extending the dwelling to two storey would make suitable for 2 adults and 2 children, and so increase population to 20,000. It seems relatively easy to increase the population to 100,000 by increasing the buildings to 10 storeys (5x2). But what are the 100,000 going to do with their time? What are they doing? Focused on education, health care and retail doesn't seem very productive. But if we do have such educational capability, then we definitely shouldn't and wouldn't have a shortage of suitably qualified persons.

Now whilst we can increase the population density of our cities who would want to live in such cities? More importantly from where do we get the water supply, we already have water rationing. So we have more work to do before we go increasing the population to get more workers to do the work.

The fundamental task is to maximise the benefit from the available but otherwise limited resources. The people we have in charge don't appear to have such ability.

So the numbers are available. We, just couldn't manage a booze up in a brewery.

Anyway the point is that a single agricultural or civil "engineer" should be able to develop a cell 5 km in diameter over a 40 year career. If we want it developed faster then we need more than one "engineer" involved with planning and design.

Just to note that is 5000 single storey or 10 storey dwellings designed once, and implemented 5000 times. Our building and construction industry in South Australia, oscillates between 5000 and 15,000 dwellings each year. So it would take less than one year to build a town. Does a mining town need more than 5,000 people or 100,000 people? Roxby Downs population 4500, Broken Hill population 17,814. Or take Leigh Creek (SA) population reduced from 2500 to 245. Mining towns are short lived. Some are unlikely to last for more than one generation: children are unlikely to follow in their parents footsteps and go work for the mining company.

Humans have legs, they are meant to be mobile. So not just about mobility across occupations it is also mobility across the planet. No one wants to buy a house in a place it will get abandoned, and no one else will want to buy. The houses cannot be permanently anchored to the earth's surface, the houses need to be transportable. So the road network as to permit transport of houses into the region and out off the region. So people are mostly going to want to live close to the developing cities, and the services they offer. Thus it is important to improve transportation infrastructure between the coastal cities and the interior rural and mining towns. If want to get people to live and work there, and do so for a reasonable duration, then access needs to improve. The towns need an adequate supply line bringing goods into town. Then they need personnel to provide all the appropriate services.

Also say it takes a team of about 5 people 90 days to build a house, then in 1 year they can build 365/90= 4 houses. So 5000/4 = 1250 years, or over a 50 year career, 50x4=200 houses. But want the houses built in 1 year, so need 5 people/team x 1250 teams=6,250 people. Thus needs more people than in the town. On the other hand in the detail the 5 people are not working continuously for 90 days. The plumber and electrician certainly aren't, they contribute at most about 2 days each. So they can each do 365/2=182.5 houses each year. So 5000/182.5=27.3, so would need about 28 plumbers and 28 electricians. For one years worth of work and then stop. If we shift the work into a factory we cut down on travel between sites, and the work can be reduced to a few hours. In short if we build a temporary factory at the destination, then the 5000 people are more than enough people to build their own houses in one year. The trip from factory to site also reduced. So trucks supply materials to the one factory rather than multiple sites.

Apparently in Australia there are approximately 105,000 homeless people. Thus 105,000/5000, so around 21 small towns, which if they are provided with resources and opportunity they can build themselves in one year. The 500m x 500m hub of the town I described is where retail stores and services are located. So the town would have own schools and hospital.

The most likely system implemented though is multistorey building, or infill housing, making use of existing stores, maintaining if not increasing unemployment.

There is a problem concerning getting the job done, and dragging the job out because don't have other work to go to. But there is plenty of work to do, obviously because they are declaring occupational shortages. More work just requires imagination, backed by resources and opportunities.

Most of the problems in this country and the world can be solved if we just got to work implementing the known solutions. Apparently 150 million world wide homeless, and 1.6 billion lacking adequate housing. So governments need to provide license to occupy and use land, and the resources and opportunity, and all can build their own homes. Furthermore the problem of shelter resolved in one year: technically. Socially and politically is another issue.

I mean what's the problem with implementing the millennium development goals in one year, of 7.53 billion only 1.6 billion people need shelter and there is enough for them to set about building their own homes. It's not even as if the development goals were about eliminating problems, they were half baked. Even the new sustainable development goals are half baked. Like end extreme global poverty by 2030. First redefine extreme poverty, so there isn't much of it, so it is then easy to eliminate over an excessively long period.

The primary problem is logistics, getting goods and services to and from the locations. Developing supply and distribution networks. How do we mobilise the world population and get them going to where the work is?

How many plumbers does Africa need? I have already indicated requirement to get houses built. But once the houses are built how many need to be retained? One rough statistic is in any given year around 5% of households will need some kind of maintenance service. So 5% of the 5000, so that is 250 each year. Most of the activity will take less than one day. Assume 50 productive weeks in one year, and 5 days per week, then have 250 productive days per year. So one plumber for every 5000 dwellings on condition that all demands do not occur on the same day. The more plumbers we have to cater for the multiple emergencies in the one day, and the less work any individual plumber does in a given year.

So with less guess work and more robust data sources than I have, it should be possible to map out a good estimate of how many plumbers the world needs and where they need be located, and do likewise for other occupations. There is no shortage of people. Though they may need training, such training should not take long.

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Revisions:
[25/03/2019] : Original
[05/05/2019] : Minor Edits and Added Formatting

So where does my Irritation with Engineers Stem From?

My irritation with, "what is and is not engineering", stems from the viewpoints held by organisations like Engineers Australia, and the World Federation of Engineering Organisations (WFEO), and legislation such as they have in the USA, and legislation in Australia currently limited to the states of Queensland and Victoria.

Engineers Australia (EA) is the full trading company, of the institution of engineers Australia (IEAust). I never really considered the IEAust to be much of a learned society, it is not guardian of a body of knowledge and it doesn't actively share and disseminate  knowledge, to raise understanding or spread awareness. Most especially it does not provide any forum in which deficiencies in practice can be highlighted and fixed. Published information is important as a common point of reference.

Anycase in the late eighties and early nineties I mistakenly believed it was moving in the right direction and Australia's technical workforce would be strengthened. First it absorbed the institution of engineering associates. I believed this was a good thing and that knowledge would be better shared and it would reduce repetition of public information programmes.

However I later read an article which indicated that the reason the institute of engineering associate's was absorbed, was to deliberately dismantle an occupation. It has to do with Australia's industrial relations system, the ACTU and TLC's, and industrial awards. One of the primary awards prior to the modern award system, was the metal industry award. This started with unskilled labour, moved up through trades people, technicians, engineering associates, scientists and engineers. The award defines wages and working conditions. So irrespective of the business and its needs, an engineer gets paid more than a tradesperson, and more than an engineering associate.

An engineer has a 4 year bachelor degree (B.Eng), whilst an engineering associate had a 2 year Associate Diploma. Associate Diploma's were typically associated with educational institutions which did not have the required charter to issue bachelor degrees and therefore issued 3 year Diploma's. The associate diploma's were thus shorter than the diploma's. When the Australian Qualification Framework (AQF) was brought in, the meaning of diploma was messed up: as a diploma is now around 1 year duration and an advanced diploma 2 to 2.5 years duration.

An engineering associate could do a lot of technical work based on first principles, no need for fancy software: more importantly such software didn't exist in any case. However duration doesn't define capability, content does. There were many associate diploma's some in engineering and some in drafting. The ones in engineering define an engineering associate those in drafting should not. However, to some extent it benefited EA to deliberately confuse the two qualifications, as its only concern was the 4 year B.Eng. Thus members of EA complained that engineering associates shouldn't be amongst their ranks, that drafters shouldn't be amongst their ranks: that it was an institution of engineers and no other occupation. Its membership also confusing the function of the IEAust with that of the labour union APESMA (or whatever name it had at the time and has now).

The result was that the academic programmes of engineering associates were watered down, and design-drafters added to the ranks of engineering associates, compounding the MIEAust/FIEAust view that drafters shouldn't be amongst the EA membership. Then EA signed the WFEO Dublin accord equating the engineering associates to technicians. As indicated above the industrial awards placed engineering associates above technicians: so the Dublin accord is disrespectful and insulting.

Now the MIEAust/FIEAust seem to spend a considerable amount of time complaining that train drivers and plumbers are not engineers. But thus far they have only been able to define that an engineer has a 4 year B.Eng and basically anything they do is considered engineering. Such is both a poor and unacceptable definition.

Also unions have tended to hold the view that potential is more important than actual contribution. So if job can be done by an engineering associate but occuptant has the B.Eng, then should be called engineer and paid at level of an engineer: even if the occupant is a dullard who is never going to contribute anything of higher value. Education is based more on ticket to high paid employment not actual interest. Therefore if can push the engineering associates out, it then becomes possible to raise the pay for the job, by redefining as the work of an engineer.

The governments clever country programme mostly based on increasing number of people with bachelor degrees, not increasing number of clever people. So give rise to professional cults built around bachelor degrees.

However, the AQF is about increasing occupational mobility, both sideways and upwards. Moving from one level to the next should represent an increase in depth of knowledge, increase in independent thought, and increase in personal responsibility. Whilst different awards increase breadth of knowledge. Clearly there are many different jobs which are dependent on knowledge in science and mathematics, so where is the common base qualification in such subjects?

Now I have never considered modern engineers to be anything more than technicians, low level industrial mathematicians. It is relatively clear from the built environment and the technology which surrounds us, that the knowledge and skills of engineers is inadequate. Engineers Australia and other organisations argue about such inadequacy of the education, but are unwilling to add extra content and increase the duration, or expand content and maintain duration of the programme by reducing coverage of each topic.

In Australia the typical bachelor degree is 3 years duration, and an honours degree typically adds an extra year. In the past an honours degree was minimum requirement to start a masters degree. The B.Eng is 4 years duration and therefore it has been equated to an honours degree (AQF-8), but it isn't anywhere near the equivalent to an honours degree. Occupational degrees are inflated with industrial experience, and project work: content which is not academic and has no real place in a degree.

Sure for years there were complaints and there still are complaints that education is inadequately linked to needs of industry, however industrial experience doesn't fix this issue.

The issue is STEM. Forget about STEAM and arguing about adding the "A", we need to drop the "E". Science and Mathematics are the tools used to plan, design, analyse, evaluate and manage technology. It is the technology which people need to be conversant with. A B.Eng doesn't provide adequate knowledge about the technology.

We create legislation to protect the public. The intention of the legislation is to ensure new implementations of established technologies achieve expected levels of performance. People who are not adequately conversant with the technology cannot possibly achieve such objective. Thus legislation based on the B.Eng grants the wrong people a monopoly.

But this does not matter to Engineers Australia and the over all politics of the situation.

Following the clever country programme, go produce more people with bachelor degrees, fast track these people to some higher status indicating they have appropriate work experience doing something which is being called engineering. This higher status is indicated by MIEAust CP.Eng NER. Having gained high numbers of these people, can argue that creating legislation won't create a shortage. However, a shortage is exactly what they want. They believe their wages are not high enough, that their importance is undervalued by society. They want to charge higher fees, and a monopoly will grant them the potential to hold the population to ransom.

An engineering associate who represents a substitute product is a threat, whilst an engineering associate who represents a complementary product to the engineer is not altogether required.

So taking that a B.Eng is an inadequate qualification, that B.Eng MIEAust is slightly better, and that B.Eng CP.Eng is still better, but all are incompetent to some extent, does it matter? The answer is no, it works in EA's favour. Clearly if a B.Eng CP.Eng cannot get it right, then need to further expand their education, and training, and make the selection criteria more rigorous. So had the numbers to get the legislation passed. Once the legislation is in place, and clearly the people on the register are not competent enough, then start to increase the rigour of the assessment, people are dropped from the register, and fewer people get on the register in the first place. A shortage arises, and fees start to increase: objective achieved.

But we already have experienced the situation of failure of several proclaimed potential mining and construction booms due to a proclaimed shortage of engineers. This has then resulted in exploitation of foreign workers and visa requirements. It takes time to become conversant with our industrial relations system, and realise that membership of EA is voluntary. Basically the visas expire, the workers are expelled, and another batch are brought in: when they should be granted permanent residency and continue with the job. Given that construction comprises of short term intermittent contracts it is difficult to monitor.

But a lot of this work doesn't require the 4 year B.Eng, and it didn't in the past. This is workplace politics not efficient design of jobs and workplaces.

The Associate Technologist

This is where my concept of the associate technologist comes into play. Accepting that engineering is that work done by persons with 4 year B.Eng, then modern industrial society has little need for engineering and little need for these engineer things {a manufactured product thrown of an educational assembly line}.

Nor does society have much need for the 3 year B.Tech. Most of the work can be done by persons with a 2 year Associate Degree (not the advanced diploma).

It is not the 4 years which is important, it is the subject matter which is important, and the perspective taken on the subject matter. A learned society needs people with a common educational base, so that communications, and publications can be written assuming such foundational knowledge and understanding.

So most 4 year B.Eng programmes now have a common first year. To reinforce the AQF, the occupational groups of: Associate technologists, technologists and engineer should all have the same common first year. The common first year will be an AQF-5 (diploma) in technical science and mathematics. Whilst WFEO technicians will have a 2 year Advanced Diploma (AQF-6), and pursue a different perspective: their first year will not be common with the other occupational groups.

As I have mentioned before the 4 year B.Eng contains breadth, it does not contain any dependent subject strands 4 years in length: it is basically an optimised bundle of AQF-6 qualifications. The breadth tends to comprise at most 5 areas of practice. So that is 3 years to cover five subjects, or 3/5ths of a year for each subject. Even if the breadth is reduced, it rarely is a single subject, so consider at least 2 subjects, so 3/2 or 1.5 years per subject. So a full programme in a given area of practice is 1 and 3/5ths of a year to 2.5 years. In either case more subject matter in the given area of practice can be included, to more thoroughly cover that which would otherwise be learnt on the job. (I am not impressed by M.Eng qualifications in structural engineering, which merely cover national codes of practice. Such are rubbish and unworthy of masters description. Such nonsense should be stopped)

Given programmes ranging from 2 to 3 years for specific areas of practice, would expect that the graduate associate technologists and technologists have greater knowledge than graduate engineers, and are far better suited for the task at hand than the graduate engineers.

I would then expect that, the dud invention, which is the 4 year B.Eng will expire and cease to be. Whilst the 3 year degree becomes the entry requirement for a 2 years masters degree through study: bringing total duration to 5 years. However, I don't believe there is adequate subject matter for depth to extend to 5 years through study. Whilst research degrees tend to be little different than, getting on with the everyday job of design and analysis. Put another way, why pay to get a masters degree when doing little different than would be paid for in the workplace. So the validity of masters degrees needs to be investigated.

Further to this is the government should provide greatest support for AQF levels 6 and down, whilst reducing support for levels 7 and above. I suggest that first priorty should be to create an army of people qualified at AQF-6, and then take the top 20% and encourage them to pursue AQF-7 and higher.

To which end I also suggest that it should not be possible to go from school to university, or at least not start on a qualification above AQF-5. Any programme longer than 1 year duration should be broken down into shorter qualifications. So further contributing to the demise of the 4 year B.Eng (AQF-8): the first year becomes a Diploma (AQF-5), the second year an Associate Degree (AQF-6), the third year a B.Tech or B.Sc (AQF-7), and the 4th year a graduate diploma (AQF-8), and the fifth year a masters (M.Tech, M.Eng, MEngSc).

And no one does engineering, and if we need to legislate we legislate planning, design, analysis, evaluation and management and do so with clearly defined areas of practice. We do not and should not allow the emergence of professional cults, and should not allow such cults to pursue objectives directed at holding us to ransom. We have enough problems with health care, we don't want to create other areas where more efficient systems cannot be implemented because a professional cults interests take priority over actual needs of society.

-o0o-

If the advanced diploma's will take a different path than the associate degree, there will be no common first year, though there will be common subjects. Basically subject matter which is irrelevant to the area of practice is eliminated from the advanced diploma program. Therefore less mathematics and less general science in the first year. The programmes will contain more qualitative coverage of subject matter and more practice work. Whilst two years in duration there will also be less depth covered. In short they will have the knowledge necessary to cover the majority of projects (eg. 80%).

They will be granted status to complete the AQF-5 in technical science and mathematics, and also the associate degree (AQF-6). Such study programme should require no more than 1 year to complete.

The advanced diploma will meet the requirements for WFEO (Dublin Accord) Technician. The Associate Degree will meet the requirements for Associate Technologist, more closely related to Australia's traditional engineering associates but better.

The Associate Technologists would achieve the educational requirements of the WFEO (Washington Accord), by completing associate degrees in 5 areas of practice, which given the common first year AQF-5 in technical science and mathematics, means 1 additional year of study for each area of practice: bringing the total study time to 6 years and surpassing the WFEO 4 year requirement: as will now contain far more content in each area of practice.

There will be few masters to specialise, as such specialisation will be covered by completing AQF-7 award (B.Sc, B.Tech) in the single area of practice, such as structures.

Occupational inflation of qualifications shall be halted. All academic programmes will be reviewed for division of breadth, and compression of depth into the minimum number of years. Breadth is permitted only to the extent, where two or more subjects branch into a higher level subject. For example mathematics and physics branch into engineering mechanics, which then flows onto mechanics of materials. But most of physics is irrelevant to engineering mechanics, therefore the dependent physics can be kept to a minimum. Furthermore both engineering mechanics and mechanics of materials could be covered in 1 year, instead of being spread over 2 years: but to do so would require eliminating breadth of subject matter from the year.

The point is we need people with B.Sc Applied Mechanics as much as we need people with B.Sc in Mechanical Engineering. The former has depth of knowledge whilst the latter has breadth. Mechanics should be taught by someone with the degree in applied mechanics not mechanical engineering. In terms of current qualifications therefore expect someone with B.Eng to get a B.Sc in a specialist subject area before permitted to teach that subject at bachelor degree level: they will also require qualifications in teaching. Though they can use B.Eng (AQF-8) to teach at AQF level 6.

When everyone matriculates then its value diminishes, but still everyone who is able should matriculate. A nation's priority should be to educate the people it needs to sustain its society and it should not kowtow to the wants and whims of professional cults. If a job cannot be performed by someone educated at AQF-6 then that job needs looking into in detail. Chances are it may require more than one AQF-6 qualification, but more likely it requires one AQF-6 qualification and additional AQF-5 qualifications.

Current Education

If think this does not apply to your profession, think again: it shall be applied across the board no exceptions. So includes medical doctors and lawyers amongst others. Traditional degree for doctor in some countries is: Bachelor of Medicine, Bachelor of Surgery. Or there is the University of Sydney double degree: Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Medicine.

Also note how concurrent double degrees currently can be studied in less time than the time normally required for both degrees. For example double degrees in law at Adelaide University: example given is Bachelor of Arts (three years) and Bachelor of Laws (four years) can be completed in five years if studied concurrently. whilst the duration of the law degree itself varies as follows: if you are a graduate, the duration of the program is three years full-time (or equivalent) as opposed to four years for non-graduates. Similarly get double degree: Bachelor of Engineering (Honours)(Mechanical) with Bachelor of Science, and complete in 5 years compared to (4+3)= 7 years. Or Bachelor of Engineering (Honours)(Mining) with Bachelor of Science, once again in 5 years. Such programs have the potential to increase both breadth and depth.

If can do this at the bachelor degree level (AQF-7), then can equally well do this at the level of AQF-6. For certain in terms of status people want the bachelor degrees. However in terms of creating a flexible and mobile workforce AQF-6 and lower are more useful.

For example mechatronics can be defined in terms of AQF-6 qualifications in mechanical and electronic technologies. Since such technologies likely employed in a manufacturing environment then additional qualifications in planning and management would be useful. Given work also typically done under contract, qualifications in contract and commercial law also useful.

If consider a 40 to 50 year career and need for continuing professional development, and consider that part time course typically takes double time of full time. Then a 2 year programme will take 4 years part time. A person can study part time and work full time, so that is 10 to 12.5 study programmes over a career. Basically enrol in an educational institution and remain for life.

So basically everyone has potential to complete AQF-5 or AQF-6 in:

1. Science & Mathematics
2. Design & Technology
3. Graphic Arts & Fine Arts
4. Arts & Humanities
5. Business & Management
6. Political Science & Law
7. Health & Medicine
8. Teaching & Education

They can also complete many qualifications in trade and crafts at AQF-4 and below.

Consider everyone attending an educational institution and becoming a part of a great repository of all human knowledge. Contrast with our ancient past and everyone attending their local village church. The capacity of the population to judge will be considerably enhanced. Public spending will require more rigorous assessment, as will infrastructure and mining projects.

Now whilst the focus is AQF-6 it doesn't mean that AQF-7 will disappear, rather it will mean that AQF-7 qualifications will have the depth they are meant to have, and people will have increased potential to pursue the most appropriate AQF-7 qualification. The multiple AQF-6 qualifications will give them breadth, and provide foundation for deciding higher level of study. Furthermore we can mandate that requirement for AQF-7 is at least two independent AQF-6 awards (eg. arts and science).

So no token generalist subjects thrown into the degrees, rather demand greater breadth in the first place. Not sure if still holds, but at one point the universities threw mandatory second language into the generalist subjects in engineering degrees. Not altogether necessary as typical student would have previously spent 2 years at school studying a second language, and really needed to build on that to attain a level of conversational fluency. However such is of secondary importance to the primary area of study. Therefore it is better to leave out and place in additional award.

So the engineering institutions/organisations are considering increasing qualification requirement to masters degree (M.Eng), but cannot get agreement from membership. Engineers are criticised for not having appropriate breadth of knowledge regarding technology, history, culture and society. Engineers also criticised for not designing systems which have adequate fitness-for-function.

Continuing education and AQF-6 qualifications assist to resolve these issues. The AQF-6 qualification makes them more competent in the specifics of an area of practice and associated technologies. The AQF-6 qualifications also give them greater breadth of knowledge to better understand the impact of technology.

We can then identify MIEAust as a qualification, rather than post nominal detritus. It becomes a qualification because neither B.Eng nor M.Eng will be good enough to get such qualification: such qualifications lack both required depth and breadth. Depth is lacking with respect to a given technological system, and breadth is lacking regarding that which is beyond technology.

Thus with new era will require something along the lines of:

1. AQF-7 Science & Mathematics
2. AQF-6 Design & Technology
3. AQF-5 Arts & Humanities (geography, history)
4. AQF-5 Business & Management (supervision, planning)
5. AQF-5 Political Science & Law
6. AQF-5 Teaching & Education (training, mentoring)

So that's a total of (3+2+1+1+1+1)=9 years full time. Assuming first 5 years are before start work, that leaves 4 years full time, or 8 years part time. So no one will become qualified until have at least 8 years of experience. Or assuming they start work after get AQF-6, then have 7 years of full time study to complete, taking 14 years part-time. Therefore set minimum experience at 14 years, they start out as GradAIEAust (irrespective of education), then become AMIEAust, and progress through TMIEAust, then ultimately MIEAust. (NB: The problem we currently have is jumping to MIEAust CP.Eng far too quickly)

The objective should be to get people into the workplace as quickly as possible doing  the work which needs doing: but not giving them undue status and prestige beyond their capabilities and contribution.

Female Participation

As for increasing female participation. Well a 1 year AQF-5 in technical science and mathematics provides potential and opportunity to pursue multitude of related occupations. also more people are required to draw, plan, and make than are required to crunch numbers (and a brainless unimaginative block of silicon can crunch numbers, so not a particularly desirable skill.). Easier to displace drafters and line supervisors than the trades. A design office should have more drafters in it than engineers. Drafters can be employed on contract on an as needs basis. Getting some 50% of drafters to be female, could probably be done in 2 years: train them this year, employ them next year. However, these drafters are not there to stay as drafters, they are studying part time to become "engineers". They have their foot in the door and are gaining experience, and each day they put a little bit more of their continuing education to use.

Also to be noted, is that as drafters retire or drop out of the workforce for other reasons, they basically get replaced by anyone near suitably qualified. For example studied mechanical get employed in structural or doing civil drawings. Studied civil get to do mechanical. As a drafter your task is to communicate information, not to design or solve problems, therefore working under the supervision of the engineer/designer. If you demonstrate the skills to jump ahead and act as design-drafter, then management will want to keep you around. If need constant supervision and drafting presentation needs constant correcting then your presence not important. In short drafters get replaced by design-drafters, and in turn by engineering associates. For small projects however it is inefficient to employ drafter and engineer, and both can be replaced by one engineering associate. Employee engineers are typically too expensive to have them producing own drawings, engineering associates are not.

Point is that can build an army where there is scope to build an army. For example this article: Female GPs outnumber male GPs for the first time in Australia, the specialities are just that, specialisations requiring very few people, but GP's are near enough everywhere. If there isn't one around then probably scope to introduce one: especially in remote rural and mining towns.

Little point complaining there are not enough female scientists or engineers, when also few female drafters and lab technicians. The bachelor degree in nursing for example along with potential for higher degrees, has probably increased the potential for female nurses to pursue further study and become doctors. Simply because they have their foot in the door of the universities, and more than likely attending some subjects which overlap with the studies of the doctors. How many females starting nursing switch to medicine?

Proper breakdown of study programmes, progressing from AQF-1 to AQF-7 is likely to attract more people to study to higher levels. When I was at school few people wanted to waste more time in education, they wanted to get to work earning money (or mostly claiming unemployment benefit). And that was approaching end of grade 10. The thoughts of another 2 years of schooling followed by 3 to 4 years of university wasn't desirable. But if one year of study, gets you into the workforce, contributing and earning money, whilst pursuing continuing education, well that becomes more tolerable. The bachelor of nursing degree for example should be equally broken down into smaller programmes, so that it is mandatory that start as enrolled nurse and progress to registered nurse, and likewise start as nursing assistant and progress to enrolled nurse.

Or there maybe other problems: Gender Equity in Medical Specialties, considering the army of female nurses: Nursing and midwifery workforce 2015 and registered nurses out number enrolled nurses (which seems like a major problem: top heavy organisation, not enough workers). And this is further description of potential problems: Red Cross to use nursing assistants on blood donors. Actually the army of female nurses probably just represents large number of females with bachelor degree who now have potential to pursue further study or research not necessarily related to medicine but more focused on social studies and health care. They don't become doctors because the proclaimed shortage of doctors is political, and the political barriers need to be overcome to improve health care rather than support the profession of doctor. Hence further education more in social studies.

And education is no exception Private school principals say culture must change. Here the issue is: do we need private schools, and the culture which supports them? That is what is the fault considered with the state schools? If a child is not interested in learning, then a private school isn't going to make much difference. If the child is interested in learning then a private school contributes zero of value: the child does the learning not the teacher. In the main the child needs access to study materials not teachers. As I mentioned in earlier posts, we should scrap grade 11 and grade 12, and start directly on AQF awards. Which thus means moving to TAFE or moving TAFE programmes into schools. The status of private schools should then diminish: and government funding be reduced not increased.{Parents typically seek to get their kids into private school for at least grade 11 or 12, if they cannot get them in from the beginning or otherwise cannot afford full schooling in private school. Personally I think its a waste of money.}

However that approach requires modifying the AQF, as I proposed in earlier post where I increased the number of levels to 15, one more than the original 14 levels, 5 more than the current 10. Where I also introduced Certificate I to V, Diploma I to V and Masters I to V.

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Related Posts

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Revisions:
[09/03/2019] : Original
[10/03/2019] : Minor Edits, and added more after the end.
[25/03/2019] : Minor Edits

Not Opposed to Engineers, just those who Claim Sole Use of the Word and Distort Language

Just in case anyone has got the idea I don't like engineers, that is not so. The thing I dislike is professional cults claiming sole use of a word and then distorting the use of language.

Here in Australia, we had an institute of engineering associates, and in south Australia we had an industrial award for technical officers. The award being named: Draughtspersons, Planners And Technical Officers Award. {Though at the moment I cannot find a digital version. Hopefully I still have the printout to check its details. But fairly certain it also included South Australia in the title, though other states do have similar. Though some variations replace the term technical officers with technical workers}

The technical officers award referred to engineering technicians and engineering associates. The engineering associates were at a higher pay and responsibility level than technicians. The academic award was typically an Associate Diploma for engineering associates and some Advanced Certificate for technicians. In terms of the new Australian Qualification Framework, engineering associates would have an Associate Degree or Advanced Diploma (AQF-6), whilst technicians would have a Diploma (AQF-5) or Certificate IV (AQF-4). Technicians are not drafters and nor are engineering associates. Duration of education does not determine if a person can design or "engineer", it is the type of education which does.

Thus a 2 year Associate Diploma in Mechanical Drafting is not the same as a 2 year Associate Diploma in Mechanical Engineering. The latter can calculate forces, stress and strains, do the calculations necessary to make a mechanical system fit-for-function, or a structural system for that matter. Depending or where the engineering associate studied they may have sat in the exact same lectures as those studying for a 4 year B.Eng.

When the IEAust (now full trading company Engineers Australia) absorbed the institute of engineering associates in the 1980's, at first it seemed a good thing: as it made the IEAust similar to the UK institutions. Having all grades in the one institution should be good for a learned society tasked with disseminating knowledge, and otherwise identifying flaws and deficiencies in accepted practice (eg. Australia standards and codes of practice are highly deficient, but know real forum to discuss such.).

Unfortunately the move by Engineers Australia turned out to be a political tactic, and more aligned to sabotaging our technical workforce than improving it. As the only interest, of a large segment of Engineers Australia membership, is those with the 4 year B.Eng.

It is tiresome listening (reading), about these idiots claiming sole right to the title engineer, declaring that plumbers, train drivers, sound recordists, aircraft mechanics, steel fabricators are not engineers and have no right to the title. My question is compared to history, and contribution to scientific knowledge, contribution to developing technology, contributing to advancing society, what do these mere number crunchers do that is of value and worthy of title engineer? These people in the main only have a subset of the skills that their worthy ancestors had, and so have no more right to the title than a plumber or train driver.

These number crunchering B.Eng's are also of limited importance to society and civilisation: as they didn't discover the knowledge, didn't figure out how to apply to develop technology, didn't build civilisation and are certainly not required to maintain or advance it further.  Mostly they have used legislation directly or indirectly to push themselves into a place where they are not needed and are mostly an hindrance, and are otherwise not wanted. In the main design something once, and make millions of times. Design is also mostly qualitative not quantitative, so prowess with mathematics is not a benefit to the task: being a mere number cruncher makes the person a nuisance to a project not a benefit. And all the testing to get the B.Eng is about number crunching.

So when the institute of engineering associates was absorbed, the academic programmes were also ignored. With emphasis placed on the stupid notion that a clever country is the one with the most graduates with bachelor degrees, and the largest percentage of population with bachelor degrees. There is no point in having large numbers of people in design and management if got no one willing or capable of doing the making and building. The industrial awards give people with bachelor degrees higher wages irrespective of needs of the business: though there are some market forces at play, the market has to push wages above the minimums in the awards before it has any influence, and that may not happen if the award wages are too high.

The politics was increase the number of degree qualified engineers, get into management, limit employees to these people, and then seek legislation to further restrict work to the degree qualified. Warning: Queensland, the renown banana republic, Australia the land of the rum corp, why would the rest of the nation want to implement their silly form brigade (RPEQ's): it certainly does not have anything to do with technical competence and protecting the public.

..o0o..

Hello! Queensland floods: again! Super competent they are! Flood design, qualitative first, quantitative second. Qualitative: rain typically falls at the top of hills, runs downhill toward the ocean (high school geography). If have flooding then too much water, moving too slowly towards the ocean: so what's blocking it, what is holding it back? Why is it overflowing the banks of rivers, and designed drainage channels? Where is it falling and where is it collecting? This is all descriptive on the ground, what have we got? Very little complicated about it. What are the political hurdles? If you are a kid growing up in Queensland, what would you want to do, solve the flooding problem or join a professional cult? Hopefully you choose solving the flooding problem, because joining a professional cult won't provide the solution. Clearly civil engineers skills are deficient, clearly environmental engineers skills are also deficient. If the problem could be solved by application of established technology then wouldn't have a problem. If problem needs something new, then clearly the "engineers", are not actually capable of engineering: as they haven't proposed anything new and haven't implemented anything new. Thus the profession is a loss. The profession was a loss some 50 years ago: it's why my preference was to study science not engineering: history showed that improved understanding of the world led to development of new technology. Engineering is not about problem solving its about implementing established solutions: despite what they, the mob with the B.Eng, think they are capable of doing, they not have such capability. They need reducating to have such capability.

During the 2010/2011 Queensland floods it was relatively clear that the typical Queenslander house had been permitted to be modified. The vernacular construction brought about by experience and qualitative design,  put houses on stilts above the flood level. But now the space between the stilts has been filled in with an extra room. The room gets flooded: no surprise there. But water is now prevented from flowing overland towards the low points: rivers and ocean. Water, now cannot soak into the ground and flow underground. Simple qualitative stuff, ignored and now big problem. Climate change or dumb politics?

Here in South Australia, the driest state on the driest continent on earth. we get people complaining about flooding, when they are located where: gee where? The Adelaide flood plains. Bah! Humbug! That's just semantics. Why would the flood plains, flood, it's just a fancy name right? No! They are the flood plains? So why build there? Coz, its flat and close to business and industry and the land is cheap.

We do however have some development rules. First our stormwater and sewage systems are separate. The stormwater mains in the street was however designed based in certain assumptions of property development, such as minimum open space, and minimum landscaping requirements. Thus rainwater is expected to soak into the ground and flow away along the subterranean water table. It is not viable or overly practical or affordable to upgrade all the stormwater mains. Hence, most local councils require that the water flowing of the property is limited to the original design levels. So whilst there is subdivision, and blocks of land are getting smaller and houses bigger: there is a need to detain larger volumes of storm water on the property.

Consequence of this rule, is that apply to build a carport and find you have to also install a detention tank. The council may also provide an orifice plate which controls the release of water from the tank. The detention tank is not for rainwater harvesting it is for flood mitigation, it is meant to be empty at the time of a storm. Though rainwater harvesting tanks and detention tanks maybe combined, if designed to full fill both functions.

There is another issue, and that is water is required in the ground, holding back too much water, will result in the ground drying out. Or as noted on a recent commercial/industrial project the council may have concerns about holding back too much water because it affects the wetland component of their community stormwater drainage system (water sensitive urban design). So the quantifiable aspects of the design can be complicated, balancing the amount of water that needs to be allowed to run off and the amount which needs to be detained.

People using rainwater harvesting, and making use of greywater, also posed problems in terms of operating sewage system: has potential existed for too little water getting into the pipes to allow the system to work.

Any case as the driest state we shouldn't get flooding, and Queensland subject to tropical cyclones should be better designed to make flooding less of a disaster and more an inconvenience. Neither place is going to get where it needs to be by churning out more people with B.Eng degrees. The stormwater drainage systems need building, and paying for, but small changes, lots of them, can go a long way to reducing the problem.

We as individuals are all connected to a whole, and you, I, and our neighbours are all part responsible for flooding. So how much landscaping do you have that allows water to soak into the ground? How much pavement and roof area do you have flowing directly to the street or to the street main? How much do your neighbours have?

People solve problems, not elitist gits who hold knowledge to ransom. These so called engineers who want improved status, need to put more effort into enabling and empowering people, not making them dependent and creating legislation to make people even more dependent.

..o0o..

I got side tracked again mostly because I couldn't find an article I was looking for.

The gist of the article is that Engineers Australia takes pride in having scuttled our technical workforce by eliminating the institute of engineering associates. Legislation like that in Queensland is flawed because it has a poor definition of engineering.

I don't have a problem is engineering is defined without reference to education level, and without reference to the words: engineer and engineering.

For example:

1. Engineers Originate, Technologists Adapt, Technicians Apply
2. Engineering takes place at the frontiers of science and technology
3. Engineering: the art and science of maximising the benefit from the available but otherwise limited resources
4. Engineering: rational scientific approach to planning, design and management

None of these 4 definitions requires a 4 year B.Eng. More importantly it doesn't declare that duration of education is relevant to competence. The need for legislation comes from achieving the accepted level of performance from established technologies. For example the public has certain expectations about stormwater management systems: if they get flooded they assume there is either a defect in the design or the implementation. They do not assume it is beyond our society's ability to understand the problem, and beyond our ability to find solutions. Though they may expect there is some political obstacle to implementing the known solution.

The point is, if definition (4) about rational scientific approach to planning, design and management applies, then the traditional 2 year qualified engineering associates are competent to do the work. The problem is finding organisations where they can get the experience to put their education to work: as the majority of those with a B.Eng did not climb a ladder, they took a shortcut and they jumped to the top. They do not know the capabilities of others, and therefore they assume job requires a B.Eng and the engineering associates are disrespectfully or ignorantly relegated to being drafters:  alongside cad jockeys who aren't even qualified drafters.

Ah! But! The Grenfell tower, the Lacrosse tower, and the Opal tower, they should have been designed by engineers! No they shouldn't they should have been designed by people competent in the design of buildings and building structures. See anything in the term civil engineer which implies competent in building design? See anything in the word architect which mentions buildings? What is an architect, a failed graphic artist, messing up our environment: they don't seem capable of much, of anything else?

So restrict to architectural engineers/technologists? Well no! Because has I indicated in previous post, they either focused on buildings: structure, electrical and mechanical systems, or on bridges: structures and aesthetics. So how do we know we have the right architectural engineer, no better than civil engineer. Furthermore the problem isn't with these upper levels. The problems at the lower levels. So got a valid specification, how do you control the supply line? How do you know that the material which arrives on site is the fire protected version of a product? How do you know the strength of the steel bolts? The supply chain needs controlling. In manufacturing, reputable manufacturers would test all inputs, and inspect and test suppliers capability.

As for the NCC/BCA who cares about it? The ABCB deliberately removed information from the loading code and put it in the BCA, to get structural "engineers" to use the BCA. All the BCA does is list structural standards. At the time the Australian standards catalogue was a lot lower price and a lot more useful reference: because you design things from first principles and then look for community expectations of performance.

Further the NCC/BCA is not about buildings it barely mentions buildings, nor is about construction or structures in general. It doesn't cover bridges, radio masts, light poles etc... It doesn't cover infrastructure such as steps, jetties, fishing platforms, sports nets. It is not suitable as a single point of reference for the built environment.

The NCC/BCA is primarily about spaces. Energy flow into and out of the space, people moving into and out of spaces. It basically doesn't mention the building envelope, the building fabric, or building components. Such things as ground floors, suspended floors, below ground floors, walls, ceilings and roofs: no required performance criteria. Performance criteria are required for these building components, because performance criteria for the space they enclosed is not good enough. Floors have too much bounce because no criteria for floor vibration. It is not appropriate to put in the loading code AS1170 series of standards, even though most structural standards are largely concerned with buildings and no other structure. The structural standards however are applied to structures other than buildings: other standards however provide more product specific criteria: like the crane code for example. So criteria for floors should be in the NCC/BCA. Also construction tolerances should also be in the NCC/BCA.

There is no value forcing people to become familiar with a code of practice, when the code doesn't provide anything of value, and the NCC/BCA provides little of value: except maybe the deemed-to-satisfy fire rated forms of construction: which are increasingly being ignored by wannabe fire engineers.

And here's a thing! Polymers, plastics they tend to be flammable. Maybe ditch digging mud waddlers not aware of such. But they are flammable, so why would anyone approve such material unless have extensive information about its suitability as a construction material? Oh! Yeh! they use thundering great blocks of the stuff under the footings.

As for aluminium well it melts relatively easily. Ok! I  melted the egg poacher as kid.No one told me needed water in it. I just put margarine in the plastic cups. Ok! Now we're stuffed. Ok! So there are advanced "engineering"  polymers which can be specifically developed for high temperature situations: and they may be nonflammable.

..o0o..

Ok! Side tracked again

The point is that people who hold, as their main concern, a ticket to employment, and membership of a professional cult, have little interest in science and technology and defective planning, design and management processes.

If you hold the view, that if it was important, it would be in the code, then you are not going to seek to do better than the code. If you hold the view, that formal education imparted all the knowledge required for the job, then you are not going to read industry manuals, or technical journals. The B.Eng gave you what you need for the job and that's all that is required. Screw history and how the knowledge came to be in the first place: all that needs to be known is already known. They have the authority to declare: do has I say. They don't care if it's illogical, unreasonable or devoid of common sense, they got the legal power to enforce. So people don't give them anything. reject legislation which grants greater power to these imbeciles, and push to have existing legislation removed.

The thing we really need is improved education so that it is appropriate for the task at hand, and appropriate legislation which properly controls process. If have appropriate education and appropriate legislation controlling process: then can also get rid of licensing for plumbers, electricians, builders, and drop registration of architects and engineers, and drop whatever the medical profession has. No! we won't end up with problems as a direct result: none of the legislation prevents the problems as it is.

A simple registration system, just requires the institutions of higher learning to register all graduates on a national register. No need for an annual registration fee, no need to remove any one from the register. If they are not doing things right, then they need to be on a register not struck from the register. So we don't need to register the competent, just the incompetent.

Take a builder for example. If not blacklisted then probably ok! However, maybe it's their first job, so could be risky. Does licensing resolve this issue? No it doesn't. But what do we expect? Mostly, that people start at the bottom, prove themselves and work their way up the ladder of demonstrated competence. We expect certain stable institutions and businesses. We expect that people acquired their skill under the supervision of people with significant experience, not the supervision of people with trite experience. If not familiar with their former supervisor or the work of the former supervisor then maybe we don't want to take the risk.

But maybe we do decide to take the risk. In doing so, we expect there could be a loss, and we need to control the extent of the loss. In other words you don't gamble or bet if you cannot afford to lose.

If we decide to take a risk, then we need a back up plan, and a control system to limit our losses. Part of which is an alternative supplier who we have more confidence can supply with significant lower loss. So we would probably have a short list of at least 3 suppliers, and a set of criteria for putting the supplier on the list. So not just going through the yellow pages and concluding some business exists and is in your area, and available for work at an affordable price. Hopefully we are making a more informed judgement than that, and getting more specific.

Like met the builder, and clearly couldn't read the drawings and therefore unlikely to build the building described on the drawings, therefore doesn't get on the short list. We question, we interrogate, and if the builder treats us as an idiot, then we don't employ them. The builder or any other supplier should be able to answer your questions and provide the confidence you need to understand what is going to be provided.

Now take this thing called engineering. I don't know what you want and I don't know what it is going to cost. No confidence there, and lack of options, so go ahead anyway. One thing is for certain, you don't expect a massive bill. I read an article where a farmer wanted some highly specialised mechanical handling system, after a year or more still had no suitable system, and the cost was extortionate.

How do we protect such people? It starts with process. Simple question what the hell was the project? You do not spend hundreds of dollars or hundreds of thousands of dollars without clearly identifying the project, and without breaking the project down into manageable stages. Stages at which the project can be terminated and prevent any further loss or waste. It doesn't require specialist training in management to figure out. You just don't jump to the top of the ladder, you'll miss, you'll fall, you'll get hurt. You climb the ladder, properly, step by step.

But has we were constantly being told when studying management: it ain't common sense.

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Related Posts

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Revisions:
[11/02/2019] : Original

Engineers Australia : on wrong track.

Light bulb moment! That's why I don't like Engineers Australia's activities. The institution of engineers Australia (IEAust), basically became a full commercial trading company: Engineers Australia. It is basically in the business of selling post nominal detritus.

The IEAust is not a learned society. A learned society is curator, guardian and disseminator of learning.

The IEAust rightly recognised that the B.Eng was not adequate indicator of competence, it also recognised that MIEAust had lost its reliability as an indicator of competence.: further more few people were interested in acquiring. The problem was that many people previously held graduate status for most of their careers, especially those who worked on construction sites. The contention was that those who worked in a design office could easily get site experience, whilst those who worked on site had problems gaining design office experience. Further the contention was that the site experience that those in design office acquired was worthless compared to that acquired by those who worked on site. The problem: a failure to recognise major areas of practice and the specialised knowledge required for these areas. Therefore no one has any real certainty as to whether any individual as the necessary skills for a given job. Jobs are not really civil engineering or mechanical engineering, or any other major engineering discipline.

Rather than tackle the problem, Engineers Australia dreamed up a long string of post nominal detritus: MIEAust CPEng NPER : all totally worthless and meaningless and fails to resolve the original problem. Additionally they absorbed the institute of engineering associates, and introduced the concept of engineering technologist. The technical engineering team of knowledge workers thus expanded from 2 occupational classes to 3. Engineers Australia primarily promotes the occupation of professional engineer and gives scant regard to the rest of the team.

It seems they are expecting the Big Bang or something to give spontaneous existence to engineering technologists, and achieve critical mass or something and form their own group and direct their own occupation. Its a totally stupid idea.

The specification for the engineering team states that there is overlap between the knowledge base of the three occupations. There is not equality, there is not hierarchy. From the specification Engineers do not know anything that engineering associates know, there is no overlap with their knowledge base. Which seems a stupid definition: but that's what those all knowledgeable MIEAust/FIEAust's dreamed up. Having dreamed this up however, they continue to exercise an arrogance that they know more than anybody else, that they are the best, and seemingly the only people society needs. Further more the industrial relations system is set up such that get higher wages based on education and potential of that education, not based on actual contribution to an organisation. The result: get a B.Eng become an Engineer, get higher wages. More nonsense.

Yes there is a shortage of engineers in terms of the traditional meaning of someone pushing forward the frontiers of technology. Yes there is a shortage of competent managers and technical designers. This does not however mean we should set a propaganda machine in motion and churn out people with degrees.

Graduates are not engineers, nor graduate engineers or graduate anything else, they are simply graduates with an education which may or may not have been any value. They are at best technicians part conversant in the use of a variety of mathematical tools and techniques: but not otherwise highly proficient in the use of these tools, nor highly conversant in any given technology to which these tools need to be applied. Industry cannot be relied on to provide the necessary training: more over such on the job training can be an unwarranted hindrance and expense to getting on with the job at hand.

However, it is not the task of an engineer to assess the suitability of a beam, a building or a bridge, or any other established technology. The role of engineer is at the frontiers of science and technology: technologies for which we do not yet have any established body of technical science.

Where we do have a body of established knowledge we can train Associate Technologists (my preferred name for the engineering associates).

No need to bring in any silly post nominal's, no need to split one group of people with a B.Eng from others with a B.Eng. Just a need to pay attention to the design and specification of the engineering team and role of each player. Also a need for many of the professional engineers to stop being derogatory about the competence of engineering associates: because to put it bluntly a large number of MIEAust's are not actually smart enough to know their own limitations and neither competent enough to do the research to expand their knowledge. Why would they? They think they know it all, already.

I attended an introductory chartered workshop a few years back, it put me off the whole idea, just reinforced the view that its all nonsense. It was a mixed group, one of the engineering associates asked if they needed to be able to design a concrete column. The response was an uncertain maybe.

There is no uncertainty about it. The academic studies of an engineering associate covers the design of reinforced concrete beams, columns and slabs. If they work in the structural area then they are expected to design reinforced concrete. Engineering associates are not drafters nor trade technicians. Those engineering associates are spending their own time programming AutoCAD because their jobs are boring them to death, their education is not being used.

The task of Engineers Australia wasn't to cause division and confusion, but to clearly separate education from industry. Just because a person has a B.Eng does not mean that they will ever achieve the on the job training and experience to ever become an MIEAust. But a B.Eng OMIEAust clearly has more potential than a Assoc.Dip OMIEAust. Thus OMIEAust is a first stage stepping stone, not something to be sniffed at with disdain. Further more such stepping stones through OMIEAust to TMIEAust should be the only way to get to MIEAust. If we are to consider there is an hierarchy, then the MIEAust's should have a knowledge base which fully over laps with the lower grades. We want the people pushing the frontiers to be fully conversant with the established technologies and the accepted procedures for proof of concept and evidence of suitability, before they start re-inventing the wheel and place society and the whole planet at risk.

In 2 years we can train engineering associates, and for them 3 years of experience after graduation is probably appropriate for them to become OMIEAust and then CEngO: if really need such post nominal detritus. Similarly in 3 years those with a B.Eng also become OMIEAust. Are they going to choose to do this. No they are not, they will only do this if it is the mandatory stepping stone towards MIEAust. Further they will only consider doing so, if the legislation requires registration on the national engineering associates register( NEAR) in a specific area of practice for submission of engineering work to regulatory authorities.

No legislation should restrict practice or restrict the supply of services. The legislation should merely identify that regulatory authorities do not have time to waste with incomplete submissions and therefore will only accept submissions which have been at least reviewed and endorsed by someone on a national register: depending on the complexity it could reference NEAR, NETR, NPER. But the requirement should be that no higher registration than NEAR is required for 80% of the work. If there is any apparent reduction in this percentage, then the requirements for registration on NEAR should increase, and cascade through to all the other registers. However I contend that very little requires more than 2 years of tertiary education, and that anything that pushes up to requiring NETR in fact requires additional areas of practice to be defined on NEAR and appropriate two year qualifications developed to produce specialisation in this area.

I reiterate, no engineering associate should be educated in the broad area of an engineering discipline, they are to be educated in a specific area of practice: such as storm water drainage, or structural design. However would not expect them to design massive dams, railway bridges or multi-storey buildings greater than 6 storeys high. (3m per storey x 6 storeys = 18m potential supply of steel, without a splice if you're lucky, 12m is more common.)

This is not to say they are not capable, they are most certainly capable of contributing to a significant extent. The issue is that persons with far greater breadth of knowledge should be supervising the design function for more complex technologies. These people with greater breadth of knowledge should also have greater breadth of experience.

I have heard some professional engineers talk about throwing graduates in the deep end. This is all very good as long as it does not cause unwarranted expense to the client or hazard to factory and construction workers, nor create hazard to the community. The deep end is not that of a professional engineer: the deep end for a graduate is that for an engineering associate.

An engineering associate can take project from concept to implementation, the issue is that these projects have little uncertainty and little risk. All the technologies and procedures are established, including those for assessing suitability of purpose and proof of concept. There is little unexpected to turn up.

The unexpected always turns up: and that's because no individual can know everything and few are ever given all the time really required to review all that is needed. So there is always some issue to be resolved working fast on your feet in real time. Further there is hopefully someone who can assist to get out off the trouble because they have been there before and/or know the solution. The alternative is that there is the ideal and there is reality, and no need to get pedantic about process if it doesn't really make much difference: hopefully get it right on the next one. Because until get it right on the simple projects, the individual is not going to be moved to more complex projects, more to the point the business is likely to avoid complex projects, if the simple and predictable keep turning into nightmares.

There are a multitude of small businesses which need to be employing engineering associates on staff so that engineers can get on with the more complex stuff.

In the larger organisations, engineering associates can be taken off drawing boards and allowed to put their education to work typically doing what engineers are currently doing. The engineers can then be freed to put their actual education to work. {Ah! But they want the status without actually using their degree.}

Drafters can be more readily trained. Also people have not necessarily chosen Associate Degrees due to lack of ability, its more likely lack of funds: the need to expend the minimum amount of time to get a ticket to employment, and start earning income. So if got engineering associates on staff, push them, give them opportunity to prove themselves, and assist the best to get higher education., and move up through technologist to engineer. Of course a company has to be doing more than the routine to unleash the potential of graduate engineers.

Also to put it bluntly, in the main industry is better served by people with multiple associate degrees than persons having a single bachelor degree, masters degrees are also of limited value. Its not depth that is sought, it is breadth, and adaptability. Also 2 people with associate degrees can accomplish far more than one person with a bachelor degree in a given time frame on the routine tasks that are typically carried out.


{NB: The problem is that at present too many academic programmes are biased towards the breadth of the engineering disciplines, rather specialist areas of practice. The result is no one is job ready. Engineering Associates should be job ready, only need a few days of supervision to get started, and be up to speed after 12 months on the job. Not interested in what happens. This requirement is the specification, if its not happening then the education needs changing.}

More Irritation with Engineers Australia and APESMA

I thought I had shut down all input from social networks associated with these groups, so that I wouldn't be distracted by their nonsense, but seems I was wrong: some leaked through.

It seems APESMA, the association of professional engineers scientists and managers Australia has created new internal groupings or something, and so Professional Engineers Australia has emerged.

I guess they didn't like resurrecting the original name which was something like: APES. A name which some probably think is an apt description of engineers. It certainly reflects my understanding of the letter 'P'  in CP.Eng. Nearly 5 years they took to dream this post nominal detritus up to improve status: not sure how capitalist profiteer, or cretinous primate, improves status. See once something is released to the market it takes on a whole new live of its own: and since engineers are seen as ignorant of the environment and the consequences of the technologies they release, it is clear that any post nominal dreamed up needs to be such that it does not provide an easy hook into reinforcing the communities negative views. It should be noted I only listed the relatively polite possibilities for CP, I'm sure people can find more interesting expletives to use.

However,  back to the issue, I do not see any value in creating these separatist elitist clique's.

Further the issue of importance is that Engineers Australia sought to redesign the industrial environment, and poorly executed its implementation. It introduced the concept of engineering technologists, without creating an industrial award for such. It ignored the technical officers awards and renamed engineering associates to engineering officers. It further ignored the technical officers awards which placed engineering technicians subordinate to engineering associates and equated engineering associates to WFEO engineering technicians. With the federal system, most of the state awards have been scrapped, and currently there appears to be only one federal award and that is for technical professionals: which doesn't cover the full technical team.

Further in the design of this new industrial environment, it is inappropriate to hold the new members of the engineering team as responsible for creating their own little groups and promoting their occupation. It is meant to be an engineering team, and each member of the team has an identifiable skill set not held by other members. Engineering Associates form the solid foundation on which the pinnacle stands firm, they are essential. The professional engineers and engineering technologists are not essential.

The engineering associates deal with the firmly established technologies, for which the technical science is well established and the risk and uncertainty is extremely low: and they are supposed to be educated in specific areas of practice not broad engineering disciplines. Engineering associates are responsible for the technologies we have and are dependent upon, their body of knowledge defines the frontier of science and technology. Just because a technology was originally designed by an engineer, does not mean that an engineer is needed to redesign apply and adapt that technology.

By promoting occupational cliques and professional elitism, we are eroding the foundation. Further more the resulting professionals are something far less than the learned elite they contend to be.

It also causes industrial relations problems. If work is well within the capabilities of an engineering associate but an engineer typically does the work, then to pass the work over to the engineering associate raises the contention that the engineering associate is doing the work of an engineer and therefore should be paid as such.

On the other hand if the work is with in the capabilities of an engineering associate then the engineer doing the work should be paid as an engineering associate not an engineer, ignoring the potential the B.Eng provides and pay according to their actual contribution not according to their education. This industrial relations system also hampers developing new technologies and then handing over to engineering associates once the technology has been established.

Once a technology is released to the market it will be put to uses far beyond the intents of the designers, and likely have impacts beyond their imaginations. Engineers Australia has basically demonstrated poor planning, design and management skills with respect to the industrial products it is trying market. These human cogs it has defined don't really fit anywhere. Industry is basically being forced to buy what is being supplied rather than what it really needs. But then again it could design and make what it needs: or is there something preventing them from doing so? I'd contend the professions are an obstructive obstacle.

I contend that Engineers Australia is attempting to float a pinnacle in fresh air, rather than stand it on a firm foundation. The contention has been held that some of the big mining and infrastructure projects have failed to launch due to a shortage of engineers.

My contention is they failed to launch due to having eroded the foundation of the engineering team: namely the trades people, the drafters and the engineering associates. These people form the army which makes things happen, engineers have the vision to give them direction and put them to work.

I contend we are creating a society which is top heavy. We should stop promoting professional engineer to school leavers, and instead promote engineering, and get them in at the ground floor. With plenty of opportunity for the best to step up the ranks towards professional engineer.

At present the professional engineers, the CP.Eng's are less than the learned people they contend to be.

That has a two fold effect. One is that industry has no faith in CP.Eng as a reliable indicator of technical competence, and therefore will not select employees on the basis of such accreditation over and above any other qualifications. Secondly persons not having CP.Eng credentials, don't see those with CP.Eng as being competent, and therefore see no reason to join such class of individuals.

In fact it can work the other way round. Clients themselves having got some rubbish from a CP.Eng go looking for a real engineer: that usually means older engineers and/or engineers with overseas qualifications. People who actually gained experience working on serious projects, under the supervision of a properly qualified individual, and who then went through some relevant qualification process for their discipline. The CP.Eng credential is based on some generic rubbish, and is an unreliable test of technical competence: it is based on far too great an assumption that the competence comes from the B.Eng: the required technical competence never has come from such degree. Some CP.Eng's are competent, the issue is that its an unreliable indicator: as we do not know what they are competent in, nor what they are deficient in.

For example a lot of the civil/structural engineers operating in the area of manufactured structural products are a public menace. Besides lacking adequate knowledge of structures, they also lack knowledge of industrial product design. The result is poor service to the manufacturer/suppliers of the structural products and poor service to the greater community. Those carrying out certification work for the regulating authorities are no better.

A lot of the work which passes through the office is well within the capabilities of engineering associates, it is dull for engineering technologists, the work is flowing in because people think they need an engineer. This work should be flowing to engineering associates in the first place.

The regulators should stop refer to the need for engineering and the need for engineers reports. The requirements of the system are adequate evidence-of-suitability, and often the engineers are not capable of supplying adequate evidence: as they lack adequate knowledge of the technology they are supposed to be assessing and otherwise fail to properly research such established technology, or otherwise don't have the time.

Established technology is the realm of engineering associates, or as I prefer Associate Technologists. Forget about recent years in which engineers have been relegated to being the tools of regulators. The proper role of an engineer is pushing forward the frontiers of science and technology. Their education is for such purpose and they lack adequate knowledge of the established technologies, and industry is unreliable as a trainer.

The Associate Technologist is meant to be educated in the specific area of practice not a broad engineering discipline. Their task is to maintain the technological base of our industrial society. Buildings shouldn't fall down, bridges shouldn't collapse, machines shouldn't blow up. All of this is established technology.

After an engineer as originated something, the ingenious leap of logic is no longer necessary. A new generation of technologists and Associate Technologists can be trained to apply and implement such new technology.

We are pushing the elitism of the professional engineer and failing to train the people we really need. Lets make sure we build and sustain an army of competent Associate Technologists before we push the elitism of professional engineer.