Eva Paus, as far as I know, was the first to coin the term “Tico Tiger” in 2005 in her book subtitled “Can Costa Rica become Ireland ?” Richard Soley more recently resurrected the term when he suggested I use it as the title of a talk I gave this week in San Jose, Costa Rica, “Experiencias del Tigre Celta para el Tigre Tico”. “Tico”, by the way, is a form of endearment which Costa Ricans use colloquially to refer to each other as natives of their country, perhaps as we in Ireland sometimes call ourselves “paddies”.
I first met Richard just about 20 years ago, in Brussels at an annual ESPRIT conference. Pretty soon thereafter, when I was an academic in Trinity College, together with IONA co-founder Annrai O’Toole, I collected Richard from an OMG meeting in the height of the “troubles” in Northern Ireland and drove him across the border down to Dublin to give an invited talk on the OMG in Trinity. Richard regularly reminds me, and did so again last week when I met him, of our three passports – American, Irish, and British – being scrutinised at length by gun toting teenagers in army fatigues – apparently employed by the British Army – at the heavily fortified border crossing with the Republic. I think he was quite shocked, actually.
I was in San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, last week to give an invited talk on the experiences and some lessons, from my personal perspective, of drama of the Celtic Tiger. The talk itself was on Thursday evening last, to the Club de Investigacion – run by Roberto Sasso – whose members consist primarily of senior executives from end user organisations throughout Costa Rica. Via Roberto, I also met the Minister for Foreign Trade, Marco Vinicio Ruiz and separately, the chief executive of CINDE – the equivalent of the Irish IDA.
It was my first visit to Costa Rica. I had heard of course of its astonishing natural beauty and lush green landscapes, as well as its extraordinary Caribbean and Pacific coastlines. However, I had not realised it was such a geothermally active region, with 38 volcanoes. San Jose appeared reasonably clean, not very much litter, and not very much graffiti, at least in comparison to parts of Dublin! In a very surprising way, it reminded me of the extraordinary beauty of the countryside of Rwanda, which I visited earlier this year, with luxurious forests and vegetation, lurking volatile summits, wonderful animals in natural habitat (e.g, gorillas in Rwanda, jaguar in Costa Rica..), low rise red tiled and silver corrugated roofed homes and buildings, and extraordinarily warm and generous people. I was fortunate enough to be taken, and to have a clear view for at least ten minutes, of the crater of Poas volcano , 2,800 metres high and about a 2 hour (uphill!) drive from San Jose. On the way down, I also visited the La Paz hotel gardens, with a wonderful track through native rain forest and damply intimate to a series of four spectacular waterfalls. Some of my own photos are here. It is the rainy season at the moment, and on Friday afternoon I experienced the heaviest and darkest monsoon cloud in my life: over 12 cm of rain gushed over San Jose in just a few hours. Everyone seemed to take it in their stride, and said it was routine and would probably rain as heavily the next day. And I thought we had had a wet summer in Ireland, but this was something else..
The democratic institutions of Costa Rica are interesting, and ones from which we in Ireland and in other countries, might appreciate. The President and elected members of parliament have four year terms. Since the 1949 Constitution, a member of parliament can only seek re-election after sitting out one term, ie after a four year participation in parliament, a further four years must pass before he/she can seek re-election! In the case of the President, eight years must pass before he/she can seek re-election. In my view, this philosophy ensures that politicians have an opportunity to stay more aware of ordinary society than some of the long term career politicians which we have in this country. The current president, Oscar Arias Sanchez, is a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, after his work helping end civil wars elsewhere in Latin America. The next elections will be in February 2010.
In 1948, Costa Rica disbanded its armed forces, and has no military forces and no military drain on the public finances. There has been no civil war since 1948, unlike some of the neighbouring countries. There is a public security force, currently with a small number of aircraft and helicopters, for general law enforcement, border patrol, anti-narcotic activities, and rescue.
The Costa Rican economy has been growing fairly steadily, at about 7% in 2007. It has a high standard of living relative to its neighbours about a per capita income of about U.S. $5,800 (and approximately double that on purchasing power parity – PPP – terms), and an unemployment rate of 4.6%. Consumer price inflation has been consistent at about 10% for the last decade. Both the central government and the overall public sector ran fiscal surpluses in 2007.
Costa Rica’s economy has been driven by eco-tourism (particularly from the USA, Canada and Spain) and agriculture, and in particular organically grown coffee, flowers, bananas, pineapples and strawberries, with Dole and Chiquita. However more recently Intel Corporation is established in San Jose and employs over 2,000 people; Proctor and Gamble employs 1,200 people, and both Hospira and Baxter Healthcare add to the health care products industry. There are untapped (for environmental reasons) oil reserves off the Atlantic coast. 90% of electrical power is generated by hydro-electric units, and all fossil fuels are imported - in Ireland, well over 90% of our electricity generation is by contrast from fossil fuels. Surprisingly, in Costa Rica there are not yet any geo-thermal units [actually there is one so far, and I stand corrected since the original version of this posting - see Ignacio Trejos's comment below], and it would seem that Costa Rica has ample opportunity to become a net exporter of electricity, based on its natural hydro and geo-thermal resources.
In the school system, the Government has given tax breaks for the purchase of computers, and many schools are fully equipped. Programming has become part of the entire school agenda. Turning to the software industry, the Microsoft evangelist in the region, whom I met, has done an excellent job for his company: all school students leave school not only with a good grounding in Office tools, but also as at least Visual Basic programmers. There is very little Java competency. The quality of programming capabilities in the young adult population is high. There are today about 80 independent software vendors, many of them however small, exporting in total approximately 200M US$ worth of services and products.
The Club de Investigacion is having its 20th anniversary year. It has recently published a digital strategy for Costa Rica, as part of a national drive improve productivity and to triple income per capita by 2021. It is available in English here and covers the major themes of productivity in the economy; education; and transparency in government institutions.
Next year, the OMG will celebrate its 20th anniversary year, and its June meeting will be hosted in Costa Rica. The OMG was highly influential on the development of IONA, and as a one time Board member of the OMG, I hope to be there to join in the celebrations of the longest global standards organisation in the software industry.
Twenty years of Club de Investigacion, and almost 20 years of the OMG. Reflecting back to 1988 and 1989, I do not believe any of us would have anticipated the rise of the Celtic Tiger in Ireland just a few years later.
I wonder what the next twenty years will bring for the Tico Tiger..
Monday 29 September 2008
Saturday 20 September 2008
ArtBots at the Science Gallery
I remember once in Trinity when I was an engineering student having a long and isolated evening trying to argue a case that there is beautiful art in software programming – and in all engineering disciplines – with a skeptical but distinguished professor of history and fellow humanities students. I explained that software can be incredibly wonderful architected, but of course only the cognoscente – ie software developers, but not mere mortals – can appreciate so. But on the other hand most mere mortals can appreciate the visual arts, good music and literature even if they have not had specialist training. I came away glad I had a flame suit, but it was a fun tease anyway.
The Science Gallery focuses on the confluence of science and technology with art and discovery. This weekend we are hosting ArtBots – the Robot Talent Show, as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival. I went along to the opening last night – it was pretty busy – and really enjoyed some of the more artistic entrants.
On walking in, you are met by Rubot II, which was a centre of attraction for many of the teenagers there, and impressive if not particularly artistic. But close to Rubot, you can hear and see what a 6 metre length of vibrating and oscillating steel band looks like in the Storm and 6 Bands. I really liked the Rechnender Raum, an inverted dynamic machine in which its computations are sent to its centre. What Is It Without The Hand That Wields It was little gruesome, weeping blood every time a player was injured in Counter-Strike Source. I really liked Gossamer-1 with the intricate patterns it layered in response to the ambient sounds in the exhibit.
Ray Lee gave an astonishing orchestral performance of robotic music entitled Force Field as he conducted, and played virtual instruments. By moving his hands – air guitar like – he could pluck strings, play chords, and assemble a rhythmical cacophony of harmonies and melodies – quite amazing. Unfortunately however his only concert was last night, and so if you missed it, well you’ll have to wait until next time.
There are fifteen exhibits altogether, together with play areas where you can build your own robots. Entrance, as is our policy is free. On the flip side, the exhibition is only running this weekend and finishes tomorrow evening: we have to meet the costs of having the exhibitor engineers and artists be with us in Dublin.
So, if you are in Dublin this weekend, do hop on the DART and go explore the show. Its great to be able to show the public that there is art in software, science and engineering :-)..
-
Postscript: some photos from the show are here.
The Science Gallery focuses on the confluence of science and technology with art and discovery. This weekend we are hosting ArtBots – the Robot Talent Show, as part of the Dublin Fringe Festival. I went along to the opening last night – it was pretty busy – and really enjoyed some of the more artistic entrants.
On walking in, you are met by Rubot II, which was a centre of attraction for many of the teenagers there, and impressive if not particularly artistic. But close to Rubot, you can hear and see what a 6 metre length of vibrating and oscillating steel band looks like in the Storm and 6 Bands. I really liked the Rechnender Raum, an inverted dynamic machine in which its computations are sent to its centre. What Is It Without The Hand That Wields It was little gruesome, weeping blood every time a player was injured in Counter-Strike Source. I really liked Gossamer-1 with the intricate patterns it layered in response to the ambient sounds in the exhibit.
Ray Lee gave an astonishing orchestral performance of robotic music entitled Force Field as he conducted, and played virtual instruments. By moving his hands – air guitar like – he could pluck strings, play chords, and assemble a rhythmical cacophony of harmonies and melodies – quite amazing. Unfortunately however his only concert was last night, and so if you missed it, well you’ll have to wait until next time.
There are fifteen exhibits altogether, together with play areas where you can build your own robots. Entrance, as is our policy is free. On the flip side, the exhibition is only running this weekend and finishes tomorrow evening: we have to meet the costs of having the exhibitor engineers and artists be with us in Dublin.
So, if you are in Dublin this weekend, do hop on the DART and go explore the show. Its great to be able to show the public that there is art in software, science and engineering :-)..
-
Postscript: some photos from the show are here.
Thursday 18 September 2008
Building Cathedrals from Bazaars
I wrote this as part of my work for Cloudsmith. It is a follow up of my earlier posting a few weeks ago.
In summary, Cloudsmith lets you browse and find useful bundles of software components which work together – software playlists – and then download ones of interest. Each one can contain components from different software repositories, and Cloudsmith knows where to go, and how to get to them.
--
Eric S. Raymond wrote a seminal paper in 1997, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, contrasting how Linux emerged from a loosely structured, highly collaborative community or "bazaar" with the traditional approach to developing software (open source or proprietary), in which a select group of cathedral-builders controlled every aspect of design and technology.
Most engineers strive to build at least one great “building” during their career, a monument, a shrine, and a testament to their skill. Today, even "cathedrals" are made from parts found at the bazaars - a huge and growing marketplace for open source components, in which thousands of developers promote parts that many other developers combine into new products. The output of many bazaars -- projects and communities such as the Eclipse Foundation, the Apache Foundation, Google Code, SourceForge, etc. - support and publish the efforts of component development teams. Popular components turn up in multiple bazaars, sometimes as identical copies, other times with subtle variations.
Among the challenges development teams, and their co-worker product management and product marketing teams, face when operating within this new ecosystem are:
* What range of components is currently available? Which bazaars have them; what is their status and quality; how popular are they; where can updates and fixes be found; and so on.
* What works with what? What components, and combinations of components, are available? How do the pieces all fit together, and which bazaars have them?
* How popular is this combination of components compared to that alternative one? How do we know when and if we should update a selection of components, as new versions of the constituent parts emerge?
* How can we build playlists which combine components we built ourselves, with components found in public bazaars and that change in ways we don't control? How can we move to the new version of a public component without breaking what we already have? And how can we keep what we found in the bazaar from getting so intertwined with what we built that we can no longer separate them? What is the best strategy to manage change, when your organisation and your team are increasingly mixing public software components with your proprietary assets?
* Who is going to support us when we use some unique combination which we assembled from public bazaars? Is there anyone out there doing something similar we can learn from?
* We fix and extend components we find in the bazaar, and sometimes create entirely new component playlists of our own. How do we share our work with other developers in our organisation or (assuming our corporate policy allows it) contribute things back to the bazaar for the public good? And assuming we've shared it, how do we know who is using it, and for what?
It is, of course, no longer just an issue of providing a stable, managed foundation on which you and your colleagues can build. There is heightened corporate awareness reaching all the way to the audit committees of publicly quoted companies, due to the multiplicity of software licensing policies. The issue of knowing if, when and how public software assets are being used inside a corporation has become a high concern.
The ability to tailor software should be its value rather than its risk. But in todays world, isn't software componentisation paradoxically slower than it could be, precisely due to the changes, improvements and proliferation offered by the community?
Eric Raymond describes how extremely useful software can result from open collaboration, despite the absence of a clear lead architect directing the project. Today’s software repositories illustrate this principle on a grand scale - they are collections of really good and useful components developed, published, maintained and extended, sometimes by individuals and sometimes by organized teams of collaborators, in a process that can seem almost anarchic compared to conventional internal development.
As bazaars of developed, and contributed, software components have matured, the complexity of fitting together appropriate combinations have increased, as has ensuring that things do not break as each component is maintained.
One example is Eclipse, which is a common integration platform for many components. The recent Ganymede release lists nine application frameworks, six toolsets for embedded and device development, six toolsets for enterprise development, five language IDEs, and five aspects of its rich client platform. All of these elements, in principle, can be used in any combination of choice, although there are seven different official Ganymede packages are listed. Forty-five additional different project downloads are listed. And nine different distributions from member organisations are promoted. It shows an impressive level of community momentum and collective activity, but which of all of the alternatives do you really need for your particular project?
Actually, it is even more complex, because each bazaar stacks up components from its own shelves with components it finds in other bazaars. And you are often building not just one cathedral, but several based on a common set of blueprints. Perhaps you want to develop using Seam rich client Java toolkit? Then you might need a playlist of the Eclipse Classic IDE, JBoss Tools, Seam Core, JBoss AS, and PostgreSQL (with thanks to Stefan Daume for suggesting this particular playlist). But to do so, you may need to visit the Eclipse, JBoss, Seam and Postgres bazaars to put this all together -- unless you can happen to find somebody else who has already done this for you. If you want to build an email spam filter, then maybe a playlist of MySQL, qpsmtpd, my qpsmtpd custom modules, php pages (status), and open flash chart run-time files might be just the job (with thanks to Bjorn Freeman-Benson for this playlist).
Finding out what software components are available is a modest challenge: you can use raw Google, or Google CodeSearch, or Koders, or Krugle, or Codase, or something similar. The more significant challenge is finding out what works with what else to form a useful playlist; then how to get hold of the right version of each these pieces from each of the right bazaars concerned; how popular is this specific playlist of components; and how to get notified if any of the pieces are subsequently changed. If you want to be civic-minded, you might also want to find out how best to contribute original or derivative works back to the remainder of your organisation or community at large.
Our industry is maturing: we really soon should reach the equivalent levels of professional practice as our colleagues in other engineering disciplines, such as electronics hardware and civil engineering. There now is - perhaps at long last - a substantial number of re-usable, well-engineered, components available to all of us, being extended and improved on a daily basis. We should all be able to build cathedrals, and other artifacts, from the components we find. But the vast range of components, coupled with the fluidity of material - software - with which to work, has presented our industry with some new challenges,and which are not as apparent in other engineering disciplines.
In summary, Cloudsmith lets you browse and find useful bundles of software components which work together – software playlists – and then download ones of interest. Each one can contain components from different software repositories, and Cloudsmith knows where to go, and how to get to them.
--
Eric S. Raymond wrote a seminal paper in 1997, The Cathedral and the Bazaar, contrasting how Linux emerged from a loosely structured, highly collaborative community or "bazaar" with the traditional approach to developing software (open source or proprietary), in which a select group of cathedral-builders controlled every aspect of design and technology.
Most engineers strive to build at least one great “building” during their career, a monument, a shrine, and a testament to their skill. Today, even "cathedrals" are made from parts found at the bazaars - a huge and growing marketplace for open source components, in which thousands of developers promote parts that many other developers combine into new products. The output of many bazaars -- projects and communities such as the Eclipse Foundation, the Apache Foundation, Google Code, SourceForge, etc. - support and publish the efforts of component development teams. Popular components turn up in multiple bazaars, sometimes as identical copies, other times with subtle variations.
Among the challenges development teams, and their co-worker product management and product marketing teams, face when operating within this new ecosystem are:
* What range of components is currently available? Which bazaars have them; what is their status and quality; how popular are they; where can updates and fixes be found; and so on.
* What works with what? What components, and combinations of components, are available? How do the pieces all fit together, and which bazaars have them?
* How popular is this combination of components compared to that alternative one? How do we know when and if we should update a selection of components, as new versions of the constituent parts emerge?
* How can we build playlists which combine components we built ourselves, with components found in public bazaars and that change in ways we don't control? How can we move to the new version of a public component without breaking what we already have? And how can we keep what we found in the bazaar from getting so intertwined with what we built that we can no longer separate them? What is the best strategy to manage change, when your organisation and your team are increasingly mixing public software components with your proprietary assets?
* Who is going to support us when we use some unique combination which we assembled from public bazaars? Is there anyone out there doing something similar we can learn from?
* We fix and extend components we find in the bazaar, and sometimes create entirely new component playlists of our own. How do we share our work with other developers in our organisation or (assuming our corporate policy allows it) contribute things back to the bazaar for the public good? And assuming we've shared it, how do we know who is using it, and for what?
It is, of course, no longer just an issue of providing a stable, managed foundation on which you and your colleagues can build. There is heightened corporate awareness reaching all the way to the audit committees of publicly quoted companies, due to the multiplicity of software licensing policies. The issue of knowing if, when and how public software assets are being used inside a corporation has become a high concern.
The ability to tailor software should be its value rather than its risk. But in todays world, isn't software componentisation paradoxically slower than it could be, precisely due to the changes, improvements and proliferation offered by the community?
Eric Raymond describes how extremely useful software can result from open collaboration, despite the absence of a clear lead architect directing the project. Today’s software repositories illustrate this principle on a grand scale - they are collections of really good and useful components developed, published, maintained and extended, sometimes by individuals and sometimes by organized teams of collaborators, in a process that can seem almost anarchic compared to conventional internal development.
As bazaars of developed, and contributed, software components have matured, the complexity of fitting together appropriate combinations have increased, as has ensuring that things do not break as each component is maintained.
One example is Eclipse, which is a common integration platform for many components. The recent Ganymede release lists nine application frameworks, six toolsets for embedded and device development, six toolsets for enterprise development, five language IDEs, and five aspects of its rich client platform. All of these elements, in principle, can be used in any combination of choice, although there are seven different official Ganymede packages are listed. Forty-five additional different project downloads are listed. And nine different distributions from member organisations are promoted. It shows an impressive level of community momentum and collective activity, but which of all of the alternatives do you really need for your particular project?
Actually, it is even more complex, because each bazaar stacks up components from its own shelves with components it finds in other bazaars. And you are often building not just one cathedral, but several based on a common set of blueprints. Perhaps you want to develop using Seam rich client Java toolkit? Then you might need a playlist of the Eclipse Classic IDE, JBoss Tools, Seam Core, JBoss AS, and PostgreSQL (with thanks to Stefan Daume for suggesting this particular playlist). But to do so, you may need to visit the Eclipse, JBoss, Seam and Postgres bazaars to put this all together -- unless you can happen to find somebody else who has already done this for you. If you want to build an email spam filter, then maybe a playlist of MySQL, qpsmtpd, my qpsmtpd custom modules, php pages (status), and open flash chart run-time files might be just the job (with thanks to Bjorn Freeman-Benson for this playlist).
Finding out what software components are available is a modest challenge: you can use raw Google, or Google CodeSearch, or Koders, or Krugle, or Codase, or something similar. The more significant challenge is finding out what works with what else to form a useful playlist; then how to get hold of the right version of each these pieces from each of the right bazaars concerned; how popular is this specific playlist of components; and how to get notified if any of the pieces are subsequently changed. If you want to be civic-minded, you might also want to find out how best to contribute original or derivative works back to the remainder of your organisation or community at large.
Our industry is maturing: we really soon should reach the equivalent levels of professional practice as our colleagues in other engineering disciplines, such as electronics hardware and civil engineering. There now is - perhaps at long last - a substantial number of re-usable, well-engineered, components available to all of us, being extended and improved on a daily basis. We should all be able to build cathedrals, and other artifacts, from the components we find. But the vast range of components, coupled with the fluidity of material - software - with which to work, has presented our industry with some new challenges,and which are not as apparent in other engineering disciplines.
Friday 12 September 2008
Why is Engineering not taught by Professional Engineers ?
I was asked to give a keynote speech earlier this week at the International Manufacturing Conference 2008, DIT.
I was perhaps (deliberately :-)) a little controversial and I had to wear my flame suit when responding to the Q&A afterwards, not least because sone of the audience were academics in Irish engineering schools, but not professional engineers!
If you have any views on this topic, please do post a comment.
Best
Chris
--
I speak to you today as the current Senior Vice President of Engineers Ireland, the professional body for engineers in this country. I will have the honour next year of serving my year as President.
I am an electronics engineer, graduating from a four year undergraduate programme in 1978. My first three years were spent in general engineering topics, and I chose to specialize in electronics only in my final year. So, I put my credentials in front of you ladies and gentlemen, and admit that I only have a hazy recollection of my lectures and tutorials in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, applied mathematics, instrumentation and control, and so on....
So, in coming to you today I thought I ought to prepare myself by browsing the internet and trying to understand what are the current issues, opportunities and challenges facing you in the Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering professions today. Googling, I found myself reading current and back issues of magazines not only of our own Engineers Journal, but also of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Forgive me, but I was initially a little taken aback! I read a number of viewpoints which suggested that the West is losing manufacturing competencies and capacity to the emerging economies of the East, and in particular of China. If I were a potential student of manufacturing engineering, I might think that the future held little hope for me unless I emigrated to Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hebei or somewhere else in China!! Now personally, I really enjoy visiting that country and have done so regularly for some years – indeed I was the founding Chairman of the Ireland China Association back in 2001 – and frankly, if I were a younger professional starting my career I would seriously think of emigrating there. But I’m not convinced that many Leaving Certificate students would necessarily agree with me, and still less their parents. But some of your colleagues in your discipline seem to be strongly suggesting that there is no career future in manufacturing engineering unless one moves East.
It got worse. I came across another article, suggesting perhaps that we are seeing the imminent demise of mechanical engineering. In the good old days, a manufacturing plant was driven off a central power shaft spanning the longitudinal axis of the factory, with various gears and belts driving machinery at each station. In the good old days, cars, trucks and locomotives had central powertrains, gearboxes and hydraulic fluids controlling the power and torque from the power plant to the wheels. But nowadays, the electrical and electronic engineers are apparently winning and, using high power semiconductor gates, large amounts of electrical power can be delivered and minutely controlled, with extreme precision, in ways that can only make mechanical engineers drool! Most modern aircraft, including in particular the entire Airbus family, use fly by wire rather than fly by mechanical linkage. All new cars soon may not have drive shafts and gears boxes: the power will be delivered using cables via all electric drive chains, with microprocessors making sense of it all:: Your garage mechanic will need to become a garage electrician!
But then, I was relieved to find counter-points of view, observing how both manufacturing and mechanical engineering are evolving. Composite materials are driving new applications, not least in the biomedical domain for prosthetics. Manufacturing engineering has evolved into systems integration and product integration, harnessing a diverse set of emerging, disruptive technologies to yield innovative and exciting products. Scales are continuing to shrink, and minimization of both mass and energy are a common objective. Smart, intelligent materials with their own embedded controllers are not uncommon. Kinematicians lead efforts in unraveling protein folding, essential to genomics, proteomics and DNA scaffolding. Thermal engineering is becoming more and more critical: I am aware of the truly excellent work being done by Jeff Punch and his team in the University of Limerick in this regard, in particular in the domain of thermal stabilization of photonic lasers for telecommunications applications, in the context of my chairmanship of the CTVR national project in telecommunications.
In fact, as reputedly one wag stated: it’s no longer about “M”anufacturing engineering. It’s no longer about “M”echanical engineering. The “M” denotes something else: today it is about Multi-disciplinary engineering.
I fervently support this view. In my own career with computers and software, my industry not only changes its technologies, but also rapidly changes its perspective as new applications appear. A professional engineer today, regardless of his or her background, must have a multi-disciplinary philosophy. That has two complementary aspects: the intra-engineering and external. Multi-discipline, in the intra-engineering sense, implies an understanding and training across multiple engineering specializations, understanding the application of mathematical and scientific results to civil, mechanical, electrical, electronic, software, manufacturing engineering, and so on. By the external multi-disciplinary aspect, I mean the ability to discuss articulately with line of business managers, product marketing, corporate marketing, corporate lawyers, human resource professionals, and of course financial analysts.
But today, forgive me, in this country, I wonder have our colleagues in our engineering academies – both universities and institutes of technology – lost the plot ? One of their concerns I guess – and I speak as a past university lecturer – is the usually desperate quest to achieve recognition by their peer academics in other departments across the rest of the organisation. As an engineering department struggles to achieve recognition, and of course financial resources, amongst perhaps stronger groups in the pure sciences, the medics, the department of law, the business studies department, all of the various departments of humanities and so on, there is a natural tendency to play the game: “publish or perish”. And in publishing, and researching, more and more esoteric niched topics are addressed, in which one may have a reasonable chance of obtaining international recognition as an accomplished researcher but in what may be a very narrow field indeed.
However a consequence of this may be a tendency to over-specialise undergraduate courses. In a national market in Ireland, where there are few enough Leaving Certificate students obtaining honours standards in mathematics – which of course is the usual standard for entrance into courses leading to professional engineering accreditation – does it really make sense to have proliferation of undergraduate courses ? Let me give you some idea, from the list of undergraduate courses nationwide which are accredited by Engineers Ireland as giving a foundation to become a Member of our organization: Chemical and Process Engineering; Electronic Engineering; Electrical Engineering; Microelectronic Engineering; Mechanical Engineering; Materials Engineering; Process Engineering; Process and Chemical Engineering; Structural Engineering; Civil Engineering; Environmental Engineering; Civil, Structural and Environment Engineering; Manufacturing Engineering; Production Engineering; Computer-Aided and Manufacturing Engineering; Industrial Engineering and Information Systems; Aeronautical Engineering; Digital Media Engineering; Information and Communication Engineering; Manufacturing Engineering with Business Studies; Mechatronic Engineering; Medical Mechanical Engineering; Biosystems Engineering; Computer Engineering; Building Services Engineering; Agricultural and Food Engineering. I know that all the academics involved in offering this wonderful diversity are sincere in their disciplines, but isn’t it time we stood back and asked ourselves is there a better way to help students select Engineering as a profession ? And ensure that they have a very solid, multi-disciplinary approach to Engineering as a profession ? And leave at least some of the specialization, when and as necessary, to their continued professional development during their career ?
Let me change tack, and give you another concern which I have. If one of my family ever were to pursue a career in surgery, I and they would expect to learn from practicing surgeons. If I were ever to take lessons to become an aircraft pilot, I would like lessons from a qualified professional pilot. In my business career, whenever requiring professional legal or financial advice, I have sought the necessary qualified professional individuals.
And so, if any of my family pursue an Engineering career – and one of my sons is studying Engineering – I would expect, and they expect, to be taught by professionals. Professional Engineers.
In preparing today’s talk, I browsed the web sites of the Irish universities and institutes offering those courses I alluded to above, and examined the credentials of the academics of the various engineering departments concerned – at least, as published on their web sites. It was very very interesting, and I encourage you to try the exercise yourself.
For example: one department: six full time academic staff, only one of them – the head of Department – listed C.Eng. as amongst his accomplishments. Another: four academics, no C.Eng listed. Another: twenty academics, one Fellow, four C.Engs. And so on.
Now there are many PhDs. And a few Professors. But why so few Chartered Engineers (or Fellows) ? I suspect that perhaps the various web pages aren’t always accurate, and C.Eng qualifications aren’t always listed. However, that in turn is indicative: why would an Engineering academic not be much more proud of the fact that he or she was a Chartered Engineer, or Fellow, and advertise that fact, ahead of being a Dr. or Professor ??...
In the medical profession, a simple Mr, Ms or Mrs as a title commands great respect: the individual in question is likely to be a highly qualified surgeon or consultant, rather than a simple General Practitioner Doctor, or an esoteric academic Professor. A highly qualified practitioner gains respect. Why are our own Engineering academics not as proud of practical professional experiences ? Why is it acceptable to have a non Chartered Engineer teaching professional engineering ? Should it be acceptable ? Why do engineering departments not insist on a C.Eng. recruitment policy, and why do they not demand that their younger staff achieve C.Eng. status as rapidly as possible, if necessary ahead of achieving professorial status ? Why do our engineering students not question – no, demand – that the majority of their teaching comes from professional engineers ?
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me remind you or advise you if you have not already heard, that Engineers Ireland has taken the decision that from 2013 in Ireland, it will be necessary to have achieved a Masters level of education, over five years, in order to become a Chartered Engineer, from the current position where a four year accredited undergraduate degree is sufficient. While thus bringing us into line with many of our international colleagues, the change is also an opportunity for us to consider the structure staffing, and directions of our academic engineering programmes.
Thank you for your time this morning, and my opportunity to address you. Let me leave you with a summary: if we are going to attract more people to a wonderful and exciting career in professional engineering, then we ourselves must become even more professional in our education. We need to stress a multi-disciplinary approach, re-visit our thinking about premature specialization, and ensure that as many of our instructors as possible have professional engineering qualifications.
I was perhaps (deliberately :-)) a little controversial and I had to wear my flame suit when responding to the Q&A afterwards, not least because sone of the audience were academics in Irish engineering schools, but not professional engineers!
If you have any views on this topic, please do post a comment.
Best
Chris
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I speak to you today as the current Senior Vice President of Engineers Ireland, the professional body for engineers in this country. I will have the honour next year of serving my year as President.
I am an electronics engineer, graduating from a four year undergraduate programme in 1978. My first three years were spent in general engineering topics, and I chose to specialize in electronics only in my final year. So, I put my credentials in front of you ladies and gentlemen, and admit that I only have a hazy recollection of my lectures and tutorials in thermodynamics, fluid mechanics, applied mathematics, instrumentation and control, and so on....
So, in coming to you today I thought I ought to prepare myself by browsing the internet and trying to understand what are the current issues, opportunities and challenges facing you in the Manufacturing and Mechanical Engineering professions today. Googling, I found myself reading current and back issues of magazines not only of our own Engineers Journal, but also of the Society of Manufacturing Engineers, and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.
Forgive me, but I was initially a little taken aback! I read a number of viewpoints which suggested that the West is losing manufacturing competencies and capacity to the emerging economies of the East, and in particular of China. If I were a potential student of manufacturing engineering, I might think that the future held little hope for me unless I emigrated to Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hebei or somewhere else in China!! Now personally, I really enjoy visiting that country and have done so regularly for some years – indeed I was the founding Chairman of the Ireland China Association back in 2001 – and frankly, if I were a younger professional starting my career I would seriously think of emigrating there. But I’m not convinced that many Leaving Certificate students would necessarily agree with me, and still less their parents. But some of your colleagues in your discipline seem to be strongly suggesting that there is no career future in manufacturing engineering unless one moves East.
It got worse. I came across another article, suggesting perhaps that we are seeing the imminent demise of mechanical engineering. In the good old days, a manufacturing plant was driven off a central power shaft spanning the longitudinal axis of the factory, with various gears and belts driving machinery at each station. In the good old days, cars, trucks and locomotives had central powertrains, gearboxes and hydraulic fluids controlling the power and torque from the power plant to the wheels. But nowadays, the electrical and electronic engineers are apparently winning and, using high power semiconductor gates, large amounts of electrical power can be delivered and minutely controlled, with extreme precision, in ways that can only make mechanical engineers drool! Most modern aircraft, including in particular the entire Airbus family, use fly by wire rather than fly by mechanical linkage. All new cars soon may not have drive shafts and gears boxes: the power will be delivered using cables via all electric drive chains, with microprocessors making sense of it all:: Your garage mechanic will need to become a garage electrician!
But then, I was relieved to find counter-points of view, observing how both manufacturing and mechanical engineering are evolving. Composite materials are driving new applications, not least in the biomedical domain for prosthetics. Manufacturing engineering has evolved into systems integration and product integration, harnessing a diverse set of emerging, disruptive technologies to yield innovative and exciting products. Scales are continuing to shrink, and minimization of both mass and energy are a common objective. Smart, intelligent materials with their own embedded controllers are not uncommon. Kinematicians lead efforts in unraveling protein folding, essential to genomics, proteomics and DNA scaffolding. Thermal engineering is becoming more and more critical: I am aware of the truly excellent work being done by Jeff Punch and his team in the University of Limerick in this regard, in particular in the domain of thermal stabilization of photonic lasers for telecommunications applications, in the context of my chairmanship of the CTVR national project in telecommunications.
In fact, as reputedly one wag stated: it’s no longer about “M”anufacturing engineering. It’s no longer about “M”echanical engineering. The “M” denotes something else: today it is about Multi-disciplinary engineering.
I fervently support this view. In my own career with computers and software, my industry not only changes its technologies, but also rapidly changes its perspective as new applications appear. A professional engineer today, regardless of his or her background, must have a multi-disciplinary philosophy. That has two complementary aspects: the intra-engineering and external. Multi-discipline, in the intra-engineering sense, implies an understanding and training across multiple engineering specializations, understanding the application of mathematical and scientific results to civil, mechanical, electrical, electronic, software, manufacturing engineering, and so on. By the external multi-disciplinary aspect, I mean the ability to discuss articulately with line of business managers, product marketing, corporate marketing, corporate lawyers, human resource professionals, and of course financial analysts.
But today, forgive me, in this country, I wonder have our colleagues in our engineering academies – both universities and institutes of technology – lost the plot ? One of their concerns I guess – and I speak as a past university lecturer – is the usually desperate quest to achieve recognition by their peer academics in other departments across the rest of the organisation. As an engineering department struggles to achieve recognition, and of course financial resources, amongst perhaps stronger groups in the pure sciences, the medics, the department of law, the business studies department, all of the various departments of humanities and so on, there is a natural tendency to play the game: “publish or perish”. And in publishing, and researching, more and more esoteric niched topics are addressed, in which one may have a reasonable chance of obtaining international recognition as an accomplished researcher but in what may be a very narrow field indeed.
However a consequence of this may be a tendency to over-specialise undergraduate courses. In a national market in Ireland, where there are few enough Leaving Certificate students obtaining honours standards in mathematics – which of course is the usual standard for entrance into courses leading to professional engineering accreditation – does it really make sense to have proliferation of undergraduate courses ? Let me give you some idea, from the list of undergraduate courses nationwide which are accredited by Engineers Ireland as giving a foundation to become a Member of our organization: Chemical and Process Engineering; Electronic Engineering; Electrical Engineering; Microelectronic Engineering; Mechanical Engineering; Materials Engineering; Process Engineering; Process and Chemical Engineering; Structural Engineering; Civil Engineering; Environmental Engineering; Civil, Structural and Environment Engineering; Manufacturing Engineering; Production Engineering; Computer-Aided and Manufacturing Engineering; Industrial Engineering and Information Systems; Aeronautical Engineering; Digital Media Engineering; Information and Communication Engineering; Manufacturing Engineering with Business Studies; Mechatronic Engineering; Medical Mechanical Engineering; Biosystems Engineering; Computer Engineering; Building Services Engineering; Agricultural and Food Engineering. I know that all the academics involved in offering this wonderful diversity are sincere in their disciplines, but isn’t it time we stood back and asked ourselves is there a better way to help students select Engineering as a profession ? And ensure that they have a very solid, multi-disciplinary approach to Engineering as a profession ? And leave at least some of the specialization, when and as necessary, to their continued professional development during their career ?
Let me change tack, and give you another concern which I have. If one of my family ever were to pursue a career in surgery, I and they would expect to learn from practicing surgeons. If I were ever to take lessons to become an aircraft pilot, I would like lessons from a qualified professional pilot. In my business career, whenever requiring professional legal or financial advice, I have sought the necessary qualified professional individuals.
And so, if any of my family pursue an Engineering career – and one of my sons is studying Engineering – I would expect, and they expect, to be taught by professionals. Professional Engineers.
In preparing today’s talk, I browsed the web sites of the Irish universities and institutes offering those courses I alluded to above, and examined the credentials of the academics of the various engineering departments concerned – at least, as published on their web sites. It was very very interesting, and I encourage you to try the exercise yourself.
For example: one department: six full time academic staff, only one of them – the head of Department – listed C.Eng. as amongst his accomplishments. Another: four academics, no C.Eng listed. Another: twenty academics, one Fellow, four C.Engs. And so on.
Now there are many PhDs. And a few Professors. But why so few Chartered Engineers (or Fellows) ? I suspect that perhaps the various web pages aren’t always accurate, and C.Eng qualifications aren’t always listed. However, that in turn is indicative: why would an Engineering academic not be much more proud of the fact that he or she was a Chartered Engineer, or Fellow, and advertise that fact, ahead of being a Dr. or Professor ??...
In the medical profession, a simple Mr, Ms or Mrs as a title commands great respect: the individual in question is likely to be a highly qualified surgeon or consultant, rather than a simple General Practitioner Doctor, or an esoteric academic Professor. A highly qualified practitioner gains respect. Why are our own Engineering academics not as proud of practical professional experiences ? Why is it acceptable to have a non Chartered Engineer teaching professional engineering ? Should it be acceptable ? Why do engineering departments not insist on a C.Eng. recruitment policy, and why do they not demand that their younger staff achieve C.Eng. status as rapidly as possible, if necessary ahead of achieving professorial status ? Why do our engineering students not question – no, demand – that the majority of their teaching comes from professional engineers ?
Ladies and Gentlemen, let me remind you or advise you if you have not already heard, that Engineers Ireland has taken the decision that from 2013 in Ireland, it will be necessary to have achieved a Masters level of education, over five years, in order to become a Chartered Engineer, from the current position where a four year accredited undergraduate degree is sufficient. While thus bringing us into line with many of our international colleagues, the change is also an opportunity for us to consider the structure staffing, and directions of our academic engineering programmes.
Thank you for your time this morning, and my opportunity to address you. Let me leave you with a summary: if we are going to attract more people to a wonderful and exciting career in professional engineering, then we ourselves must become even more professional in our education. We need to stress a multi-disciplinary approach, re-visit our thinking about premature specialization, and ensure that as many of our instructors as possible have professional engineering qualifications.
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