Engineering Management and the Changing World

Abstract

We have several choices as to how we can consider engineering management and how it can best operate in a very rapidly changing world. We can wander in the stream of men, procedures, events, data, goals, and money, then we can grab each by its coat-tail and try to piece a story from what we can learn by examination. Or we can sit aside where we can see all the factors as they interplay and by careful observation we can get a statistical idea of what is taking place and of how it might change in the future, If this is too complicated, we can with skilled observations reconstruct a slow-motion picture of what is taking place. Even this probably Is too fast and too complicated, so let us choose a single picture which shows one instant of action and then enlarge it so we can see what was happening to most of the components and, from our experience, we can probably explain why the situation exists and what will happen next. This is a technique we use very

7.4.4 Some Early History of Systems Engineering – 1950's in IRE Publications (Part 2): The Solution

“…A second aspect of the relation of engineers and management is that it is commonly thought that the principle career advancement path for engineers is to transition from detailed technical work to management (Jarmie, 1956;Nelles, 1955;Rives, 1954). The engineer who proceeds to management is first an engineer, and so has developed interest and skill in a narrow technical field (Nelles, 1955), and is then confronted with a range of other issues which demand a broadening of capability (Laport, 1956;Rives, 1954). By the 1950's there had been considerable work in developing management into a more scientific form than it had previously had, and considerable work seeking to quantify the value of management activity (Rives, 1954) with one evidence being the establishment of an IRE Professional Group on Engineering Management.…”

“…By the 1950's there had been considerable work in developing management into a more scientific form than it had previously had, and considerable work seeking to quantify the value of management activity (Rives, 1954) with one evidence being the establishment of an IRE Professional Group on Engineering Management. A number of themes impacting engineering managers were identified, including the rapid advancement of technology, the presence of strong competition which in turn led to a dynamic economy, the public opinion of engineering work which needs to be managed by the leader, Big Government which constrained managerial action through regulation (Rives, 1954), the distribution of engineering activity to multiple sites rather than co-location, the rate of need for continuing education of engineers related to new technology and methods, the availability of new energy sources, the need for the development of new products to address the leisure desires of people, the anticipated development of new large markets in the new product classes providing mass manufacture opportunities (Nelles, 1955) and the problems of an engineering skills shortage leading to an employment revolving door requiring appropriate corporate policies (Swandler, 1959) and the need to develop engineering management methods that would conserve the available skill effort, including the development of now traditional project management tools such as the Gantt chart (Haine & Lob, 1960). The skill shortage was also recognized as challenging management to develop methods which appropriately recognized the attributes of engineers as whole people and the need to provide space accepting errors during the design process in order to get the most creative possible work out of the engineering staff (Greenleaf, 1959).…”

“…The skill shortage was also recognized as challenging management to develop methods which appropriately recognized the attributes of engineers as whole people and the need to provide space accepting errors during the design process in order to get the most creative possible work out of the engineering staff (Greenleaf, 1959). Nelles (1955) added two further "important themes" in relation to the current subject: the transition from the old random approach to technical progress to a systematic form, and the need to develop engineering methods which avoid surprises, an expression commonly used as a euphemism for technical failures. The first of these was elaborated by Roberts (1959) who identified that many companies tended to have little involvement, if any, of the marketing department in the specification of new products, and arguing that the competitive environment precluded this view for companies seeking success.…”

“…The project should be reviewed from both a financial perspective, which will detect budgetary and schedule problems, and a technical view, which will detect issues associated with performance of the product under development. Nelles (1955) proposed an approach to large projects that relied on selecting from projects and options which were developed by others, and the use of an engineering committee rather than individuals because of the technical breadth of the whole project. These processes would be supported by a redefinition of the role of engineering management to be the support of progress, and through the development of better intelligence and reporting systems.…”