| Why Engineering Must Be Global | |||
Introduction
The case to be made here is focused in this manner. First, it is clear that engineering education did not always need to be global and indeed engineering skill and accomplishment could, in the not so distant past, be viewed as a national treasure to be guarded and protected carefully. Engineering expertise was proprietary knowledge, so to speak, and not to be shared with competitors. I contend that this view is no longer tenable. Second, I am not going to speak about what I take to be the obvious good associated with engineers having broad cultural knowledge of the sort enhanced by humanities education. Rather I want to argue that engineering itself, the hard technology and not the social institutions that support it, at this point in the evolution of knowledge, is inherently global. I will argue this despite the local origins of innovative solutions to problems.
The argument will be presented by way of four images: 1. A web or network with nodes nourishing each other; 2. An irritant producing pearls often more appreciated in distant settings; 3. The desirability for governments of multi-national companies that bring distributed technology home while avoiding tariff conflicts; 4. The progression of chemical engineering from the factory to the organism.
Some preliminary distinctions need to be made. Consider the following terms: information, data, fact, technique, understanding and knowledge. Science strictly speaking means knowledge. Engineers use all of these terms, sometimes interchangeably. For our purpose let us group information, data and fact together on one side and understanding and knowledge together on the other. Technique can stand in between. We should further distinguish technique from technology and engineering. Technique refers particularly to the art or process of an action, often the specific motion required. Engineering is the application of technique to a task or problem. One engineers a bridge across a river employing techniques of welding, riveting, etc. Technology synthesizes technique and reason (logos) and addresses reality in a way that simultaneously interprets and modifies.
The Web of Engineering Activity
Engineering is an activity that, like invention, can be performed solo. Although the knowledge and skill-base required to carry out large scale and highly complex projects mitigates against solo performance it is still possible for such work to be done completely locally. In fact, the local character of engineering is an aspect that must not be overlooked. The problems engineers face are very largely determined by local factors such as geography, climate, society, economy, politics and so on. Engineering solutions that do not account adequately for local determinants are rarely satisfactory. The reason why all bridges in the world are not the same, despite being based upon universal physical laws and mathematical principles, is the necessity to accommodate these local determinants. The question is this: If engineering consists in the application of universal physical laws and mathematical principles (knowledge or science) to local circumstances, why need engineers care about how things are done elsewhere? There are various answers but I will mention only three.
For economic reasons, unless a community has unlimited wealth and no need or desire to connect infrastructure to the outside world, the first two points already imply the necessary extension of engineering practice beyond localities. However it is the third point I want to address, especially in the light of globalization.
If necessity is the mother of invention then competition and the sheer drive to be original are the parents of innovation. In this case we have a three-tier hierarchy with engineering occupying the bottom rung. Engineering is problem solving and a good solution may well stand the test of time. Invention creates something new, out of necessity, due to the inadequacy or absence of existing engineering solutions. Innovation results from the almost theological drive to create and perfect. Innovation incorporates invention just as invention absorbs engineering. Innovation, supported by modern technology, possesses world-changing power and thus perpetuates the need for further engineering, invention and innovation. At this point we live in an age of innovation meaning that change is permanent and the goal of perfection continually recedes. Exacerbated by ecological dynamics the cycle of innovation continues to accelerate.
Innovation tends to change the way tasks are carried out, pushing older processes into obsolescence. Older processes may be preferred for aesthetic reasons and in some cases may even be superior to the innovations that succeed them, but they are nevertheless rendered obsolescent. An example is the replacement by digital audio of the analogue phonograph recording and the electronic tube amplifier. For reasons such as these innovation has become an imperative. The rapidity of communication and the ease, reliability and speed of transportation have left no corner of the globe untouched by the forces of obsolescence brought on by innovative activity.
Yet forced obsolescence and the imperative of innovation are not the only tendencies making engineering necessarily global. It is also compelled by the revolution in technology that is not only changing the face of the world but its soul as well. The Internet will serve both as an example and metaphor for the larger situation. The processes of modern technology are such that every new technique stands as critique of not only the replaced technique but of all other technique. Technology is the rationalization of technique through dialogical exchange. A new technique calls for the assessment of itself according to the standards it is meant to attain and in comparison to the attained results of other techniques. The yardstick of comparison measures relative efficiency. The review of technique and all technical processes in this rationalized environment weaves an implicit web of techniques. We can thus imagine technology as a web of techniques, each particular technique defining its own topos, i.e., its own position, attitude, duration and dimension and each in relation, sometimes direct but more often mediated, to other technique-nodes. The activation of any technique resonates throughout the web. The extent to which techniques improve the strength and integrity of the entire web predicts the success and longevity of each particular technique. It is easy to understand how the Internet is both example par excellence of technology and a metaphor for the abstract interactions of the discursive network of technology itself. Given the immediacy of electronic communications the web of technology is no longer limited by space or time and persists as an enduring feature of the world. All engineering activity takes place within this web and is tested by it.
All The World is an Oyster
Engineering creates environments, world space, by solving problems. Engineering problems are not abstract. At least one of the dimensions of any engineering problem is local. Problems arise in situ, locally, and are solved by responding to local situations. However what makes a problem a problem is an interesting question. It is often the case that a practice considered normative in one situation is deemed unacceptable in another. This applies to many circumstances in daily life but it is also the case in high technology research settings. Likewise an irritant generated by local conditions leads to solutions more or less obvious to anyone who has had to endure the problem but may be quite astonishingly innovative in an entirely different situation.
The consequence is that technology transfer may depend upon serendipitous or chance connections. Solutions developed for one purpose in one context may suddenly be discovered as a major innovation in another. And the introduction of an innovative solution will, as already suggested, alter the environment in a manner requiring further innovative change. In other words innovation represents an alternating cycle of an irritating circumstance leading to a solution that may well be seen as more beautiful, desirable or useful in a setting far removed from the original problem. Like the oyster’s manner of coping with an irritating grain of sand by producing a pearl whose beauty and utility are valued quite differently in a totally alien setting, engineering solutions in one locale may have value of a very different sort in another.
Can we afford to depend upon such serendipity? If it is true that innovation, the most powerful expression of engineering, is a world altering force then our ability to respond to such change should be as rational and reliable as possible. To the extent that we, through our innovative engineering problem solving change the natural order and human environment, we have as a minimum imperative the responsibility to be sure that our responses are as informed, efficient and rational as possible. This imperative of responsibility need not be a burden as technological innovation generally leads to greater productivity and other savings. We cannot afford a casual approach. Engineering practice must incorporate systematic means to review, leverage and otherwise utilize the discoveries, solutions, inventions and innovations of other practitioners globally. This is essential for individual nodes on the web lest they atrophy; globally it is our only hope for our engineering solutions to address the myriad of ever shifting challenges facing humankind.
How Globalization Can Help
The dream of globalization’s advocates is that free trade and unfettered technology transfer will distribute the world’s goods more justly and generally raise the standard of living everywhere. Those who oppose globalization are concerned with the economic hardships created by outsourced jobs, the exploitation of labour in less developed countries, and the lack of standardized safety and environmental regulation. As everyone knows the discussion is polarized to the point where the future is anything but clear. I have pointed out that one of the impulses driving innovation is competition and competitions leave winners and losers. What kind of global free market is compatible with the engineer’s technologically rational imperative of responsibility?
The acceptable standards for the global engineering community must include guarantees that competitive innovations do not engender environmental degradation and that despite whatever displacements occur the general quality of life improves. This can be accomplished, together with the attainment of national economic goals, through the creative and rational use of joint venture strategies. Given that different technical strengths occur in different locales (regions and countries) the collaborative possibilities inherent in joint ventures, including the distributed manufacture of components, can be used to benefit multually economies that might otherwise be in competition. Tariff exemptions for such collaborative joint ventures will make sense if at the end of the supply and manufacturing chain wide distribution can be insured. This provision makes the joint venture equally attractive to all participating polities and does not favour the location of the final stage of fabrication.
A serious difficulty arises if the cost of shipping makes wide distribution of the final product uneconomical. As technology miniaturizes and products are replicated digitally this problem is overcome.
The Incredible Shrinking Chemical Plant
Although similar developments could be traced for all engineering disciplines the history of chemical engineering can serve as a case study of how different research disciplines and traditions, as well as communications, and miniaturization have together fostered global engineering.
Generally speaking chemical engineering has progressed from the relatively uncomplex scale of the chemical plant to the significantly more complex and much smaller level of the biological cell. At the level of the chemical plant location was determined largely by the proximity of raw materials and transportation infrastructure. The volatility of the final product influenced distribution. Most of the engineering itself was based on chemistry. Today the situation is quite different. In the United States many Departments of Chemical Engineering are restructuring themselves as Departments of Biological and Chemical Engineering. Areas of research include biomedical engineering, biomaterials, bio molecular engineering, bio-separations, bio-pharmaceuticals, cell and tissue engineering, genomics, proteomics, bio-informatics, nano-biotechnology. This list of topics no longer differentiates clearly between biological and chemical science and finds innovative engineering solutions in the common space proscribed.
That this situation should have come about is a testament to the integrative effect of modern technology. The collaborations technology has enforced, and the freedom to collaborate in research over monumental distances, have changed the character of research and development. When one speaks of biomaterials, informatics and nano-technology, it is clear that the relation of research to location factors such as the proximity of raw materials and transportation infrastructure is less likely to be decisive. Work will proceed, unless hindered by political or financial circumstances, at the four corners of the globe. Indeed politico-economic considerations may enhance or inhibit participation in global research, but they cannot corner the market in or prevent the development of a particular technology, at least not for very long.
Conclusion
Today the biological organism as the locale of engineering innovation is replacing the chemical plant. The universal and necessarily globally distributed nature of engineering is manifest. Further developments, such as the breakdown of the human-machine separation, suggest new hierarchies of political and economic power. Other developments point toward an evolutionary future where traditional priorities are abandoned in favour of those grounded in a radical interdependency hitherto not experienced on earth. The implications for engineering education are likewise profound.
If engineering is, without political coercion, inevitably globalizing and especially if engineering innovation supported by modern high technology is changing the world even to the extent of altering human nature, it is an imperative of the first order that we manage this enterprise in rational and responsible ways. The challenge this presents to engineering education cannot be overstated. It is not enough and may not even be possible to broaden engineering education by multiplying required courses in the humanities, language, social science and ethics. It is not enough because the broadening of the curriculum in this fashion will not address and lead to understanding the dynamic forces driving engineering innovation today. For that to happen the processes and globalizing tendencies of high technology engineering innovation must be studied and understood, not so much in a theoretical manner than as a matter of practice. Global exchange is one way this can happen. Internet collaboration is another. Such programs will broaden the sensibility of the engineering student, open her mind to a level of both problem and solution that would otherwise remain invisible, and prepare her for her inevitable role of citizen of the world.
|
