Engineering is not becoming a Commodity, You Just Don't Know What Engineering Is

In recent years there have been comments and articles suggesting that engineering is becoming a commodity, that is its price can be pushed down and bought and sold like say spuds. Some supermarkets certainly believe they can buy services that way and impose same %20 discount as they do when buying spuds and the likes in bulk: but they don't buy services in bulk, or provide business of any significance.

Nevertheless, those who believe engineering is becoming a commodity are mistaken. The problem is they don't know what engineering is. They think they are engineers. They think they provide engineering services. They think their degree makes them an engineer. They want to use the title engineer, and many want to claim sole use of the title. Unfortunately the service they are providing is not engineering.

In the past people were needed to push numbers through mathematical formula, this may have been significant skill, and it may have been possible to base a career simply crunching numbers. But this is no longer  the case. A brainless, unimaginative block of silicon can crunch the numbers faster and with greater consistency.

Engineering takes place at the frontiers of science and technology.

Engineering is not merely a rational scientific approach to design of systems. As I have mentioned many times before, a rational scientific approach to the design of established technologies and variants off such technology can be taught in a very short time: less than 12 months if needed.

A building is an established technology. We can check that it was designed correctly, we can check that it was constructed properly. The Opal Towers building either wasn't designed and properly assessed as fit-for-function, or it wasn't built to the specifications, or a combination of both.

Will licensing civil engineers prevent the problem on future projects. No it won't! Civil engineers only study structures as part of their education, they do not spend 4 years studying structures. More over the application of structural mechanics to buildings and/or bridges depends on industry experience, and the competence and experience of those supervising graduates. So a supervisor with trite experience, merely begets a graduate with trite experience, it does not produce the required level of competence.

I know writing career episode reports and work practice reports is time consuming and difficult to get right. From an industrial engineering viewpoint, job description is time consuming and difficult. Merely explaining how to make a cup of coffee can be difficult, getting the instruction correct for a robot to follow is even more difficult. So for certain, a person may have gone through a hard and difficult time to become chartered, but that doesn't mean it was in anyway a reliable assessment of required competence for the task for which a person is to profess expertise.

Expertise in the appropriate technology is the requirement. Civil, mechanical and electrical "engineers" do not have adequate knowledge of buildings. As for architects, they seem more like graphic artists than competent building designers: hence apparently more buildings designed by "building designers" than "qualified" architects. In short, these people, are just not competent, for the task for which they profess expertise.

We cannot rely on industry to pass on the required knowledge, we cannot rely on industry to maintain and safeguard a body of knowledge for future generations. Most especially if the knowledge goes out off practical use for a significant period of time. A system can be designed once and built many times, so it is possible for years to pass, before require anyone who can design. But when the need for design arises as a community we have an established expectation for performance: and low tolerance for anything below the desired performance.

This is where modern "engineers" have lost track of their role. These modern "engineers" do not engineer, they are code cruncher's, they assess compliance with national codes: such activity is not engineering.

Sorry Roma The Engineer, but I very much doubt there was any engineering involved with the design of the Shard, sure there was a requirement for structural design: but the structural design would have been based on established body of technical science.

I don't do multistorey buildings, but basically have a stick cantilevered out of the ground. The higher from the ground the higher the wind load, the taller the stick the greater the tendency to buckle under dead and live loading. If taper the building as it goes up, than it reduces the weight as it goes up, it also reduces the surface area exposed to the wind. Tapered building: Blackpool tower, the Eiffel tower. Roma is right that history is interesting: why reinvent the wheel if going to produce something inferior. Need a reference point for what to surpass.

This isn't to diminish the value of the input to the project. It is just to highlight, that if we are going to be picky about who is and is not an engineer (like Engineers Australia, and RPEQ's like to be), then we need to be able to define engineering without reference to the word engineer.

As I mentioned in an earlier post. If technologist can do the work, then not engineering. If an associate technologist can do the work then not engineering.

The architectural engineer is potentially more qualified to design a building than either an architect or a civil engineer. Assuming the architectural engineer studies, structures, electrical and mechanical systems.

{Sorry! It is extremely rare that someone graduates in Structural Engineering: structural engineering is a specialisation after graduating in either civil engineering or mechanical engineering. A machine is a structure which moves. A non-machine structure is a mechanism which is locked.}

An architectural engineer, is thus something of a variant to a naval architect, which begs the question why are garden variety architects not more competent at design of structural, mechanical and electrical systems. Why do we need a team of architects, civil, structural, mechanical and electrical engineers to design a building? And more importantly, where is the engineering? The building comprises of an assembly of established technologies.

Electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, in each instance we are defining technology. If the technology exists then the engineering is over. We can educate and train people to design these technologies in the first instance not rely on professional cults and industry to pass on the required knowledge. Knowledge itself requires better organising and managing.

Looking at another situation, Elon Musk, seems like an engineer, when considering Tesla Inc. But electric vehicles are an established technology, as are diesel electric vehicles. Diesel electric vehicles comprise of trains, ships and heavy industrial, construction and mining equipment. Electric vehicles comprise of milk floats, industrial tugger and lifting vehicles, and scooters.

Tesla electric vehicles are not at the frontiers of science they are pushing at the frontiers of practical technology. The technical science is there to design and build an electric vehicle. The problem is the weight of the vehicle and especially the weight of the power source. So need improved battery technology. We have had batteries for a long time, so expect that there is an established body of technical science to allow design of a battery, using established technology, for a specific purpose.

So the technology is a variant of established technologies based on established science. The engineering starts when seek an alternative power source: generate electricity by means other than the traditional chemistry of batteries. Not seek by blind mindless experiments, but by controlled experiments. This is the scientific knowledge we have, therefore: what new technology can be developed to generate a power source? Once got an answer to that question, and found a practical method of generating power and a scientific basis to design a system to be fit-for-purpose, then the engineering is over. Then we can train technologists to design and further develop the technology.

It is not the engineering which is the commodity, it is the technology which is the commodity. Furthermore when it comes to buildings, engineers have been inserted into the process of design, where they were not previously required.

The result is that engineers having been an unwanted insertion into the building design process, they are a  bottleneck to be removed. They hinder rapid supply of buildings: there is a shortage of housing, schools, and hospitals. There is certainly not a shortage of this rubbish {What's the expected radial reach of such building, as it is this kind of building which generates urban sprawl not the car.}.

Take sheds, carports and verandahs as an example. When I started in structural design around 1996, most manufacturers had standard calculations. If a clients proposed building was enveloped by a standard design, then the standard design was taken as suitable for that building. The typical supplier consistently indicated that 90% of the time they could get approval without something they called "engineering". Now in 2019 many suppliers have product configurator software which can do the structural calculations at the point of sale, operated by salespeople. The next stage would be to shift this online, and have the configurator operated by the buyer.

That something they called "engineering", wasn't "engineering" in 1996, and it certainly isn't "engineering" now. But regulators haven't kept pace they send people off to get "engineering" or an "engineers" report.

But there is no engineering involved and I'm certain most people don't want to be involved with an engineering project, certainly don't want to pay for one, rather they want reliable established technologies.

So have a choice:

1. Either continue calling this stuff engineering and accept that a person can be educated to design such technology in a 2 year academic programme.
2. Or Stop calling this stuff engineering, give it a new name, such as technical design, and accept that a person can be educated in a 2 year academic programme.

The fundamental requirement no matter what other options may consider, is accepting that a 2 year academic programme can provide the necessary knowledge and capability to design established technologies. The architectural engineering programme maybe 3 to 4 years duration, but that is because it contains breadth of technology, not depth in understanding a specific technology.

Though for certain can most likely create a 3 year programme in structural mechanics or applied mechanics. Likewise a 2 year programme should cover the static design of building structures, whilst a 3 year programme could expand to structural dynamics. No need to waste time with 4 year B.Eng in civil followed by a M.Eng in structures (with focus on structural dynamics).

In short we can educate and train people in technology and the associated technical science, but that doesn't make them engineers and neither does the work they do.

We are wasting national resources training people in 4 year B.Eng programmes, if they never get the opportunity to "engineer" and they are not otherwise competent in the technologies for which they are assigned responsibility.

So really do need to define engineering.

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Related Posts

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Revisions:
[15/02/2019] : Original
[25/03/2019] : Minor Edits and Formatting

THE TECHNICAL WORKFORCE

{This is a from an earlier attempt at a journal back in 2003 (Voume 1; No:3), and was made available in pdf format on my personal web space now discontinued.. It has been available on scribd since 2011: MorfJV01003origin}

As a first estimate we will consider a simplified Pareto analysis. A Pareto model, suggests that we have two dependent variables, and that the majority of one is the cause of the minority in the other. Thus giving rise to names such as the: 80-20 rule or the 60-40 rule. A simple example of a Pareto model is that 80% of defects can be traced to 20% of all causes. Or that 80% of profits are derived from 20% of the products sold.

To apply this to engineering we make the assertion that:

80% of problems can be solved by applying 20% of our knowledge base.

Given that the typical 4 year Bachelor of engineering degree consists of at least 5 streams, one of which is general art and science subjects. We can conclude that each stream requires 9.6 calendar months, and if we conclude that only 1/4 of the general art and science stream is required for any of the other four streams, then we require an extra 2.4 calendar months for a self-contained study programme. That is a total of  12 calendar months for the entire study programme (eg. ¼ of the 4 year programme). Such a course can therefore be awarded an academic certificate, with the graduates becoming engineering technicians.

Level	Years of Education	% of Problems can Solve
Engineering Technicians	1 year (Cert)	80.00
Engineering Officers	2 year (Assoc. Dip.)	96.00
Engineering Technologists	3 year (B.Tech)	99.20
Engineers	4 year (B.Eng)	99.84
Éngineers	5 year (M.Eng)	99.96

In the above table I have made the assumption that each additional year of education permits the individual to solve 80% more of what is remaining. That is the Technician has a deficiency of 20%, the Officer can solve 80% of this 20%, resulting in an additional 16% of problems being capable of being solved. Resulting in the technologist being able to solve 80% of the remaining 4%, and so on.  Given this capability we would expect the work force to have the following distribution.

Level	Years of Education	% of Work Force
Engineering Technicians	1 year (Cert)	80.00
Engineering Officers	2 year (Assoc. Dip.)	16.00
Engineering Technologists	3 year (B.Tech)	3.200
Engineers	4 year (B.Eng)	0.640
Éngineers	5 year (M.Eng)	0.128

So the next question to consider is: Can we extend this concept backwards to account for no formal tertiary education, including no formal trade certificates? That is what capability does 2 years of additional schooling after 10 compulsory years of schooling count for? What value is the 10 years of schooling? What value is the first 5 years of schooling? And what value is the first 5 years of education in the hands of parents worth? Is our education system of any value?

Clearly by extending the concept backwards, the capabilities of individuals is going to be demonstrated to be increasingly deficient. So another question to ask is: Is the 80% capability at the 1 year Certificate level valid? Maybe 80% should be set for the 10 years of compulsory education? At this point however, I will stick with the certificate level. {Though I will indicate that I believe that grade 11 and grade 12 should be scrapped, and Trade and Tertiary education should start immediately after grade 10. Hence all the above mentioned levels will be completed with 2 years less education.}

To be able to extend the concept backwards we need a mathematical equation rather than a methodology. Attempting to extrapolate this concept backwards numerically results in the following curve. Which is not very useful, it suggests we all know nothing at the age of 17.


What we therefore want is an equation that has a value of zero for the proportion of knowledge at age zero, and increases from there forward. But which however, has an asymptote at 1, that is we never achieve 100% knowledge, we approach it, but never reach it. Further learning in the early years to be more slowly than in later years, once we have learnt to read, learning should become rapid, up until at point at which further increase in depth of knowledge becomes limited and vastly more difficult to achieve. The resultant formula as the following form:

Proportion of knowledge = 1-A.exp(-t.k)

Where ‘t’ is the time, and ‘A’ and ‘k’ are constants. To achieve results similar to our 80/20 rule the values of the constants are:

A = 1
k = c . tⁿ
n = 4
c = 1.53789E-06

For those familiar with learning curves, maybe you could replace  the above with a more formal learning curve.

This results in the following table:

Age	Level	Years of Education	% of Problems can Solve
15	School Leaver	Compulsory Only	68.90
16	Engineering Technicians	1 year (Cert)	80.06
17	Engineering Officers	2 year (Assoc. Dip.)	88.74
18	Engineering Technologists	3 year (B.Tech)	94.53
19	Engineers	4 year (B.Eng)	97.78
20	Éngineers	5 year (M.Eng)	99.27

Thus revisiting our distribution of the workforce we now have:

Level	Years of Education	% of Work Force
School Leaver	Compulsory Only	68.90
Engineering Technicians	1 year (Cert)	11.17
Engineering Officers	2 year (Assoc. Dip.)	8.67
Engineering Technologists	3 year (B.Tech)	5.79
Engineers	4 year (B.Eng)	3.25
Éngineers	5 year (M.Eng)	1.49

It should be noted that by my definitions, doctors, lawyers, politicians, architects, accountants, managers, are also technicians with increasing abilities. Everybody fits into the classifications. After all a surgeon is little different that a car mechanic, they just possess knowledge of a different system and have different tool kits. And more importantly neither is very good at diagnosing and fixing problems, leaving us with the adage that prevention is better than cure.

It should be noted that our new model now requires a greater proportion of the higher grades, compared with our original model. Hence whilst my original objective was to illustrate that the higher levels of education were a significant waste of global and community resources from an employment viewpoint, if you were to check national and state statistics, I have probably done the opposite. {Education as a matter of personal interest and curiosity is not being considered here. What we are considering here is the education required to sustain our technological systems, including society itself.}

To illustrate I will use some rather old statistics for South Australia extracted from the 1992 pocket yearbook for South Australia, and based on the 1986 census. I will leave it to readers to compare against up to date statistics.

Qualification	% of Population (?)	Grouping (%)
Not Stated	8.64	71.60
No Qualification	62.96
Other	3.73	20.44
Other Certificate	6.81
Trade certificate	9.90
Diploma	3.43	6.83
Bachelor Degree	3.40
Graduate Diploma	0.68	0.68
Higher Degree	0.46	0.46

Given that statistics at the time also indicate that 38.5% of population not in labour force, and that 5.7% of population were unemployed. Then it should be clear that if we adopt the model we have developed here, some incentive is required to push everybody higher up the educational hierarchy to remove unemployment.

However, it should be noted that the state statistics are not actually looking at education, they are looking at formal certification and recognition of learning. All attempts to improve our education system are actually focused on employment of teachers, they have little if anything to do with learning, education or qualification.

The disincentive towards higher levels of education are not actually disincentives to learning, rather most people have little desire to waste their time being told what they already know, and also in many circumstances, understand far better than the persons teaching. It is not education that is required but proper assessment and recognition of skills and knowledge held by individuals. That is we really need a national even international, independent examination board. Further more we need vastly improved quality assurance systems throughout all technological systems that form society. We need improved regulations and control systems.

The industrial revolution was built on the back of people learning to read and write, and then reaping the benefits of such abilities. The plans for one steam engine are published, and before you know it, steam engines are being built and experimented with throughout the country. Unfortunately whilst patents place inventions on public record they also stifle supply. Well, the extortionate demands of the owners of the patents stifle supply. In any case technology was not progressing as a consequence of special technical schools, it was developing as a consequence of individual interests, either for financial gain or just intellectual curiosity.

Engineering is stifled by universities and examinations. Engineering is about applying scientific knowledge to the development of new technologies. It is not about memorising facts and re-iterating them in examinations. It is of little value to society that one engineer can analyse a structure from first principles and do all the calculations in their head without need of computer, calculator, slide rule or log tables. Such intellectual capability is of no significance. In fact having the intellectual capacity to merely look at a building concept and know that it is not going to work, or even that it will work, is also of no value. For the community requires proof that the concept will work, before committing resources to its construction. Such proof is dependent upon communication and the level of the common intellect. The higher the common intellect, the simpler the proof’s need to be: that is you can leap ten steps in one bound and then go one step at a time. If the common intellect is low, then proof has to be presented one step at a time.

So we now have more books published than ever before, we also have the internet filled with electronic publications. Further more we also have access to computers and software that can perform all kinds of complex calculations, more importantly we can program these computers ourselves.

Thus whilst one person is wasting their time studying in a university and attempting to pass exams, another scholar can be reading a text book and programming a computer. The former graduates with a worthless scrap of paper (B.Eng) and proceeds to look for employment, the other graduates with a fully operational computer program that is sold to an increasing market place.

To close this issue: Engineering is about the application of science to develop technology. Either you have an interest in creating new technologies or you don’t. If you don’t have such interest then all an higher education will do is make you an higher level technician, it won’t make you an engineer. My model above is based on real engineers, not an educated elite. If the upper levels are merely an educated elite with no imagination, no ingenuity then educating them to that level of knowledge is of no value. It is the non-conformists, that we need to encourage to the higher levels. Truth is not reached by agreeing with examiners: that the earth is flat and at the centre of universe. It is reached by a failure to understand and comprehend the models presented, and a desire and interest in seeking a better understanding of reality: not a better understanding of the models.

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Related Posts:

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Issues/Releases:
[10/08/2003] : Original
[17/11/2011] : Scribd
[06/01/2016] : Blogger/Original

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Revsions:
[06/01/2016] : Original