PhD in Philology Cheremisina Harrer I.A.

Tomsk Polytechnic University, Russia

Engineering design and soft skills

The design engineer plays an important role in shaping society, its lifestyle, values, and priorities, the influence being particularly evident in the modern, technology-driven age - and yet engineers seem to have retreated and remained largely anonymous background figures. Taken into account the impact of inventions or, generally speaking, innovations brought to life by design engineers, they should be much more upfront, a much more public figure, and should play a much more active role in the community.

The engineering design process is aimed at creating a plan or a scheme to assist an engineer in creating a product. The engineering design is defined as ‘a decision-making process in which the basic sciences, mathematics, and engineering sciences are applied to convert resources optimally to meet a stated objective. Among the fundamental elements of the design process are the establishment of objectives and criteria, synthesis, analysis, construction, testing and evaluation. The engineering design process is a multi-step process including the research, conceptualization, feasibility assessment, establishing design requirements, preliminary design, detailed design, production planning and tool design, and finally production’ [1].

The design phase involves intensive two-way dialogue with the client. A close fit has to be developed between the client’s business plan and risk model and the strategic elements of the proposed design. Both the designer and the client must agree on the boundaries of the intended system and this must be done, not only in terms of the technical details, but also in terms of time [2, 3].

Both parties need to share a common risk assessment and management process that takes into account the inevitable uncertainties. This is particularly important in terms of the technologies to be employed; the areas where the design will require creativity and judgment. Finally, it must include a financial model that expresses and tackles the key economic uncertainties from both the client and designer viewpoint. In summary, this is the period when the design engineer ensures that there is a clear understanding of the purpose of the system to be delivered by the project and his/her ability to deliver it.

Another key characteristic of engineering design is the way in which it involves a large number of agreements and compromises. Behind most advantages there is a cost; behind most savings, there is a performance penalty. There is no ideal or perfect solution, but there are many possible solutions and the skill of the engineer lies in producing the best or optimal one. Mention should be made of flexibility; climate change can be taken as an illustrative example of the point. It is proved that making ethanol synthetically from oil is much cheaper than fermenting cane sugar, molasses and the rest. As a consequence of climate change we now have the situation where we are told that ethanol produced by fermentation should replace petroleum fuels.

The design engineer has to take account not just of technology and economics. There are significant non-financial benefits and disadvantages to take into account. Beyond the client, there are other important stakeholders, although their identity may not be immediately obvious and effort is required to establish who they might be. As engineers, people need to understand that these stakeholders will often have a completely different agenda from their client and themselves.

Moreover, when reflecting on purpose, apart from utility and making it work, and apart from aesthetics, some other values begin to appear. There are ethics, for sure; a social focus, because people are concerned with health, education and care for the elderly; environmental responsibility and sustainable development; and engagement with the developing world. The list is not complete, but these are issues which are certainly receiving the attention of professional engineering communities.

Employers require engineers who have the following soft skills - creativity, analysis, judgment and leadership [4]. Let us consider each of the qualities individually. Creativity is not a passive process and one does not just follow the rules, in other words, the engineer needs to be innovative, come up with new, fresh, unexpected ideas. Analysis is based on hard calculation and not hand-waving. Analysis involves comparing and contrasting ideas, their realization, evaluating benefits and shortages, finishing up with a balanced and sensible solution. Judgment means reasoning, one cannot look up answers for everything and, eventually, one has to make a valuable judgment. This follows the above criteria (analysis). Both are interconnected and depend on each other. Leadership is important: engineers should learn to lead the project. Although good managers do not need to be engineers, that depends on the project and engineering activity, its specifics.

In conclusion we would like to add that engineering is more socially- than technology-driven activity as it may seem at the first sight, because engineers aim to improve the quality of life out in the community. However, what distinguishes engineering from other equally socially-driven professions is its range of activity, its ability to combine science with judgment and intuition; and all of this within a disciplined, technical framework. Engineers have the skill and ability to design, complex systems that work. They can combine science-based technologies with social insight. The engineer’s mission must surely be to serve the community and, to do this, the engineer needs to have the skills of communication and debate to engage the community and to address and educate its needs and aspirations.

References

1. Ertas, A. & Jones, J The Engineering Design Process. 2nd ed. New York, N.Y., John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 1996.

2. Turnbull, John The Context and Nature of Engineering Design, Wharton Business School in the University of Pennsylvania, USA, 2005.

3. http://www.raeng.org.uk/societygov/philosophyofeng/pdf/abstract_papers.pdf

4. Elliott, Chris Engineering as Synthesis – Doing Right Things and Doing Things Right, Imperial College and the University of Bristol, UK, 2007.