State of engineering in US

What I think we need is for actual companies to have their own engineering type program. I don't know if any still do this.

When I was young many years ago, I was accepted into a engineering program by Cross Company up in Michigan. There was 14 of us that they chose out of hundreds from the local community college there. We spent 40 hours a week for 6 months (plus being paid) learning all aspects of engineering relating to machine builders. We learned about metals, heat treating, pneumatics, hydraulics, gearing, power trains, basic electrical design, etc and etc. The last 2 or 3 months was also spent designing a machine from scratch using what we have been learning and putting it to practical use. After graduation they gave us jobs in various engineering departments at the plant. I had excelled in the electrical aspect so I was given a job in controls starting out as a draftsmen.

This knowledge I was grateful for and I have used it throughout my career in engineering. Some of the other courses that I had taken in college such as calculus came to little use and for the most part have been forgotten.

I can't call myself an EE but do have a engineering status degree. Was my time in college a waste? Not really, I did learn certain communications skills that I use but for the most part the theory classes where never used.

Went back and read what I wrote and oops - it was exactly opposite what I meant to say.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Oakley
But as a professional engineer, I would disagree that someone with years of experience (no matter how good they may be) should not have an engineering title


Just because one may have many years of experience, they are NOT engineers. I do believe that the pay scales do not reward those with the years of experience vs those who are right out of college. Those greedy right out of college engineers that are not willing to learn from those seasoned veterans who demand top dollar are not worthy. Do your time and EARN it.

By the way - who are these "Sanitation Engineers" and "Domestic Engineers". I have been looking for a curriculum for these and can't find an accredited one anywhere.

isn't sanitation engineer merely a politically correct way of saying Janitor??? and domestic engineer a houskeeper?

Hi all!

Mordred: I think that was a joke...

Mr Jackman: If I ever move to Grand Valley, I'm signing up for your class. I've had your book on PDF on my laptop for years now, top-notch stuff.

Jiri: I sense something personal here. Why are you so up in arms about this subject? I'm not being facetious - really, what's got your dander up?

Peter: Peter's a genious. When he writes, I grasp just enough of it to be in awe of it. No joke, I love this guy.

Comment time:

There is one critical engineering element that I've not seen mentioned here. It's not a learned skill, although it can be enhanced by trainging:

Imagination - Isn't this what we're really complaining about here? For all the "responsible" names we give it, like "analysis" and "problem solving", creative thought and imaginative solutions are the hallmarks of real engineering. If all you had to do was crunch numbers and run formulas, a computer could do your job.

Engineering isn't just a science, it's an art. There are alot of number-crunchers out there these days, but few artists.

TM

Just wanted to make sure on that

brucechase said:

An engineer is someone who completed an engineering ciriculum at an accredited college. Life experience does not count as credit. SORRY!!!

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You can be a P.E. in New York State if you have 12 years of work experience and no degree.

I've been in the electrical field for 7 years field, 2 years in tech school. I have a state masters license. I thought about going back to school for an EE till I seen the cost. It's just not worth it. The time and money I would lose I don't think I could rebound. It's harder to save than it is to lose money.

The lack of good Engineers, and even Techs is because other fields pay better. My buddy sales used cars and makes $75k a year. Heck even as an electrician pulling wires 7-3 you make $30/hr.

When I was talking to the college I felt I was getting a really hard sales pitch. It felt like the time i was looking at houses and a guy was telling me how I can get this great rate at 4% so I could afford a $400k home. I thought that guy was on crack or something. It's all about money. I lost all respect for colleges after talking to them. WHAT A JOKE. I can't believe people pay money for those. I know they have their place but the system is broke/****.

Sorry guys maybe it's just the middle class coming out in me

Originally posted by Hugh Jack:

There are a couple of issues here....
- There are no techniques (that I know of) for mapping a transfer function back to a mechanical system. (Although I recall a couple for electrical systems.) Moreover, a real system is fraught with non-linearities that make nice-clean techniques unlikely to arise. As a result the design proces becomes trial and error until there is a best fit. Or, linearization. I hate to say it but many undergraduates are not mature enough to make those choices - but they can be prepared.

- It is also a major chore to get the students to look at a system and identify the main components. They often get mired in the complexiy and are unable to negate effects and develop clean models. Trying to go backwards is another step up.

- Some undergraduates have a natural knack for joining theory and practice, but they are the exception, not the norm.

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In this context I don't think Peter is saying someone should look at a pre-manufactured machine and develop the transfer fucntion. I think he is saying that, as the mechanical design is taking place, the transfer function should be developed in parallel with the physical design. Granted, non-linearities will make the model imperfect. But we are not looking for perfection; that is what the controller is for. At the very least it is a baseline. The system will never be any cleaner than the transfer function indicates.

This information should steer the mechanical designer to design a dynamic system that is easier to control. And even if they can't, if I see that the transfer function for the machine has an s⁴ in the denominator, I know that a quick and dirty PID controller won't have much of a chance controlling it. It gives me some idea of how advanced my tools need to be to attack the issue. Like you said...

Originally posted by Hugh Jack:

Hey, at least the documentation was complete

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Keith

kamenges said:

In this context I don't think Peter is saying someone should look at a pre-manufactured machine and develop the transfer fucntion. I think he is saying that, as the mechanical design is taking place, the transfer function should be developed in parallel with the physical design. Granted, non-linearities will make the model imperfect. But we are not looking for perfection; that is what the controller is for. At the very least it is a baseline. The system will never be any cleaner than the transfer function indicates.

This information should steer the mechanical designer to design a dynamic system that is easier to control. And even if they can't, if I see that the transfer function for the machine has an s⁴ in the denominator, I know that a quick and dirty PID controller won't have much of a chance controlling it. It gives me some idea of how advanced my tools need to be to attack the issue. Like you said...

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I agree that the PID controller does not go far enough for many of the higher end control problems. But it is the first line defense available in many control schemes, and as stand alone modules.

As an explanation for why ME graduates cannot translate transfer functions to mechanical frames/etc - The way that the traditional ME curriculum has developed is that 'controls' and 'solids' have been separated. The closest they come together is in vibrations, but even here it is normally to characterize the machines, not design them. I think the best method I have seen for mechanical design is to develop a frame, and then simulate how it would respond with techniques such as FEA. Needsless to say these take days of computer time and yield crude results.

My opinion (note: I am not a solids person) - A family of techniques needs to be developed for modeling systems beyond the simple lumped parameters. These need to take machine design beyond the era of trial and error. For example Peter was right on track when he was talking about the frame design. It doesn't come with a transfer function stamped on it. Even if it did it would be contrived because no system is linear. If an ideal transfer function for the machine was developed I don't think there are any clean ways to design systems from it.

My lament - My undergraduate is in electrical and my grad degrees are in mechanical. Looking back to the electrical approach, things were recognized for what they were. Linear systems were used and standardized to make them predicatable, etc. I remember doing theoretical designs of things like amplifiers and being able to peg actual responses to within a few percent. We also covered non-linear mathematics so that we could do things like communications. On the other hand my experiences with mechanical systems show that you are typically lucky if you get within 10% of predictions in the lab. As a whole the mechanical field does not standardize well, and when they do the components are not well charaterized.

Well I finally got back in the office and found this thread.
I guess this is one of my 'pet subjects' and found some folks views most interesting.

Heres my take:

I agree that there are plenty of over-educated 'engineers' that couldnt engineer themselves a new haircut. To go along with that because they went to college and learnt the theory they are ALWAYS RIGHT.

I've been doing this for the best part of 20 years. I only have an AS, however I did complete a accredited 4 year apprenticeship when they still meant something.
I've started up around $120 million or so worth of projects and the bizarre thing is that towards the end of nearly every one of them, not an engineer in sight!

My idea of a 'proper' engineer is one that has both the degree (not necesseraily an engineering degree either) with a good dose of common sense and field experience. Without those 3 its a mess waiting to happen.

As for the pay thing.... lets be honest here. You can make a shedload more cash as a maintenance that as a graduate engineer, with alot less debt. Why is this?
Precisely for the reasons stated - you can go to plenty of universities and get a degree, but try finding a good tech skills college or apprenticeship program that means anything!
So of course 'good' maintenance guys are hard to find, places HAVE to have them so the wages go up driven by market demand.

I am going through this right now with our local community college. All the local heavy indystry are fighting over a limited skills base and as such have turned to the college 9who turned to me for help) to get a good instrumentation/controls apprenticeship course up and running.

As for someone not being able to be an 'engineer' without having a degree?
Thats how companies limit themselves.

Google and see what Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Michael Dell all have in common......

theDave2 said:

You can be a P.E. in New York State if you have 12 years of work experience and no degree.

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Not so in Ohio, in fact they are currently debating whether a M.S. should be required in addition to a B.S. in order to get a license. A little too focused on education IMHO.

I took (and fortunately passed) the PE exam last year and most of the questions had absolutely nothing to do with my day-to-day work as an engineer.

kamenges said:

In this context I don't think Peter is saying someone should look at a pre-manufactured machine and develop the transfer function. I think he is saying that, as the mechanical design is taking place, the transfer function should be developed in parallel with the physical design.

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Actually, one should have a target transfer function when doing the design just to see if the design will meet specifications. This gets a little geeky so I will leave this alone right now.

Granted, nonlinearities will make the model imperfect. But we are not looking for perfection; that is what the controller is for. At the very least it is a baseline. The system will never be any cleaner than the transfer function indicates.

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You don't know how are it is to convince people that this is the approach one must take. Use the model and feed forwards to get you close and use the PID to correct for nonlinearities, changes in load and disturbances. On the use group sci.engr.control the first thing the people there do is throw there hands in the air and run around in circles screaming the system is non-linear, the system is non-linear so don't even try to model it and the go back to tweaking gains and drink coffee while they wait for their system to respond.

I have a sci.engr.control all of shame. This thread is the worst.
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.engr.control/browse_frm/thread/d11d0963eaa46b65/43d61036dda8ded8?lnk=gst&q=tuned&rnum=4&hl=en#43d61036dda8ded8
It is easy to calculate gains for this transfer function even it it is only done symbolically. Actually, symbolical answer are the best ones anyway. I looked for other posts from Tom Weyer but he must of figure there was no intelligent life on sci.engr.control and left.

I am actually going to try to do some non-linear system identification. It has been done before so why can't i do it?
http://www.amazon.com/review/product/3540673695/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt/104-3476244-3323132?%5Fencoding=UTF8&showViewpoints=1
You can see that at least three other people have been interested in non-linear system identification.

This information should steer the mechanical designer to design a dynamic system that is easier to control. And even if they can't, if I see that the transfer function for the machine has an s⁴ in the denominator, I know that a quick and dirty PID controller won't have much of a chance controlling it. It gives me some idea of how advanced my tools need to be to attack the issue. Like you said...
Keith

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So you and I are aware that the mechanical designers can screw the control person over. What happens to everyone else? Those guys that make no attempt to understand their system because it is non-linear are going to be doing a lot of tweaking and drinking coffee.

I have seen a case in motion control where the people, not us, trying to get a hydraulic system ( a flying shear ) to go tried for about a month and were finally asked to stop due to non-success. As it turned out the hydraulic system was flawed. Our controller could do better but not much or enough better. I got a description of the system from the system integrator in the field. The system was described to me and the answer was obvious. The natural frequency of the system was too low for the required accelerations. To go at higher speeds the hydraulic designer used cylinders with too small of a diameter. The problem is that there isn't enough surface area to push on. What is even worse is that after the cut the system had to decelerate quickly. This intensified the pressure on the rod side until it was higher than the system pressure. At this point the gains go negative. Any attempt at trying to correct for position errors makes things worse because oil that is supposed to go into the rod side actually starts to flow out. As it turned out the hydraulic design was never going to work right and I told the machine builder why. A good design always keeps plenty of pressure drop across the servo valve. After about two months of expensive redesign, the system worked with either controller. The customer ended up using our controllers, mostly because we understand servo hydraulic design. It wasn't the fault of the person trying to get the other controller or the other controller. It was the fault of the people that designed the hydraulics for the customer.

Originally posted by Hugh Jack:

On the other hand my experiences with mechanical systems show that you are typically lucky if you get within 10% of predictions in the lab.

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So that allows me determine system response to within 10% as well as to calculate gains to within about the same margin. That says nothing of using feed forwards, which would be based off the same information. So we have a twofold benefit. I can get a macro idea of whether or not my system is even controllable AND, if controllable, get close with the control corrections right out of the box.

Originally posted by Hugh Jack:

...and when they do the components are not well charaterized.

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Now that one really does sting. You are correct. If you can't get transfer functions of the components it is tough to come up with a decent model. I still think the exercise is well worth the effort, though.

Going back to my original post, I really belive the biggest problem with the whole process is we are graduating individuals who cam work though the mechanics of a model without knowing what that really means in terms of a true physical system. More correctly, these individuals are going into the world believing that these tools are the end and not a means. This is the two-edged sword of Peter's transfer function stamp. If the transfer function was exactly correct these individuals would be able to come up with a solid working design. However, if it is not perfect, these individuals would most likely tend to panic and not know how to proceed. The results wouldn't match their expectations and they would be lost. Models are only a representation, a tool. A very powerful tool, but only a tool. They are not an end unto themselves and simply being able to manipulate them is not the ultimate goal.

I also tend to wonder about Jiri's motivation on this. Maybe just some fun before Christmas. But the actual conditions in this field haven't changed since this article came out. What we each see is the local truth each of us deals with. I don't consider myself an engineer even though I perform some engineering duties. I also believe there is a shortage of true, good engineers. In the rush to 'go lean' alot of organizations have eliminated the actual engineers, the guys who really can analyze and understand a system. They have been replaced by guys like me who can perform SOME of those functions but can also design and work in the field. So largely the industry has allowed the position to be 'dumbed down' (pardon the expression) to save some money. Keep in mind I am tossing myself into the dummy catagory with that statement. This is probably not as big a deal today given the available technology and the glut of information. But you still need to know how to apply that information in order to be affective.

Keith

theDave2 said:

You can be a P.E. in New York State if you have 12 years of work experience and no degree.

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Sorry, Dave, you are right*.

*But most states that allow someone with 12 years of experience to take the PE test has very specific restrictions on that experience. The FE or EIT test must be taken and passed first. In addition, the experience must be under the direct supervision of a liscensed PE doing progressively more disciplined work in that particular field. It is not someone who started up some equipment without an engineer in sight and thus feels more qualified.

As for what Keith has said, I must agree. After looking for the past year for a qualified engineer, the higher ups are thinking about taking someone with a tech degree and let them work "under" an engineer for a while. Only problem is the few engineers we have don't have enough time to mentor someone - Lean times and cost savings and all.

The old saying "good enough for government work" is applying to all of industry.

This thread has brought up the subject of techs vs engineers my take on this is that both may be able to perform the job and duties but regardless of how well or poorly that tech/engineer is will always be a blame game in some form the short of it is that regardless of how much education one has
nothing beats experience coupled with a solid understanding (experience without understanding means nothing) As far as companies hiring based on the experience rather than qualification could lead themselves to problems after all will a court of law accept a tech performing engineering duties as a valid expert? or can he be held liable for a poor design