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Engineering Education and Practice: Need for Restructuring

The present exponential rate of change in society has drastically lowered predictability and increased uncertainties. Almost everyone is convinced that future is not an extrapolation of the present and the past. Under these circumstances, avoiding mistakes is as important as being innovative. Oppenheimer's statement that science and technology (engineering) have a symbiotic relationship is certainly true. But science is preoccupied with understanding and explaining, while engineering is concerned with doing, realizing and implementing. Thus, the aim of future engineering education should be the integration of knowledge, skills, understanding and experience. It has been noted that Space, Computer, Energy and Communication will be the main technology drivers in the present era, with Materials Science and Engineering qualifying as the underpinning technology.

A study in the USA has concluded that "the nation's competitiveness depends, in part, on the skills of tomorrow's engineers". In fact, some universities in the USA, e.g., Brown University and MIT, have established themselves as corporations.Excellence, quality, relevance, customer satisfaction, service, etc., have become the buzz words in the engineering institutions of the West. Some impediments to change have been identified as science-heavy studies,narrow specialization,inability to work at interfaces between traditional disciplines and lack of team approach to engineering. Add to this the following projection. In 1975 the world population was 4 billion. Of these, 34% lived in an urban environment; 0.8 billion in the cities of the developing world and 0.73 billion in the cities of the developed world. It has been projected that by 2025 the world population will be 8.29 billion. Of these, 61% will be living in the urban environments; 4.03 billion in the urban sprawls of the developing world and 1.04 billion in the cities of the developed countries. Infrastructure development will be a major problem. Thus, the centrality of technological solutions is inevitable.

Globalization has brought in its wake an emphasis on consumer concerns, e.g., quality (quality assurance, need for continuous upgradation of quality at reduced cost), cost and variety. In view of the enormous skilled manpower, India may become a significant production centre of the world. Economic restructuring heavily depends on the performance of technology driven industrial and services sectors. For competitiveness adoption and adaptation of modern technologies and managing them with advanced managerial tools are essential. This has placed significantly increased demands on technical manpower than has been the case so far.

At a time when technical competence of the highest quality is called for, the new economic policy regards expenditure on technical (higher) education as less of an investment of the nation in the future and more of a subsidy to a relatively affluent section of society (`unmerited subsidy'). This has created a need for private resources and a new species of "businessmen as providers of technical education" has emerged. Thus the development of excellence in the profession is no longer a central societal goal.

In this changed milieu, engineering education has to be restructured. As Beder puts it, "The need to teach science in engineering schools has been grossly inflated by the needs of the engineering profession for esoteric knowledge and of engineering educator for academic respectability." Talking of the Indian scene, L.S. Srinath has pointed out that engineering education has become a second rate science education resembling more an applied physics course and completely devoid of its characteristic features and identity. Most of us who design engineering curricula are far removed from engineering as it is practiced.

Therefore, Srinath emphasizes subject-independent design methodology wherein the student understands the multi-dimensionality of real life problems.

Engineering activity, like the other great profession of Medicine, is prescriptive in nature and in its practice, diverse skills are required, e.g., a capacity to work in overlapping areas between disciplines and a flair for self- learning new skills. An engineer of the future has to emerge as a creative problem solver. Mere analytical skills are not enough. An "engineering design" integrates mathematics, basic sciences, engineering sciences and complementary studies in developing elements, systems and processes to meet specific needs. "It is a creative, iterative, open-ended process subject to constraints which may be governed by standards or legislation to varying degrees depending upon the discipline. These constraints may relate to economic, health, safety, environmental, social or other pertinent factors". Thus, the `neat and rigorous' solution obtainable in pure science is mostly unattainable in engineering.

Other areas alien to courses in pure science are computer-assisted simulation, similitude, techniques of engineering approximations, multi-criteria decision making, basics of business, professional ethics and laws pertaining to intellectual property rights.

Delivering a viable, self-sustaining technical culture is also of the essence. The example of the former USSR that produced the most narrowly trained specialist technologists is a case in point. In spite of the technical brilliance, a lack of user-friendliness in products and the absence of safety and ecological concerns characterized the system.Therefore, unlike pure science, where pursuit of knowledge for its own sake is permissible, engineering education and, as a corollary, research has to be based in relevance.

Goals of Research and Development

`Consultancy assignments', where very often industrial houses pass on to the universities and the IITs works that should really be done in-house (because the former route is cheaper), adds to the income of the rather poorly paid academic no doubt but there is little professional gain. Nor is there in most cases any addition of equipment/facility in the institution. In my opinion, in many cases this `financial trap' has prevented academics from living up to their full potential. Hence such an activity can not be the driving force for research and development.

R. Sharan of the Department of Electrical Engineering observes that at IIT Kanpur colleagues often find out the international trends in research and from these locate those that can be pursued with the available resources and promise some success (Directions, vol.2, no.5). This way individual mini-successes result, although no `brand name' develops. Teaching and doing research in areas of market orientation or relevance, e.g., food processing, defence R&D, will require new text books, new teaching methodologies, new ways to recruit faculty and of placing students. This is an extremely risky approach but if one is successful one can contribute in a major way to the milieu to which one belongs. Therefore, it is not easy for an academic institution to choose its course of research.

Sometimes even the very nature of a new technology makes choice difficult. Economic models show that global malnutrition will increase if biotechnology is stopped. But a question has also been raised if genetic engineering, in addition to feeding the world's billions, will also unleash a race of `superweeds'. No one seems to know the answer and no one is in charge of finding out.

Thus one's ideology at least to an extent decides one's choice. R. Varman of the Department of Industrial and Management Engineering, for example, takes the position that "market forces" can not give us a long range direction and perspective. In his view, accountability to all segments - students, industry and society at large - is essential, not just to some corporate bodies (Directions, vol.2, no.5).

Contrast all the above debates on choices with the contents of the latest book of Ashok Ganguli, Business-driven Research & Development: Managing Knowledge to Create Wealth. The Corporate Sector has delivered its message: knowledge generation within an industry should be subservient to money making.

Materials Design ab initio

The Schrödinger equation describes how electrons arrange themselves around atoms and how atoms share electrons to form chemical bonds. This equation generates a "wave function" giving the probability that an electron will be at a given location at a given time. What makes it so powerful is that the wave function can reveal the physical properties of a system: energy, optical absorption, conductivity. If done right, when the atomic masses and crystal structure are inserted, the physical properties get predicted. This is known as designing "from first principles" or "ab initio". The main problem is that even simple atomic structures require enormous computing time to solve.

Initially computer aided search for new vaccines and drugs took off because the designers were able to skip the effects of individual electrons in the calculations. But inorganic materials represent a more difficult class of problems. After a decade of calculations, the first generation of materials designed from scratch on a computer and distilled out of the basic laws of physics are ready to be made and tested. As electronic and optical properties are relatively amenable to calculations, on the horizon are materials with pre-defined optoelectronic properties. In contrast, mechanical and corrosion properties are more difficult to compute as these properties depend on events occurring over wide ranges of sizes and time scales. It is safe to say that scientists are far from being able to sit down at a keyboard, tap in some properties and have a new substance pop out. Yet the way this research is directed is noteworthy. "Specify your requirements and develop a material based on a collection of facts with some brilliant insights thrown in". Who will then discover the "basic laws" of the future? Before this question is answered, the nature of post-industrial society must be understood.

Post-industrial Era

"Knowledge explosion" has meant three things: research and development, automation and the spread of higher education. Traditional institutions are on the wane and basic family and work roles are changing based on parameters set by knowledge explosion. R&D has involved the creation of new knowledge or the extension of old knowledge in novel ways. Automation has led to the implanting of knowledge into machines. Education has been equated with implanting knowledge into minds.

There is a need to reconceptualize knowledge as a multi-dimensional force which can take its form in sophisticated scientific theories, e.g., nuclear energy, or in craft knowledge as in an ethnic or Chinese restaurant in a five star hotel. Knowledge can be invested and applied in a multiplicity of ways. It has been realized that technology is far more than tools and machines. The techniques associated with the use of those tools and machines can be amazingly knowledge-laden. In economic terms, education is human capital investment of all kinds. Considerable knowledge is involved even in relatively craft-like technologies, e.g., selling of cars. A holistic sense of knowledge, involving not only the creation of new knowledge but also the implanting of knowledge in machines and minds, is central to an understanding of post-industrial (PI) society.

Machines and tools, techniques and methods, training and minds and theories and models (alternatively hardware, software, skills and ideas) provide a complete image of how knowledge impacts society. Rather than separate research, technology and education, we should see these as aspects of the same fundamental process, viz., the growth in knowledge. Organizations that process people rely more on knowledge embedded in skills and models. Manufacturing units tend to simplify the human component by embedding knowledge in machines and assembly line organization. The most fundamental change afoot is what economists call "the improvement in human capital". Machines and individuals are organised together to produce products and/or provide services. Theories about how to motivate workers fit into this knowledge category. Thus PI society is not so much a service oriented society as an innovation oriented society. Problem solving, inventing new ways of approaching problems, applying knowledge creatively to develop new products and services are the new thrusts.

Small high-tech firms, small profit centres in large high-tech firms and joint ventures are the three new organizational forms in response to changed conditions. The new features are an emphasis on adaptability and rapid implementation of new ideas. "Flexible manufacturing" involves a high degree of automation and a reduction in unskilled labour. Frequent reprogramming of machines to accommodate small production batches of customized version of a product line is also involved. This has led to a demand for much more highly skilled albeit much smaller work force. The character of blue collar work is being fundamentally altered. A small number of highly trained professionals and technical specialists are performing qualitatively different roles. The change is greater in Japan than in the USA (40% engineers in Japan vs 8% in the USA). Thus the new work place is where machines perform mindless routine tasks and humans engage in problem solving and implementation of innovations in the face of uncertainties. This is a new society in which both search for new ideas and implanting of knowledge in machines are accelerated.

Although our government has shifted focus to primary education in view of the enormous illiteracy and severe constraint on resources, in less than a century the USA, much of Europe and other developed countries have moved from universal primary education to something approaching mass college education. This has resulted in a massive increase in the stock of human capital in society with far reaching implications for social and economic life. How engineering education is organized/should be organized in the PI society has been discussed already. It is pertinent to note that as a result of jobs getting knowledge intensive, college degrees are now required in many occupations that did not previously require even diplomas.

Human capital depreciation is an alarming and pivotal characteristic of the PI society. The rate of obsolescence becomes faster with increased R&D. So companies retool machines and retrain people. IBM spends 7- 8% of its sales on continuing education.

People are searching new ways of making sense of their circumstances and are willing to try even radical solutions in an effort to combat newly emerging social problems. A dichotomy in value systems has emerged. People in jobs characterised by considerable autonomy have come to value personal initiative. Persons in jobs that are narrowly constrained or closely supervised have come to value conformity to external authority. Complex social life requires that one should somehow ascertain what other people want to achieve and how they are likely to act. An ability to think ahead and consider alternative courses of action in the light of different scenarios is also necessary. Thus, people will need to be more creative, building new rule systems to regulate relations with others rather than learning existing systems of rules. Such persons with creative minds are also expected to be complex selves, i.e., people who will be more in touch with their own feelings and less responsive to social pressures. In other words, they are people who are comfortable maintaining multiple identities.

Decision making in the PI era has also led to creative recasting of social roles and the invention of new forms of social institutions in the interest of production units. In the absence of such innovations, information overload, stress and burn out and role failure appear to be inevitable. Creativity may mean new behaviours in given roles or new activities in role relationships. Beyond a certain minimum level of intelligence, there is very little correlation between intelligence and creativity. Also, universality of creativity in all walks of life should be emphasized. For example, Henry Ford's assembly line was as creative as the gadgets invented by Edison or the theories of Newton and Einstein. (Degree of creativity is difficult to define while comparing different areas.)

Organisations are being restructured to develop creative response as a collaborative activity. Major innovations of today are team products that have resulted from group decision making and creative adaptation to environmental pressures.

In the PI era, standardization into some "ideal" person should be avoided. Complex selves can not be made to match an archetype. The idea of the "flexible selves" as against fixed individual identity is emerging. PI individuals spend more time in "construction of selves" than in "presenting selves". The entire process of self-appraisal is less critical than in the industrial self. Gender roles of men and women are also getting more complex and much greater diversity is tolerated. Working oneself to death at a young age (the Japanese call it `karosh") is counter-productive in the PI era. More leisure is needed as more creativity is called for and more stress is to be overcome.

Unbundling

The 19th century pioneers were inner-directed individuals who lived on the frontiers, e.g., Edison, Faraday and Morse. They had enormous capacity to fight against adversity. This was the characteristic of the `Age of Discovery'. The Corporate R&D Manager of the PI era is an outer-directed individual who borrows standards and values from others. These "gray flannel personalities" want to be like everyone else, especially those who are materially just a little better off than they are. Conformity in attitude, behaviour, taste and spirit is the norm and ideal which reflects the impact of rationalization. Such persons are not likely to encourage radically different, "fantastic" ideas that have characterized all major discoveries/ inventions. Who then will usher in such ideas in the future? The answer perhaps lies in the concept of "unbundling" which C. Rangarajan, the former Governor, Reserve Bank of India, talked of in his Kelkar Alumni Lecture of 1999 at IIT Kanpur. As big companies are "too bureaucratic to incubate new ideas", small start-up firms will become the prime generators of new ideas. Once the possibility for consumer acceptance of a product brightens, the small firm will be acquired by a large company that has the requisite financial and marketing capabilities. Thus, the venture capital firm is being replaced by big companies which simply acquire small firms with innovative ideas. This phenomenon is already being witnessed in the computer industry.

Universities and IITs may take the place of small firms in some cases, particularly when the problem to be solved is very basic or of long range. Apart from private foundations, companies and government agencies, moneyed individuals may also become supporters of academic pursuits when they see some economic possibilities for themselves in a not-too-distant future. As regards open-ended "useless" research, one may resort to the `Einstein approach' where he worked in the patents office to earn a living and worked on the sly on the theory of relativity. Also, the ever- dwindling untied grants, from government and private sources, may be used to support basic research for which one sees no `use' in the foreseeable future. If this were not to reduce to `easy money' for a `scheming coterie', objective and verifiable criteria for fund distribution will have to be evolved and implemented.

When `monetary considerations' and `efficiency' become the supreme values of a society, pursuit of knowledge for its own sake will certainly take a beating. As for myself, I see good sense in the old Chinese saying, "When you are left with only two pennies in this world, buy a loaf of bread with one and a lily with another".

[This article is based on Dr. Daya Swarup Memorial Lecture delivered by
Professor K. A. Padmanabhan, director, IIT Kanpur, to the Indian Institute of metals on 14 November 1999 at this Institute.]

K.A. Padmanabhan

Director

Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur

Kanpur - 208016

e.mail: kap@iitk.ac.in

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