Thursday 28 January 2016

ICE Triennial 2: Why Engineering Change Needs All of Us to Get Involved

This morning, an opinion piece about the value of learning by heart got me thinking. Does the ubiquitous  availability of sat-navs mean that the Knowledge, the detailed memorisation of routes through Central London required to become a London taxi driver, is no longer necessary? Or is there value in spending several years and discipline to get by hard work what any visitor can get off their smart phone? 

You could ask a similar question about engineering practice. A trend in the rail industry, where a quarter of experienced rail engineers are expected to retire in the next ten years, is to meet the shortage of skilled resources with project managers and new software to automate planning processes as much as possible. The ICE have been asking what the role of engineers will be in the future, in an age of Building Information Modelling (BIM), driverless cars and other technologies such a 3D printing or off-site fabrication. When people can look up anything that interests them on the internet, do we still need textbooks and engineering courses? 
It seems to me that there are two dangers here: either engineers keep control without adapting, training the next generation of construction workers to be so wedded to the old ways that technical innovation is held back, or alternatively innovators will simply bypass the engineering profession and look for early adopters who are more open to change - business leaders, project managers or perhaps technology companies like Google (who are after all trying to enter the driverless car market). But without a strong technical focus in our organisations and the way we deliver projects, we will end up relearning old lessons the hard way, because the corporate memory has disappeared in the influx of new people who have not lived through the rigorous training of old. 

Innovation needs to happen with a solid theoretical basis and an understanding of why the current systems and safeguards have been developed, because the laws of physics and human error have not changed! Over-reliance on one technology can also reduce resilience in the same way that mono-culture farming may increase yields in the short term at the cost of genetic diversity and the risk of sudden widespread failure when a crop virus strikes. By ensuring that people within the rail industry have a strong technical understanding of the how the whole system works and how one element impacts on another, you provide diversity of opinions which can find a way forward when life is not in line with protocol.

So we would do well to reflect on this: "There is a difference between a disaggregated collection of facts pulled in and out of storage as needed and the kind of knowledge built through learning by heart. To learn by heart is to bring knowledge into the centre of our being, and into the imagination which knits everything together."

Engineering judgement cannot be gained solely by looking up facts, but by using that knowledge and coming to understand what is relevant. "The difference between what can be learned from a map and the knowledge gained by walking over the territory is profound". My team use many maps, aerial photos and historical records to understand our earthworks sites, but there is no replacement for the understanding which comes from walking over it. After all, a map is only the result of someone else's interpretation. In the world of earthworks, there are many possible interpretations and seeing for yourself the evidence on the ground is the only way to untangle whether a cutting failed because of a loss of strength (for example softening of the soil due to wetting or an unplanned excavation at the toe), from excess rainwater flowing over the ground from above (perhaps from blocked drains, from someone else's land or from a broken pipe) or from groundwater emerging somewhere on the slope. 

So let us ensure that engineering education does not rely on superficial knowledge of facts, but a deep understanding of principles and the collected experience of history. We cannot create the infrastructure of the future without that expertise, developed through practical experience and mentoring. That's why I have recently signed up to become a Supervising Civil Engineer (SCE) with the ICE to support civil engineers in training, whether graduates on a training scheme or older engineers seeking to fill in the gaps in their experience and become professional qualified engineers through the Career Appraisal process. I hope that I can contribute to a rail industry where technical expertise is genuinely valued, sought after and shared to build the skills of everyone working on a project. We all have a responsibility to pass on our knowledge, and if we are managers, the professional development of our staff should be high on the priority list. So what will you do?

After all, "Whatever can be looked up instantly can be instantly forgotten" but our infrastructure decisions will come back to haunt us for decades to come if we do not make them wisely. And how will we deal with the challenges of the future if we forget the lessons of the past?

See also


No comments:

Post a Comment