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July 19, 2006
Burning Question
Is the U.S. at risk of an engineering shortage?
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16 CommentsWe are in a vast engineering shortage across all disciplines. The main problem is colleges and universities have lost track of the true disciplines and are turning out great mechanics of latent theory. But the enlightened cross-disciplined minds of theory that can truly "engineer our futures" are lacking because of a let's study how they did that so you can too focus.
July 19, 2006 11:34 AMNow that manufacturing has largely been moved from the States and computer technology is increasingly outsourced, the need for engineers has greatly decreased.
Academia does indeed have a vested interest in
creating engineers even if many of those engineers will be unemployed for large segments of their careers.
Engineering is the discipline that has created all the man-made wonders all over the world, whether it be in the construction phase as in old world or in the design phases with construction in the new world.
Lack or shortage of Engineering personnal would ensure eventually that the technological lead that this country has had all these years would be taken by others and one day men would be visiting USA to see the historical site that it once was.
Is Ann Rand being proved true? Has John Galt removed all the capable men in this country?
George Thomas
July 19, 2006 12:48 PMWell I think that the manufacturing of all industry in electronics demand less engineers due the automatization of many process.
July 19, 2006 5:40 PMGreed and lack of Vision has caused America to produce non-inventive engineers, who, if properly educated and trained, could help America to maintain our former position as world leader in every field requiring a new widget.
It begins with the greed in acadamia, where college professors continually petition the INS to grant more visas for foreign students to study in the USA -- spreading the false notion that we are having a shortage of engineers from within our own nation. The reason, they get $50+ for each student in their classroom. In addition, they make only a minimum effort to teach theory, rather than the practical aspects of Engineering and Design. Consequently, graduate engineers usually can't solve problems that require creating an innovative, or even a practical, Design.
The greed continues when the newly graduated Engineers are hired by Corporate America, who have been ill advised by their accounting staff to fire the experienced "overpaid" engineer and replace him/her with a lower-paid new graduate or foreign-born worker.
Therefore, we have lost the benefit of our "apprenticeship" system, as there are no grey-haired, experienced engineers to supervise the younger ones and share with them the benefits of their experience, while teaching them the real aspects of creating innovative and/or practical designs that could resolve the real problems.
The result: Jobs are constantly over budget and over schedule and require multiple reworks to obtain a working end product.
July 20, 2006 8:09 AMThe problem that exists now is a lack of viable focus for graduates.
Beginning engineers need to have had practical mentoring in school or after they graduate.
Sure, some engineers are going to design all that we create in the future. However, they also make excellent business owners.
With lean manufacturing, a just-in-time mentality, and the cost of long-distance freight; we should all look at going back to smaller more flexible companies. That is what will be able to compete with outsourced products.
Long production runs do not lend themselves to the custom or semi-custom side of manufacturing.
Short run, job shops have always had work to do and we can teach that ability to future generations.
Simply stated: "Owner Operator Engineers" always puts a technical person close enough to handle problems as they come up. Perhaps we just need to make (OOE) a specialized degree, like MBA or Ph.D?
Thanks,
Bill Flint, retired WEF MFG.
July 22, 2006 5:41 PMFirst things first.
Simplistically, where do American engineers come from? Mostly, from american universities.
What to american universities primarily want to do ? Mostly, they want to "screen" for potential researchers, at the undergraduate level. Then, they want to (audition) for trainee researchers, at the masters level. And finally, they want to train (apprentice ?) researchers, at the doctorate level. Thus, the better researchers are "sifted" from the rest, probably to more publishing, garnering more grant money, and hopefully, more academic aclaim. And if, somehow, a graduate (accidentally ?) slips into the actual practice of engineering, and becomes adquately successful enough to endow a school with a building named after himself, well, that might be nice if it encourages more research. But heaven forbid that a school should actually get it's "hands" the slightest bit dingy by trying to actually focus on producing real practitioners!!! Oh, the indignity of such a thing...
(...he sarcastically said...)
August 2, 2006 12:01 AMThe shortage started around 1970 when one offical said we need to de-educate our children so, the pour countries can catch up. The USA children are smarter than all other children in the world so we have an unfair advantage on the job market.
As you can see, by de-education we now have stupid children and in return have stupid adults and parents. This is why our Government makes stupid mistakes.
This is why we have to hire outsiders to run our companies.
This is why the Americans are in so bad of shape.
This is why Americans like me are in so much demand around the world. We have knowledge and knowledge is power.
