engineer/designer vs builder/laborer

[curtis rosche]

im writing a paper for my english class on the problems between the person who designs and engineers things without realizing what it will take to make their concept come true and the people who have to try to build that design. im doing google searches but i dont have quite the right search terms. and if you know of any example of times that this happened in history, please comment it. and example would be the conflicts between Charels Babbage and his machinist. Babbage wanted a machine built, but in order to do it machines had to be made just to make some of the machine to make parts. and in the end his first machine was never built due to fighting with his machinist.
any thing similar or anything would help.
thank you for your help. i know there are tons of cases of things like this out there, i just dont know of specific ones

[Matt Meiser]

Google Kansas City skywalk collapse. Short story is that the engineer designed a structure the steel company felt was unbuildable. The steel company proposed an alternate, which the engineer failed to run some basic calculations on. A year after the building opened, the skywalk collapsed, killing 114 people.

[John Aspinall]

I'm thinking of the fireplace kettle in Frank Lloyd Wright's masterpiece - Fallingwater.
In some stories, it's described as just "symbolic", but in other accounts it was intended for use.
According to the tour guide, the kettle was such a big thermal mass that it would take the better part of a day in a roaring fire before it would be hot enough.

This is a case of designer versus engineer.

[curtis rosche]

thanks for the help. these are great example. also, examples of designer to machinist on making individual parts. its kind of an open paper and run with it. but its a rather longer paper.

[Matt Meiser]

There's another example in Wright's headquarters building for Johnson Wax. IIRC there's a tower that's unusable because it's impossible to control the temperature and an office area with a roof that has leaked from the beginning.

[Andrew Pitonyak]

Unclear how applicable, but, how about using furniture store employees who can tell you how nice it will look to design a work area. For me, this means relative to say computer developers and such. Typically you end up with say a single open area. In my case, it means that if I need to be on a conference call for another project, I interrupt all the people in the area. I will not bother to elaborate further unless you specifically request more comments regarding the issues, but I might prefer to do them by email.

[Bryan Morgan]

What about the Ford Explorer? Didn't Ford try to blame the problems tires exploding but then an engineer came out later and no, they designed a steering part a certain way but Ford said no and built it a cheaper way?

[Dale Cruea]

I used to build dies for an automotive company.
We ran into problems on a daily basis.
Engineers would design a die. But no way to get to the components of the die. Everything was enclosed in cast iron.
Also had an Engineer put a hole inside a larger hole. Hmmmm Nothing to punch out on the smaller hole.
Engineers have a lot of theory and should work ideas. They lack practical knowledge on how things work in the real world.

[curtis rosche]

I used to build dies for an automotive company.
We ran into problems on a daily basis.
Engineers would design a die. But no way to get to the components of the die. Everything was enclosed in cast iron.
Also had an Engineer put a hole inside a larger hole. Hmmmm Nothing to punch out on the smaller hole.
Engineers have a lot of theory and should work ideas. They lack practical knowledge on how things work in the real world.
know of any examples that i would be able to cite?

[curtis rosche]

if you can think of any search terms that would help too. i keep trying different ones but i dont seem to be hitting the words i need

[harry hood]

The references in Dorner's _The_Logic_of_Failure_ might have useful sources.

[Dan Hintz]

Richard Feynman tells a tale of his time in drafting class... one of the kids was proud he had accomplished a gear design with many many gears. After looking it over, the teacher said it was a great design... and it would work, too, once someone invented a way to put the axle of one gear through the middle of another gear (think spinning spokes). Amusingly enough, he mentioned that a few years later someone did just that... the spokes could separate to let the axle pass, then reconnected when it had passed.

[Larry Edgerton]

Google "engineering snafus". It has some interesting ones.

I have seen some engineering/arcitectural mistakes, but I am still working in the field so I will just keep it to myself for now......

Don't get me going on "Frank, I'm always right" From a builders prospective, and from someone that has fixed some of his ideas, and someone that strives to make homes comfortable for the people that inhabit them, I think he was an idiot. An opinion that many don't share, but some people like rap, so what the heck?

[Paul McGaha]

Google Kansas City skywalk collapse. Short story is that the engineer designed a structure the steel company felt was unbuildable. The steel company proposed an alternate, which the engineer failed to run some basic calculations on. A year after the building opened, the skywalk collapsed, killing 114 people.

I read the story on Wikepedia. Tragic. Original design was actually not code compliant, would only carry 60% of required load. The contractor change was worse in that it was only good for 30% of required load.

PHM

[Bryan Slimp]

There's a hotel/condo/skyscraper that was being built in Vegas that will probably be torn down and never finished. There is an argument between the engineers/architects and the builders. I don't remember the whole thing but it was a recent news story.

I googled Las Vegas building dispute. Here's a good link:http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/aug/15/mgm-county-demolish-harmon/

[John Coloccia]

The problem is that you see this kind of stuff in everyday engineering work, but no one ever writes about it. Back when I was a respectable engineer, you could have followed me around for a day to see all the idiotic designs out there. The problem is that very few engineers actually know how to make anything, and even fewer have any sort of interdisciplinary skills (i.e. the mechanical engineer that knows about electronics, he software engineer that knows about mechanisms and structure, etc etc) so you end up with situations like (and I've seen ALL of these and lots more):

1) mechanical engineer designs a hollow metal object with no seams (how do you build it?)
2) mechanical engineer crams electronics into a box without considering thermal load...I've seen things heat up enough to REFLOW solder...seriously.
3) software guy designs robot interaction in such a way that it's impossible to clear a fault without rebooting...they just didn't understand at all how operators used their equipment
4) electrical engineer designs board that can't be mounted....screw holes interfere with some mechanism
5) mechanical engineer designs mechanism that is easy to make but impossible to assemble (screws are buried behind other parts and are inaccessible)

I can go on and on and on and on and on and on. Here's a failure between software and user interaction. I won't mention the project but I worked on a project where an accident happened and some damage to a VERY expensive and practically irreplaceable item was done. Damage was in a non-important area, but regardless it triggered a review. Now the REAL problem was the guy holding the pickle (i.e. the emergency stop) failed to hit the stop button when the item started moving. There was a clear protocol of when motion was to be expected the test director said "motion expected" over the intercomm. The pickle operator hesitated when motion started, though, and asked "is motion expected?". That hesitation was enough to cause the damage. Now the REASON he hesitated was that every time you hit the pickle, management decided to conduct a witch hunt "review" of the incident, which was really just an excuse to chew out the guy that delayed the testing. Great, right?

But of course, none of this is the real problem, right? No...the REAL problem was that the software didn't ask "are you sure???" before issuing the command. Now, that wouldn't have helped anything here, but you can't have the real issue of incompetent management come to light, so down comes the order to put an "are you sure???" on all commands that could possibly cause any damage. Fine. The engineer in charge of that particular piece of software, a very good and experienced engineer who I respected, made a reasonable request. He simply wanted someone to provide him a list of commands that management felt was possible to cause damage. Well, of course no one would take responsibility for giving him a list....after all, you might miss one and then it would be YOU getting chewed out. Fine...he made it configurable and the default was to simply put this "are you sure????" on every command. The exact wording was something to the effect of, "Warning!!! Issuing this command may cause grave damage to the system!!!".

End result...the "are you sure" became a constant source of annoyance and was completely ignored. You just automatically click through it as though it wasn't there because it was EVERYWHERE. Oh, and the communication issue that caused the initial problem was never addressed.

On this same project, one of the processors I was working on started acting up. This thing was basically a little super computer and I was pretty much in charge of that software at that point...I think I may have just been promoted to Engineering manager, so maybe I was feeling my oats a bit. I poked around some and it didn't take me long to figure out that when I started doing some real calculations, the power supply was sagging and dropping out. I'm trained as software but I happen to be very comfortable on the electrical side of things, as well as mechanical...I don't care...I'll design and build my own boards, machine my own parts...whatever it takes (doing robotics for years means you just have to learn to do that to do your job). Anyway, it wasn't difficult to figure out there was something totally screwed up with the power supply, and I shut down the test. The deputy program manager ordered me to start the tests back up, and I told him to go pound sand. He was MAD. Now understand, all of this happens to be on an airplane....a very EXPENSIVE airplane with all sorts of expensive and delicate/sensitive things on board.

Anyhow, I got my way, mostly because they needed our team to continue the testing. A couple of days later we got a new power supply, I installed it and we where on our way. We sent the old supply back to the manufacturer for testing. These are big supplies....2kW@12v, or something like that, and we didn't have a clue how to test it on site. They plugged it in, attached a small load, and the thing immediately burst into flames....LOL. Culprit? Again, solder reflow from poor thermal management. If that had happened on the aircraft, it would have been a MAJOR problem. Deputy program manager came to me that afternoon and said, "We're always behind and we're always trying to rush, but you tell me to stop anytime, got it?"

Lack of communication is one of the biggest problems in the engineering world. You won't find much on designing things that are difficult to build because most of them haven't been built...it's caught before then and long forgotten. You WILL find a lot on communication problems causing major headaches.

Let's see...there was the satellite that slammed into Mars because they had a little snafu regarding metric vs standard measurements. That was fairly recent.

Have you ever seen this picture?

http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewpr.html?pid=15189

My company was contracting for Lockheed at the time on a completely separate project, but news travels FAST, so I saw pictures of this before news even got out...and I also heard the story how it happened. I haven't read the report so I'm not sure what's in it, and I don't want to contradict anyone so if I say anything different than what's in the report, just chalk it up to my bad memory and third hand information. My recollection, though, is that someone "borrowed" some bolts from an adapter plate that attaches the satellite to the tilt mechanism. The bolts attached the adapter to the tilt mechanism. Some time later, maybe the next day, when they got ready to tilt they noted that the satellite was bolted down and went ahead and started tilting....and the satellite, attached firmly to the adapter plate, slid right off.

Communication, communication, communication, and a management structure that makes it easy to do your job and communicate as opposed to punishing you at every turn.

[curtis rosche]

thanks John, i might quote you in my paper

[David Epperson]

The problem is that you see this kind of stuff in everyday engineering work, but no one ever writes about it. Back when I was a respectable engineer, you could have followed me around for a day to see all the idiotic designs out there. The problem is that very few engineers actually know how to make anything, and even fewer have any sort of interdisciplinary skills (i.e. the mechanical engineer that knows about electronics, he software engineer that knows about mechanisms and structure, etc etc) so you end up with situations like (and I've seen ALL of these and lots more):

1) mechanical engineer designs a hollow metal object with no seams (how do you build it?)
2) mechanical engineer crams electronics into a box without considering thermal load...I've seen things heat up enough to REFLOW solder...seriously.
3) software guy designs robot interaction in such a way that it's impossible to clear a fault without rebooting...they just didn't understand at all how operators used their equipment
4) electrical engineer designs board that can't be mounted....screw holes interfere with some mechanism
5) mechanical engineer designs mechanism that is easy to make but impossible to assemble (screws are buried behind other parts and are inaccessible)

I can go on and on and on and on and on and on.

Communication, communication, communication, and a management structure that makes it easy to do your job and communicate as opposed to punishing you at every turn.
I hear you John. I used to be a "Mechanical Engineer" - or a "Manufacturing Engineer", even a Project Engineer. Most of those positions boiled down to my being able to design and build specialized prototype devices - and sometimes to write the control programs as well, some wiring in there too.

I used to STAY in trouble for taking too long on a design - but I had a pretty good "Worked first time out" average going.

I was changing companies once and the engineer taking my place wanted to know how to seal some aging piping that carried molten lead (Pb). This was a 2 minute conversation and I mentioned re-machining the seal surfaces first - which was rejected as too time consuming, and skilled labor intensive. At which point I shrugged and told him to find something "like" soft copper that would fill the erosion voids and effect a seal. Apparently he didn't get the jist of why I said something "like" copper and went ahead and used copper - which shortly dissolved and filled a fairly large pit, as well as coated a large extruder drive gearbox with rapidly cooling lead - to a depth of around 3 foot.

But the best story I heard of was the original design for the Clinton Library in Little Rock (Which looks like a trailer with a 5th wheel hitch) - the concept people didn't want the 5th wheel hitch looking support - they wanted the entire building CANTILEVERED out over the river.
Luckily the contracting company told them to pound sand or go elsewhere. The 5th wheel hitch looking section alone cost a few million to fabricate I think - and the building still has to be re-shored and re-leveled several times a year. (There is aledgedly a full time drywall contractor on call 24/7 to repair the walls)

[Jim Rimmer]

There's a hotel/condo/skyscraper that was being built in Vegas that will probably be torn down and never finished. There is an argument between the engineers/architects and the builders. I don't remember the whole thing but it was a recent news story.

I googled Las Vegas building dispute. Here's a good link:http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/aug/15/mgm-county-demolish-harmon/

Here's another link to multile problems with the Luxor http://www.onlinenevada.org/luxor_hotel And another about a death ray from a Las Vegas hotel http://www.ar15.com/archive/topic.html?b=1&f=5&t=1096269

[John Coloccia]

This never would have happened if the Corleones were still around.

[Jim Rimmer]

Some of the folks here may remember the Ford F series pickup when they still had the twin I-beam front suspension. I had one, 1974 I think. The problem was changing the oil. The drain plug was right above the I-beams and there was no room to out a catch pan. So when you drained the oil it ran all over the beams and dripped off in several locations.

[Jason Roehl]

Jim, that's not a design flaw, that's a FEATURE--your twin I-beams get lubed and never rust.

John--are you saying that engineers are bad at communication? NAWWWWW... (I have a family full of them, and I started college in engineering).

Curtis, you could probably interview just about any large builder who regularly works with an architect and get a whole litany of examples.

Heck, there are plenty of times I want to strangle builders and/or their carpenters for putting something together and THEN calling us painters. Tomorrow I will be caulking and painting the exterior trim on a small room addition where I explicitly told the builder AND his worker beforehand that all the cuts on the manufactured trim they were using needed to be at least primed. I even left the paint the homeowner provided and a couple disposable brushes for just that purpose. I looked at the installed trim today and there is not a drop of paint on any of the new trim. I'll do my part tomorrow, but I also won't tell the homeowner that the trim won't last as long as it could have.

[Dan Friedrichs]

Back when I was a respectable engineer...

This was the best line of the whole thing :)

[Bill Edwards(2)]

Tonight, on Dr. Phil:

"Free thinkers", are they good team players?

This group says, "He** NO!"
This other group says "He** NO!"
Actually, everyone says, "He** NO!"

Let's pick another topic, Phil.

Tonight, on Dr. Phil:

"Craftsmen", are they good team players?

*sigh*

[Dan Hintz]

I'll do my part tomorrow, but I also won't tell the homeowner that the trim won't last as long as it could have.
Well, that's disturbing...

[Jeffrey Makiel]

Here's an interesting read...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citigroup_Center

It resulting in NYC being put on alert as hurricane season was coming.

Jeff :)

[Brian Vaughn]

As a currently employed engineer, I would agree that engineers, to a large extent, have plenty of "book learning", but very little pratical experience. But thinking about a comparison, by the time I was out of college and into my first engineering job, a craftsperson would already have 5 years in their specialization. Now, they may be able to look at a certain situation and give you a more practical answer, but they've had much more time working on that sort of thing. HOWEVER, as has been mentioned, a mechanical engineer may not know all that much about programming a PLC, but they could (or should be able to) tell you how big a pipe needs to be in order to flow a certain amount of water without causing cavitation, or taking too much head loss. The point is that some of that knowledge comes from experience. I happen to be a mechanical engineer who learned to program a PLC when I had one that was incorrectly programmed and I had to fix it.

On the other hand, I work with craftspeople at my current job from at least 8 different unions (Sheet Metal Workers, Boilermakers, Electricians, Insulators, Carpenters, Pipefitters, Welders, Machinists, just to name a few) I could ask one of the boilermakers what the standard torque on a 1" bolt is, and he should know that sort of info, but an electrician will just give me a blank stare. A carpenter could tell me how many and what size scaffolds I need for a job, but don't know how to do the scheme check on the wiring once I get up there.

My whole point is that the engineer is supposed to be knowledgeble in a lot of different aspects of the job, and be able to take it from theory to reality, but we often find that what seems like a good idea on paper doesn't necessarily work in real life. But many times, I could hand that same piece of paper to one of the laborers and they couldn't tell me if there's something wrong with it either.

Personally, I've never tried to design a shaft through a moving gear, but I've some up with some crazy ideas on joining some of my furniture pieces that I had to go through a very specific sequence to assemble, or I wouldn't have room to put in some of the screws. It happens to the best of us, but going back to a previous topic, it's the people that can visualize all this, who can figure out how it's all going to work together, that are going to be the best designers.

But as for specific cases, more recently I had one where an engineer told some laborers to tighten a joint. The boilermakers looked at the torque and told him that if they did it that tight, it'd just make things worse, but he insisted, and sure enough, we'll be replacing that gasket come January. But I've also had boilermakers that insisted we use RTV on a very large opening, which I refused to allow because there was no way they could get the joint back together before it set. They did it anyway, and sure enough, due to the irregularities in the RTV layer, we now have a ton of leaks. Plus, they tried to tighten it down more to help, which resulted in fractures to the RTV and made things worse. It goes both ways.

I get feedback on a regular basis from laborers, in their specific knowledge area, and it's the engineers that listen to that advice and are able to incorporate and learn from it that will be the biggest successes.

[Jason Roehl]

Well, that's disturbing...

One might think so, but in this case, I'm not working for the homeowner, I'm working for the builder. I try not to bite the hand that feeds me, particularly going into winter in a down economy.

[Ryan Mooney]

The problem largely seems to fall into several major areas that I've seen:
Raw incompetence in primary sphere. I believe that this is actually rarer than people would like to think but I'm sure it still happens (as evidenced by multiple examples on this thread :rolleyes:).
Changing requirements. Engineer designs part A to work properly with part B, builder (or as often some management wank who has never actually designed nor built anything) replaces B with C and chaos ensues.
Engineers Disease. This is where the person believes expertise in discipline A yields corresponding expertise in discipline B. At a previous gig I worked with some EE's who were designing various mechanical and software components in addition to the electronics. Predictably this lead to innovative solutions like "aligning" antennas (with a 1/4 degree beam angle at 10 miles) with a compass and then cutting the mounting hardware exactly to fit back at the shop (worked just as well as expected).
If you haven't already found it check out the risks digest, its somewhat more oriented towards software failure but has a lot of delicious anecdotes about the intersection between design and implementation: http://catless.ncl.ac.uk/Risks/. The older editions tended to have more hardware related issues.

Another interesting list (containing some previous mentions) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_software_bugs
Most of these: http://www.soe.uoguelph.ca/webfiles/wjames/homepage/Teaching/FamousEngrgDisasters.htm would also apply. Google searching for "engineering failures" yields a lot of noise but still has significant signal..

To correct the Ford Exploder/Tire comment from Bryan, the real issue was related to my point #2 - the tires were designed to be run at a higher inflation, but provided a smoother (albeit apparently less safe) ride at lower pressures (in this case basically sales overriding engineering). Reference here: http://usgovinfo.about.com/blfirestone.htm - found via http://www.electronicsweekly.com/blogs/engineering-design-problems/2007/07/engineerings-ten-biggest-mista.html. We had one of the affected vehicles, the (imho) retarded tire salespeople refused to mount another brand of safer tires but would only sell us the "approved" replacements. Yaah for litigation making things actually worse.

[Dan Hintz]

I would agree that fresh grad engineers, to a large extent, have plenty of "book learning", but very little pratical experience.
Fixed that for ya...


But thinking about a comparison, by the time I was out of college and into my first engineering job, a craftsperson would already have 5 years in their specialization.

My whole point is that the engineer is supposed to be knowledgeble in a lot of different aspects of the job, and be able to take it from theory to reality, but we often find that what seems like a good idea on paper doesn't necessarily work in real life. But many times, I could hand that same piece of paper to one of the laborers and they couldn't tell me if there's something wrong with it either.
Which requires a number of years of schooling before an engineer is considered knowledgeable enough to start working on projects... whereas a craftsman has enough knowledge to start working on simple projects almost from the beginning. After 10 years or so, both have plenty of knowledge and experience to handle complicated projects, so it all evens out.

[Ernie Balch]

Hey, I remember that english-metric disaster where the mars bound space craft kept going more off course with every course correction. We built some of the payload electronics for lockheed martin. As I recall Jpl never dreamed that Lockheed was using english units.

[ray hampton]

I am surprise that no one mention the car that require that the engine be remove in order to replaced the sparkplugs

[Tim Pape]

the 9/11 memorial in NY is a good example also. There was a good special on TV about it around the 10th anniversary. One of the issues was the way the design called for piecing together the sections of bronze with welds. That would have called for something like 21 miles of welds. A machine shop figured a way to scribe the bronze and then bend them to reduce welds altogether.

The biggest issue though was about heat. They bronze plates that had all the names of the victims etched in it reaches over 200 degrees in the summer sun, which obviously would be a safety hazard to all the people touching them. This forced the fabricators to build miles of copper tubing placed behind the plates filled with glycol, in a manner just like radiant heating for your house. It added lots of time, money, and complexity to the project.

[Kevin Groenke]

"Progressive" designers and architects have a pretty bad rep with builders/laborers who have to execute their visionary work. As an intermediary in design education (shop guy) I deal with this everyday: I see how it happens, even how it's formed (this week our architecture students, who have disturbingly little materials and physics background, are "designing" a 2000' cantilever). Of course there are abject failures - Leaning Tower of Pisa, Galloping Gertie, Titanic, Hindenburg, - but if designers never pushed the known, conventional limitations of engineering, manufacturing and construction where would we be?

Yeah, Wright was notoriously difficult to work with and many of his designs are problematic, but he's also heralded as a genius and is the most recognized architect in the US, maybe in the world. Why? Because his work is unique, pushed the limits of materials, techniques and capability and is instantly recognizable and aesthetically beautiful (unless you don't like it ;-).

Others? Divinchi, Gaudi, Brunelleschi, Calatrava, Tesla, Edison, Bell, Jobs... Would I want to work for any of these guys? Heck no, "That's impossible man".

Projects? Hoover Dam, Panama Canal, Channel Tunnel, Millau Viaduct, Bejing stadium.. I doubt if anybody who WORKED on any of these projects would have believed they were possible were it not for the BIG THINKERS who envisioned them. If those Designers had given up when they were told their ideas were impossible, we'd all be living on one side of the river without electricity.

Frank Gehry's first buildings - derived from napkin sketches and tinfoil models - were notoriously difficult to build. Now, after YEARS of investment and evolution, Gehry's office has developed a powerful software package the vastly simplifies design AND production of their work and lot's of other work. Last year I visited a shop that LITERALLY downloads gcode from files shared with Gehry's office into a multi-axial sheet metal former to produce the steel studs employed in some of the work. There are tens of thousands of these unique elements in a building, all the pieces are sequentially packaged and bar coded with GPS coordinates. Is his work perfect? Absolutely not, but it is an amazing piece of design and engineering. Like Wright, many of the problems with Gehry's designs are a result of the contractors failing to execute the design as intended... probably because it was "impossible" (within present parameters) because the designer was ahead of the engineering/production capability.

When Ives/Jobs designed the first iPod, iMac, iPhone could they be built?, Probably not, the "visionary designers" pushed the engineering and production capabilities. Successfully? Most people seem to think so.

Of course a "universal genius" who is a designer, engineer, marketing genius, computer scientist, etc... could change the world alone. Of course, making stuff (especially BIG stuff) is collaborative, so "people skills" (which most of the above are not known for being particularly strong at) are very important too.

212512

[Brian Elfert]

the 9/11 memorial in NY is a good example also. There was a good special on TV about it around the 10th anniversary. One of the issues was the way the design called for piecing together the sections of bronze with welds. That would have called for something like 21 miles of welds. A machine shop figured a way to scribe the bronze and then bend them to reduce welds altogether.

The biggest issue though was about heat. They bronze plates that had all the names of the victims etched in it reaches over 200 degrees in the summer sun, which obviously would be a safety hazard to all the people touching them. This forced the fabricators to build miles of copper tubing placed behind the plates filled with glycol, in a manner just like radiant heating for your house. It added lots of time, money, and complexity to the project.

Is there any way to not have a dark metal heat up in the sun? I'm not an engineer, but it seems that the only way to avoid the heat issue would have been to use a different material and/or a much lighter color. I also seem to recall something about the original design for heating/cooling the panels didn't work and they had to pull all the panels back off to rework the heating/cooling.

The shop that won the bid for the panels was just a small shop. They subbed out a lot of the fabrication work because they simply didn't have the required machinery. The design they came up with supposedly saved millions of dollars compared to how the designers thought the fabrication would have to be done.

[Conrad Fiore]

I must give props where they are deserved. The panels for the 911 Memorial were completely fabricated by Service Metal Fabricating in Rockaway New Jersey. SMF is one of my vendors for laser and waterjet cutting and I can tell you they did all the work themselves. The attached link is a video that was featured on NOVA. http://www.servicemetal.com/news/911-memorial-the-memorial-plaques/

[Bryan Morgan]

Of course there are abject failures - Leaning Tower of Pisa, Galloping Gertie, Titanic, Hindenburg, - but if designers never pushed the known, conventional limitations of engineering, manufacturing and construction where would we be?

I thought the Titanic turned out to be redeemed recently. Something about the captain speeding up and forcing a bunch of water into the ship.... had it just stayed put or went slow everything would have been fine. Somebodies deathbed confession or something I seem to remember...

[Brian Elfert]

KC Fabrications was the company that was awarded the contract for the parapets at the 9/11 Memorial. KC won because they proposed folding the metal instead of welding. KC Fabrications used Service Metal Fabricating for the machine work.

[Susan Kahler]

Dilbert gets a LOT of play out of this topic... :)

[John Coloccia]

The thing is that no one tries to screw up projects. Everything seems very reasonable at the time. The main problem is that decisions are often not made with full information, and there's massive mistrust between management and engineers. Why?

engineer: It will take 4 weeks
management: But I need it in 2 weeks
e: I can't do it...it won't be right
m: can you get it close (he's thinking close as in "close enough but improved later on")
e: I can maybe do something in 2 weeks ("he's thinking bandaid, and redesign later...redesign will now take 6 weeks to retrofit)
m: Ok...let's do it

A year later all anyone remembers is that the engineers said it would take 2 weeks, the screwed it up and it took 4 weeks and never really worked right anyhow. So no there's less communication and less trust, and the engineers are pretty smart so next time the conversation goes.

e: How long do I have?
m: 2 weeks
e: OK!

Because he knows there's no point in trying any harder than that. He won't win and when it doesn't work it will be his fault anyway. When I was managing, I made very clear that I don't care how long it takes but it will be done right. If we needed to cut a corner, we documented it and fully documented the consequences. I never hung anyone out to dry and always took the lumps when we messed something up. It wasn't altruistic...it was to make sure that my engineers would never hang ME out to dry by outright lying to me when we were under pressure. I've done it too just to get an idiot manager out of my office, and I didn't want to be the idiot!

It's easy to keep communication going when everyone's on board but that is so rare. It really takes someone, somewhere, in the chain to just break the pattern and stop the flow of BS. Then everything works from him on down. This is usually way too far down the chain. It's hard to really blame anyone other than the CEO/President/Owner. From him on down, everyone is just trying to keep their jobs and feed their families. Ultimately, they set the tone and the focus. Honey flows down hill too, not just the other stuff.

I've worked for and dealt with really well run companies. Invariably there's a pattern of the guy that is knowledgable is also the guy that can make the decisions...even if he's not the manager, he's clearly the one that says "this is how we do it" and everyone falls in line. It's the same pattern time and time again. I can always tell the poorly run companies when the guy I'm dealing with is obviously the brains behind the product, but he's always "getting back to you" later. What he's really saying is he's going off to ask the permission of the idiot he works for (who obviously doesn't trust him). I ALWAYS know when things aren't going to go well with a vendor and this is a serious red flag.

[Myk Rian]

Google engineering disasters. A whole lot of info comes up.

[Ricky Rater]

Curtis,

I'm a 10 yr engineer at an oil refinery with environmental, maintenance, project and reliability experience. Here is an experience of mine:

Once upon a time I was a Plant Engineer (sometimes known as a maintenance engineer). We use this position as an entry level engineering position and assign the youngsters problems to solve.

We had an atmospheric condensate drum which was venting excessive steam out of the p-trap drain. A process engineer spent about 5 minutes on it and determined that the p-trap seal was getting siphoned out and she recommended that we drill a hole in the top of the trap. She did not walk this down in the field nor did she discuss her idea(s) with operations. Kudos to young me... before we implemented her idea, I walked it down with an experienced operator. He had some theories and we tested some of them. Wouldn't you know it, we blocked in one of the valves which dumps into the condensate header and the p-trap stopped blowing through. Long story short - the steam reheater whose valve we blocked in had been reconfigured some years past (before we were rigorous with change management) from a 20 psig steam user to a 150 psig steam user. The simple fact was that the condensate header had too much pressure on it for the p-trap to restrain! If the story ended there, you'd congratulate me on a job well done, but I had more to learn.

Next I started formulating alternate solutions. Since I didn't trust the process engineer any longer I didn't consult her or anyone from her discipline. We offered management two solutions. Option 1 Build a new medium pressure condensate header at considerable cost. This was my recommendation. Option 2 Install a steam silencer and vent off the material from the higher pressure steam reheater - much more economical. My mistake was assuming Option 2 would actually work. Of course management chose the $10k option over the $200k option - especially since I was confident both would work (well "pretty sure" on Option 2). Problem was, I assumed the material vented from the steam reaheater would be vapor (steam). It wasn't, of course, since I was tying in downstream of the control valve whose job it is to behave like a steam trap to maximize heat transfer. I still have responsibilities in this process area and am infamous for installing the "hot water sprinkler." One of the engineers who followed me finally "fixed" it by installing a larger atmospheric vent on the condensate drum.

Some other thoughts:
1. Any good project will involve all stakeholders in the front end engineering efforts. For us this includes Environmental, Safety, maintenance (craft), reliability (what probability of a successful run do we expect over X years), operations and various technical experts. Continued involvement of these team members is necessary all the way through the execution and startup of any given project. Entire careers are built upon effectively bringing together diverse perspectives to build the best possible project. You'd be surprised how many problems can be avoided in a short amount of time when you bring together a hundred years' worth of experience into one room.
2. Indeed any change in my industry (and many others) as defined by OSHA requires a cross functional group to perform a risk analysis upon it. Cross functional reviews are the key in my opinion to preventing theory vs. practical application errors. When engineers do practical application hobbies or have past experience in a craft, it makes them more valuable because they can (and often do) serve in multiple roles on a cross functional team. Same goes for experienced engineers - they've been there and seen it, so they have a broader library of knowledge to draw upon when looking for potential failures or design errors. I have a person working with me who is new to his role as a reliability engineer - he is already head and shoulders above his peers because he spent time as a mechanic in the Navy - practical experience, even when it's not "engineering" experience, is priceless.
3. In my industry, learnings are institutionalized via sustainable systems such as specifications and standards. This maximizes the value that young, inexperienced engineers can leverage, although they should never just be turned loose without mentorship. It also brackets the decision rights that craftsmen are allowed to exercise - decisions outside of reviewed and approved standards or design packages must be elevated through engineering and often will be re-reviewed at the cross-functional level of a project team.
4. Technology can be leveraged very effectively to bring the practical people and the theoretical people all onto the same page. Complex models of varying process conditions may be needed. Computational fluid dynamics can be used on a targeted basis. 3-d CAD is beneficial to help Operators and Maintenance crafts to visualize what it will be like to operate and work on the equipment. All of these are, among other things, communication tools.
5. Finally, the vision and mission of the organization that the engineer and craftsmen are working within influences the success or failure of every effort. You've seen many examples in this thread about how management applied time pressure without regard to the quality impact. Decision rights must be at the right level. Managers must be facilitators of good decision making and able to challenge without stifling good engineering or maintenance practices. Since you're in English class and not getting a MBA I won't get further into this - but my belief is that this is the biggest area for improvement for most organizations.

Hope this helps.

Ricky

[Moses Yoder]

I worked in a kitchen cabinet shop for about 12 years before gradually being put into a position where I was a kitchen cabinet engineer. Now I just make working drawings and specify parts and hardware for producing cabinets. Over the years my bosses have hired numerous people to help me, and it never ceases to amaze me how much lack there is in a $60,000 college education. "Assistants" who get paid more than I do because they have a "college education" come to me asking me how to build something, and they don't even know what questions to ask. I think every engineer should be required to work at actually fabricating in the field he is going to be working in for at least 5 years before being handed a degree.

[ray hampton]

I worked in a kitchen cabinet shop for about 12 years before gradually being put into a position where I was a kitchen cabinet engineer. Now I just make working drawings and specify parts and hardware for producing cabinets. Over the years my bosses have hired numerous people to help me, and it never ceases to amaze me how much lack there is in a $60,000 college education. "Assistants" who get paid more than I do because they have a "college education" come to me asking me how to build something, and they don't even know what questions to ask. I think every engineer should be required to work at actually fabricating in the field he is going to be working in for at least 5 years before being handed a degree.

This idea of your do not make sense to the EGG HEADS or they would thought of it a century ago in a way so that it would be in action and practice in every factory

[Dan Hintz]

I worked in a kitchen cabinet shop for about 12 years before gradually being put into a position where I was a kitchen cabinet engineer. Now I just make working drawings and specify parts and hardware for producing cabinets. Over the years my bosses have hired numerous people to help me, and it never ceases to amaze me how much lack there is in a $60,000 college education. "Assistants" who get paid more than I do because they have a "college education" come to me asking me how to build something, and they don't even know what questions to ask. I think every engineer should be required to work at actually fabricating in the field he is going to be working in for at least 5 years before being handed a degree.
No amount of money can buy common sense, so no matter where an engineer got his degree or how much money was spent getting it, how to handle a new situation or design will depend heavily upon the engineer's ability to think for themselves. Drawing upon experience helps, but again, you can have all of the book knowledge in the world and not truly understand a concept... the authors of those books did the thinking for you.

I also find it hard to believe a new "engineer" would have difficulty in designing a cabinet. What they likely have a problem with is no idea about what the appropriate types of mounting methods are available to them, proper joint construction, etc. That comes from experience, something you gained over 12 years watching (and being commanded by) others. What you will likely find, though, is once you give a true engineer an assignment after gaining a bit of experience and ask them to solve a problem you haven't yet solved yourself, they'll come up with some ingenious solutions.

[Chris Kennedy]

[/COLOR]

This idea of your do not make sense to the EGG HEADS or they would thought of it a century ago in a way so that it would be in action and practice in every factory

I just think about the number of engineering schools where students produce breakthrough products. I remember walking through the several of the engineering buildings as an undergraduate and seeing what they were building, and they were building them. They weren't directing other people to make them. Most of these places have machine shops for the students and faculty. Many science departments have their own fabrication facilities (my dad's a chemist and my FIL is a biologist and both can tell stories about making glassware). The math department at Penn State has a fluid mechanics lab and its own machine shop for working on solutions to PDE's and wave equations.

Plenty of EGG HEADS, as you so delicately put it, have been doing this for a while. By the way, can you do what the EGG HEADS do?

For what it is worth, I know I am being contentious. And, Ray, you are feeling my ire because you have rubbed me the wrong way on the wrong day. I realize the point you are making, but today -- I just can't let it pass.

Sorry.

Chris

[ray hampton]

Chris,I hope that your day go better

[Dan Hintz]

I just think about the number of engineering schools where students produce breakthrough products. I remember walking through the several of the engineering buildings as an undergraduate and seeing what they were building, and they were building them. They weren't directing other people to make them. Most of these places have machine shops for the students and faculty. Many science departments have their own fabrication facilities (my dad's a chemist and my FIL is a biologist and both can tell stories about making glassware). The math department at Penn State has a fluid mechanics lab and its own machine shop for working on solutions to PDE's and wave equations.

Plenty of EGG HEADS, as you so delicately put it, have been doing this for a while. By the way, can you do what the EGG HEADS do?
During my time at Purdue for my Master's, I was a "leader" (for lack of a better word) for the undergrad IEEE group in the EET department (I was teaching in the department back then). That group spent plenty of nights (some at my place) working on building a robot to enter into the yearly competition. In essence, I provided the guiding hand of experience, when needed, but for the most part they were left to their own devices (no pun intended). They had the book knowledge (or were in the process of getting it), but little to no practical experience, except what they had gained as a typical engineer growing up and taking things apart ("the knack", for Dilbert fans). I would hardly call them helpless, they just needed the occasional guidance to keep things on track or prevent going down a long road that would end poorly.

Even a $60k education doesn't mean much when you put it in the mind of a monkey... you need monkeys with "the knack" to make it worthwhile.

[Moses Yoder]

Even a $60k education doesn't mean much when you put it in the mind of a monkey... you need monkeys with "the knack" to make it worthwhile.

I would guess a 4 year degree at Purdue would be closer to $100-$120K, not 60. Although I don't really know. One of the things that bothered me is whenever we needed another person to expand our staff or replace someone, I would always ask them for someone out of the shop. I told them it would be much easier for me to teach someone how to run a computer and do some CAD drafting than it would be to teach them how to build a kitchen, especially when ti came to kitchens that required full overlay or beaded inset doors. You have to keep in mind most of the kitchens we build cost upwards of $50K, cabinets for a whole house routinely run over $150K. These are not simple kitchens. Someone who has spent 5 years or so working with wood understands the concepts, knows the different machines and joints, which could be mistaken for "common sense." Manangement never agreed with me and would hire some college trained "engineer" who had never glued two sticks of wood together. Maybe the problem is that smart talented engineers build cars or rockets, not kitchen cabinets. On the other hand, I drove a Dodge Neon the last 8 years and there must have been a real shortage of smart engineers when that car was designed.

[Dan Hintz]

I would guess a 4 year degree at Purdue would be closer to $100-$120K, not 60.
I was there three years and the total damage was <$50k.

Manangement never agreed with me and would hire some college trained "engineer" who had never glued two sticks of wood together.
Management is hiring the wrong type of person. An engineer is not the proper field to be recruiting from to build cabinets. It's a different skill set, it's a different mindset. I don't blame my accountant for not being able to change the oil in my car quickly... he could probably figure it out, given enough time, but it's not what his mind is geared for.

A good builder has some similar traits as a good engineer (both should be able to imagine a solution before implementing it, for example).

[Moses Yoder]

Management is hiring the wrong type of person. An engineer is not the proper field to be recruiting from to build cabinets. It's a different skill set, it's a different mindset. I don't blame my accountant for not being able to change the oil in my car quickly... he could probably figure it out, given enough time, but it's not what his mind is geared for.

I haven't built a cabinet at my day job in almost 8 years, but I tell people how to build them and what to use to build them. To me it sounds a lot like you are saying an engineer, someone who is telling people what materials and joints and fittings etc. to use to build a cabinet doesn't need to know how to build cabinets. This is what I see all over the world, and what the original intent of the post was. The engineer and designer has no idea how to build something, yet he is telling people how to build it. The saddest part is the guys who break their back to build it and figure out themselves how to build it because the engineer/designer doesn't know how are getting paid half as much as the engineer.

[John Coloccia]

I haven't built a cabinet at my day job in almost 8 years, but I tell people how to build them and what to use to build them. To me it sounds a lot like you are saying an engineer, someone who is telling people what materials and joints and fittings etc. to use to build a cabinet doesn't need to know how to build cabinets.

No, he's saying "Why are you hiring engineers to build and design cabinets?" I would no more hire a cabinet maker to design a mechanism. You may need engineers to do drafting, and maybe structural analysis, and maybe later on full design if they progress to that point, but the concept of hiring an engineer to design a cabinet is looney. It's not the engineer's problem that you guys hire the wrong people.

[David Perich]

Regarding those tires, my understanding was that all the tire failures were the result of under-inflation. Many vehicles become very difficult to control when a tire suddenly deflates as the result of a blowout. In the case of the Explorers, the high center of gravity could result in rolling the vehicle. While it may be true that the suspension could have been designed to reduce the chance of rollover after a blowout, It would seem to be better to focus design efforts on making wheels that monitor tire pressure and can automatically re-inflate the tire if it's low. That would save tire wear and gas mileage as well as lives.

[Moses Yoder]

No, he's saying "Why are you hiring engineers to build and design cabinets?" I would no more hire a cabinet maker to design a mechanism. You may need engineers to do drafting, and maybe structural analysis, and maybe later on full design if they progress to that point, but the concept of hiring an engineer to design a cabinet is looney. It's not the engineer's problem that you guys hire the wrong people.

Obviously you don't understand. The definition of engineer from dictionary.com that I think fits best is " to plan, construct, or manage as an engineer: He's engineered several big industrial projects" . That is exactly what I do, except for construct; I plan and manage as an engineer. In our company we have designers that design the kitchens, then we have engineers specifying how they will be built, then we have cabinet makers to build the cabinets. Our cabinets include very complex details; you will never find anything like them at Home Depot. If anyone were so stupid as to hire a college educated engineer and pay them $30 per hour then put them to work building cabinets in a market where the average cabinet maker gets $15 per hour, I would never work for them. What I am saying is it would be easier to take a cabinet maker and turn him into a cabinet engineer than it would be to take an engineer and teach him how to engineer cabinets.

[David Perich]

There's a big push in engineering schools and at large manufacturing companies to "design for manufacturing" or "design for manufacturability" (google those). Much of it is common sense and requires that product designers are familiar with tools and manufacturing processes. On the other hand, there's nothing wrong with designing a tool that does a process that couldn't be done before--as long as the product of the volume justifies it.
Design for Manufacturing can get complicated when combined with "Design for Recycling". Sometimes, the results are so extreme that even though the end product is completely recyclable, the process used to manufacture the product is more environmentally destructive than a similar UN-recyclable designed product would have been.

[Ben Hatcher]

Sounds to me like the training program for newly hired cabinet engineers should include more hands on work in the shop. When I worked for GM, all of the design engineers would spend 1 week a year working on the lines that built their parts.

It is often said that colleges teach you how to learn while technical and trade schools teach you how to do something. It is foolish to expect a newbie engineer to know anything other than how to figure out how to go about solving the problem.

[Dan Hintz]

Sounds to me like the training program for newly hired cabinet engineers should include more hands on work in the shop. When I worked for GM, all of the design engineers would spend 1 week a year working on the lines that built their parts.

It is often said that colleges teach you how to learn while technical and trade schools teach you how to do something. It is foolish to expect a newbie engineer to know anything other than how to figure out how to go about solving the problem.
Well said, and exactly my point.

Obviously you don't understand. The definition of engineer from dictionary.com that I think fits best is " to plan, construct, or manage as an engineer: He's engineered several big industrial projects" . That is exactly what I do, except for construct; I plan and manage as an engineer. In our company we have designers that design the kitchens, then we have engineers specifying how they will be built, then we have cabinet makers to build the cabinets. Our cabinets include very complex details; you will never find anything like them at Home Depot. If anyone were so stupid as to hire a college educated engineer and pay them $30 per hour then put them to work building cabinets in a market where the average cabinet maker gets $15 per hour, I would never work for them. What I am saying is it would be easier to take a cabinet maker and turn him into a cabinet engineer than it would be to take an engineer and teach him how to engineer cabinets.
What I don't understand is why you're forcing a group of people (engineers) into doing something they are typically neither educated to do nor known to think along those lines, and then bashing the engineer for not accomplishing the assigned task. A one line description from dictionary.com is hardly an appropriate understanding of what an "engineer" truly is.

An engineer in your field (structural) will be able to tell you if a 1/2" bolt made from stainless steel with 8% chromium will hold up a 500 pound cabinet without collapsing when a 300 pound person sits on the top. An engineer (materials) will be able to tell you the tensile strength of a blind rabbit joint made from Ipe using Titebond III so you can hang a 50 pound planter from it without dropping it on someone's head. An engineer (mechanical) will be able to design a new joint style to solve a particularly vexing problem you've had with a standard joint in a non-standard application. A chemical engineer will tell you what to coat the wood with to keep out pests and remain handprint free over 20 years.

An engineer will not (unless you're lucky and he's either a free thinker or has had prior training) look at a stack of lumber and say "This is how a cabinet will go together"... that's the designer's job. An engineer will not know the proper finish to put on the wood to give a warm comfy feeling to the homeowner... that's the designer's job.

If you think "it would be easier to take a cabinet maker and turn him into a cabinet engineer than it would be to take an engineer and teach him how to engineer cabinets", then I suggest you have no concept of what an engineer actually does. I'm not sure how you define a "cabinet engineer", but I guarantee you if you can turn a "cabinet maker" into a "cabinet engineer" in a short period of time, then the title of "engineer" doesn't truly belong in their name any more than someone who cleans toilets should be called a "custodial engineer".

[Moses Yoder]

An engineer in your field (structural) will be able to tell you if a 1/2" bolt made from stainless steel with 8% chromium will hold up a 500 pound cabinet without collapsing when a 300 pound person sits on the top. An engineer (materials) will be able to tell you the tensile strength of a blind rabbit joint made from Ipe using Titebond III so you can hang a 50 pound planter from it without dropping it on someone's head. An engineer (mechanical) will be able to design a new joint style to solve a particularly vexing problem you've had with a standard joint in a non-standard application. A chemical engineer will tell you what to coat the wood with to keep out pests and remain handprint free over 20 years.


While it would be kind of handy to have someone around who can answer these questions, my guess is they would have reference materials at their desk to look up the answers. Nowadays of course I would just google them and find the answers.

My wife's uncle is a manufacturing engineer, and he really has problems justifying his salary. I don't think he's ever worked a job for more than 5 years.

[John Coloccia]

While it would be kind of handy to have someone around who can answer these questions, my guess is they would have reference materials at their desk to look up the answers. Nowadays of course I would just google them and find the answers.

My wife's uncle is a manufacturing engineer, and he really has problems justifying his salary. I don't think he's ever worked a job for more than 5 years.

Part of the communication problem between engineers and other disciplines is not just that engineers don't necessarily understand them but also and just as prevalently (if not more so) that other disciplines don't understand engineering.

[David Epperson]

My wife's uncle is a manufacturing engineer, and he really has problems justifying his salary. I don't think he's ever worked a job for more than 5 years.
Regardless of salary - there's just not a lot of job security in the field. I used to be in it myself. With about the same employment history. I can make the same $$ working as a blue collar industrial maintenance mechanic, with a lot less headache, and a lot more security that I'll have a job tomorrow. Plus, the overtime pays time and a half - unlike the salary position.

[Moses Yoder]

Of what value is a discipline that can't be communicated? How would it add value to the product if it can't be communicated? I can communicate with designers just fine, and understand what they want to do. They add value to the product by making it look nice and serve it's purpose. I communicate with a cabinetmaker just fine, and he adds value to the product through direct labor. Of what use is an engineer if I can't communicate with him?

[Ben Hatcher]

While it would be kind of handy to have someone around who can answer these questions, my guess is they would have reference materials at their desk to look up the answers. Nowadays of course I would just google them and find the answers.

My wife's uncle is a manufacturing engineer, and he really has problems justifying his salary. I don't think he's ever worked a job for more than 5 years.
You probably can look things up just as well as an engineer might. You may even know how to apply it properly to your situation. There’s no engineer gene. Lots of people from many walks of life are capable of learning how to be an engineer or do engineering type work. There used to be apprenticeship programs whereby smart and capable people could become an engineer without taking the traditional college route. I think that it is too bad that those don't seem to be very common these days, especially given how expensive 4-year degrees have become.

I often think that an engineering degree is like a high end tool. The job can often be done with a cheaper tool. The operator may insist that the cheaper tool is perfectly fine. He may be right, but unless he’s tried the high end version, he’ll never know for sure.

[John Coloccia]

Of what value is a discipline that can't be communicated? How would it add value to the product if it can't be communicated? I can communicate with designers just fine, and understand what they want to do. They add value to the product by making it look nice and serve it's purpose. I communicate with a cabinetmaker just fine, and he adds value to the product through direct labor. Of what use is an engineer if I can't communicate with him?

I didn't say you can't communicate with him. I said that part of the problem is that you have no clue what he does, just as much as he may not understand exactly what you do. This is evidenced by the fact that you think you open a book and just "look up" or google for answers. You might find Young's Modulus in a reference book but you will not find an FEA model for a particular structure.

But you've made up your mind that engineers (or eggheads, as some prefer) are just useless. I'll assume your answer will be typed on a computer you designed and built yourself, or it will be a hand delivered block of wood you've chiseled your response into, after smelting some metal and pounding it into a chisel.

Sheesh.

[Ben Hatcher]

You probably can look things up just as well as an engineer might. You may even know how to apply it properly to your situation. There’s no engineer gene. Lots of people from many walks of life are capable of learning how to be an engineer. There used to be apprenticeship programs whereby smart and capable people could become an engineer without taking the traditional college route. I think that it is too bad that those don't seem to be very common these days, especially given how expensive 4-year degrees have become.




I often think that an engineering degree is like a high end tool. The job can often be done with a cheaper tool. The operator may insist that the cheaper tool is perfectly fine. He may be right, but unless he’s tried the high end version, he’ll never know for sure.

[Moses Yoder]

But you've made up your mind that engineers (or eggheads, as some prefer) are just useless.

Some engineers are very usefull. I am not sure at what point anything I said can be interpreted to mean that engineers are useless. All except one of the college trained engineers I have met are useless, but those represent less than a hundred people, and none of them were trained at Purdue or MIT, they were all trained at smaller colleges. The engineers who worked on the Dodge Neon would have been better off scrubbing toilets and putting the janitors to work on that car. Then of course there is the off chance my car was just a lemon. The leaning Tower of Pisa probably could have benefited from a good foundation engineer. I think probably the engineers working for Lamborghini probably know their stuff. It wouldn't have cost that much more to make a really reliable car and put the Dodge Neon name on it, but every penny counts when you're shoveling money into executive pockets.

[John Coloccia]

Some engineers are very usefull. I am not sure at what point anything I said can be interpreted to mean that engineers are useless. All except one of the college trained engineers I have met are useless, but those represent less than a hundred people, and none of them were trained at Purdue or MIT, they were all trained at smaller colleges. The engineers who worked on the Dodge Neon would have been better off scrubbing toilets and putting the janitors to work on that car. Then of course there is the off chance my car was just a lemon. The leaning Tower of Pisa probably could have benefited from a good foundation engineer. I think probably the engineers working for Lamborghini probably know their stuff. It wouldn't have cost that much more to make a really reliable car and put the Dodge Neon name on it, but every penny counts when you're shoveling money into executive pockets.

We're going to have to agree to disagree, but dang that's funny. Welcome to the creek. :)

[Dan Hintz]

It wouldn't have cost that much more to make a really reliable car and put the Dodge Neon name on it, but every penny counts when you're shoveling money into executive pockets.
Proof positive you have no idea what an engineer does or the trade-offs he's forced to make to get a product to your doorstep... and bean counters are only a part of the battle. You get a lemon of a car and think the engineers behind it were the ones screwing up... what a wonderful world you must live in to have such thick blinders on.

I'm done with this thread as it has become too troll-like. If I visit it any more I'll be forced to say something that will get me kicked off of the board. Ignorance can be cured, stupidity can't.

[Bob Turkovich]

The engineers who worked on the Dodge Neon would have been better off scrubbing toilets and putting the janitors to work on that car.

36 1/2 years as an engineer at Chrysler down the drain.....

[Bob Turkovich]

Proof positive you have no idea what an engineer does or the trade-offs he's forced to make to get a product to your doorstep... and bean counters are only a part of the battle. You get a lemon of a car and think the engineers behind it were the ones screwing up... what a wonderful world you must live in to have such thick blinders on.

I'm done with this thread as it has become too troll-like. If I visit it any more I'll be forced to say something that will get me kicked off of the board. Ignorance can be cured, stupidity can't.

Trust me, Dan.

I've really had a hard time staying quiet on this thread...

[Montgomery Scott]

Proof positive you have no idea what an engineer does or the trade-offs he's forced to make to get a product to your doorstep... and bean counters are only a part of the battle. You get a lemon of a car and think the engineers behind it were the ones screwing up... what a wonderful world you must live in to have such thick blinders on.

I'm done with this thread as it has become too troll-like. If I visit it any more I'll be forced to say something that will get me kicked off of the board. Ignorance can be cured, stupidity can't.

All too true. If it takes 12 years to become an "engineer" then it is one in title only. Most people in manufacturing have no clue as to the complexity of the task of an engineer. Designing and analyzing structure to withstand static and fatigue stresses from up to 12,000 load casees, failure modes, damage tolerant, high and low temps for 20+ years of life all to have the lowest weight and lowest cost and to be integrated with electrical, hydraulic and structural systems from other groups all with their own criteria.

I've been a stress analyst on the 737, 757, 767, 777, 787 and F-35 programs and there is never an end to making a better design with more advanced tools, technology and materials. That is what real engineering requires.

[Matt Meiser]

I've been a stress analyst on the 737, 757, 767, 777, 787 and F-35 programs and there is never an end to making a better design with more advanced tools, technology and materials. That is what real engineering requires.

If your Google skills were better you could have saved yourself a lot of time for cleaning bathrooms.

What I want to know is, if a lemon Neon lasts 8 years, how long does a good one last?

Well, off to clean the bathrooms. Or maybe implement a solution to make an American manufacturing company more efficient and do my small part to keep production and jobs here. Not sure which would be a better use of my engineering degree?

[ian maybury]

It's a well established issue in manufacturing, and there's a whole raft of management approaches that have developed to help get the required co-operation between disciplines/departments/functions. Almost all originated from an approach called 'Lean Manufacturing'.

The classic book on the topic is 'The machine That Changed the World'. This is the story of how techniques developed in Japan and especially by Toyota cars (Toyota Production) were surveyed in a major US industry funded research programme in the 80s - in an attempt to understand the methods the Japanese companies were using as they decimated Detroit in terms of costs, new cars, quality ad so on.

Interestingly enough it was heavily influenced by the work of a US thinker named Deming on quality in Japanese manufacturing post WW2, but also embodied the holistic way of looking at things probably originally brought to Japanese culture by Zen and similar traditions.

Lean while there are local versions that mess with the principles of the original is now 'how it's done'. It's basically a holistic approach that provides ways for all the stakeholders to make the required input right from product concept, through design and development, and on into the planning and implementation of production and after sales - with a very strong emphasis on matching internal capability to the realities of the environment the business operates in. Teamwork and joint decision making are central.

Excessive centralisation, authority, social barriers and departmentalisation leading to culture of non co-operation, detachment from reality and an inability to respond to external pressures were (and are) some of the core problems in the case of the by then traditional Ford derived methods of managing manufacturing in the US and elsewhere. These became no longer feasible once competition and technological and social change led to a situation where rapid change was the norm.

It's so holistic, and so finely embedded in well run organisations that that it's almost invisible in practice. Like asking a fish about water - he's not necessarily aware of it, but is immersed in it all the time. The result is that it's really only when it fails as in the case of examples like those the guys mention above. You could argue though that the almost demise of the US auto industry was a classic example of a failure of this sort.

Design for manufacturing (DFM - now expanded to include disciplines like design for sourcing, environment, energy efficiency, re-cycleability etc etc) and Concurrent Engineering are two major bodies of practice within Lean which support co-operation between engineering and manufacturing. There are many more because it's just as important for the other functions to co-operate - e.g. marketing and business development to co-operate with product development and manufacturing ..

ian

[ben searight]

Wow....this thread has drifted far from the original post. Glad I'm not writing a paper.

I am one of those useless degreed engineers (civil). Being in construction management, I, however am in the unique situation of constructing what others design. This issue arrises on a daily basis in my industry. We refer to it as "constructabilty". It never fails that the contractor complains about those "stupid" engineers, and the engineers complain about the "stupid" contractors. The fact is both sides are ignorant to the requirements, demands, needs, and constraints of the other. Until you get the crane operator to perform complex structural calculations, or the engineer to operate the crane, the issue (and the arguements) will persist.

[Leo Voisine]

On the original post.

I am a degreed engineer. Manufacturing engineer.

I have worked my way up the ranks from being a machine operator in an automotive factory to a position of senior level engineer over a 30 plus span of time.

Been on both sides of the fence.

The engineer that has no practical experience is at a loss and they know it. They will often try to ask for help, but the defence device in the practical machinint get trigered and they will insult the engineer. At that point the engineer no longer feel comfortable asking for help and they go off and do the best they can do. The mashinint does know how to do the job but they feel slighted because they don't get paid as much as the engineer, so why should they help.

I have been on both sides, and experienced all of the above.

It is a really hard thing to do - to be on a friendly playing field on both sides of the fence. Many engineers are pretty arrogend and don't like someone else telling them how to do thier job. Machininst are the same way.

In reality, there is not a lot of difference between a machnist and an engineer.

The best thing, is when the two can sit together and conceptualize and build something together.

I do not post here often - so if you want more - PM me.

Leo

[alex grams]

In regards to the OP:

I used to have an old 1988 F-150 as my high school truck. It had electric window motors. One time I had a motor go out on the passenger door. My uncle was a ford mechanic and knew how to fix it. Two things I learned from watching him replace the motor in under 30 minutes that would have taken me most of a day:

- I guess the engineer thought putting the motors in backwards would make them fit better. So for a passenger door you had to order a driver side motor (same motor was used several model years in a row and was common in the F-150 line, but reversed on this year).

-The motor was mounted in the door, then the inside metal plate was welded on. You had to drill holes into the inside metal of the door to access the bolts. While the order of operations may have made sense when the door was still in production, once you put that inside metal plate on, you were screwed.

[Pat Barry]

Dale, I think you are generalizing quite a bit based on one or two small engineering mistakes. Fact is without the engineer to design your dies you would have NOTHING TO MAKE and complain about.

[Pat Barry]

Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse of 1940

[PAUL FOWLER]

punch small hole first!

[Matt Meiser]

Tacoma Narrows bridge collapse of 1940

I don't think that had anything to do with miscommunication between the engineer and builder. I think the engineer was fully responsible there.

[alex grams]

Matt i believe you are correct. That fault was just due to not accounting properly for the winds that came through the valley.

The only causality was fortunately a dog in the car.

[steven c newman]

Just a little story: It seems that a large city had just installed a new water treatment plant. All computer controled with just a few people to watch the dials. Opening Day came, the boss flipped the "Start" switch. NOTHING HAPPENED. An old-timer, who's job the new system replaced, spoke up.
"I can fix this,but it will cost you $10,009 " The frantic Boss agreed. The Ol-timer when to a valve, and tapped the side of the valve, system started right away. Boss: "You have fixed the system, but about the price?" Old-timer: "$9 is for the tap on the vavle, the ten Gs is for KNOWING where to tap."

[Tom Scott]

The OP asked about examples of designs that were not capable of being built in real life. A lot of the examples put out there did not fit that category, such as:
1. The Tacoma Narrows Bridge - It just so happened that the natural frequncy of the bridge almost exactly matched that of the wind coming through the narrows at a particular speed. When the wind reached that speed and the bridge started to vibrate, it kept amplifying until it tore itself apart.
2. The Hyatt Regency Bridge Collaps - This was a connection failure of a hanger rod. As originally detailed by the engineer, it would have worked. The problem occurred when the steel detailer changed the connection to make it easier to fabricate and install, and it was not caught in the shop drawings. It could have been installed the way originally detailed, but just not as easily.
3. The Office Tower in NY - This was a design issue. When the building was analyzed per the building code it with wind being applied normal (perpindicular) to the building faces, it worked just fine. This is how it was built. A grad student (in engineering) was doing a project analyzing this structure again, but this time applied the wind at different angles. His analysis showed the vertical braces to be over-stressed. He took it to the original designer, who verified his results and fessed up the appropriate parties. A logical fix was then designed and implimented. This case is often discussed in conjunction with engineering ethics.

I have been a structural engineer for over 20 years. Have I put things on drawings that were not buildable? Yep! As hard as I try, things slip by on occasion. There are a lot of details that go into designing a building. I work with a lot of design-oriented architects that have little savvy when it comes to constructability and what is possible. But, that is why they hire me. Their expertise is creating a building that evokes emotions that I never could...and I know that my job is helping them do that. They push my limits as an engineer and make my life interesting, and as result I push the limits of the contractors that build it. And because there has been a lot bashing of engineers thus far, I will say that it is not unusual for a fabricator or contractor to say something is not possible...until I tell them how it is possible.
The bottom line is that almost every project is a collaboration. Those that are successful have parties that know what they are doing, will work together and use each person's strengths. Yes, there are those young and inexperienced engineers/designers that don't have a clue as to how something goes together. They will either learn or they won't last long in the industry...the same as the person who can't learn to fabricate what is shown in the design drawings.

[Anthony Whitesell]

I know what you're after. I've encountered it many times. A person designs something on paper and then finds out it can't be machined or asseembled.

I once had a mechanical engineer design something that I could assemble. There was a 1/4-20 phillips head screw to be installed horizontally in a piece of electronic equipment in the bottom of a 4 inch deep slot 3/8" wide surrounded by steel. Ever try to keep a phillips screw on a screwdriver sideways? If a magentized screwdriver was used, it may wreck the electronics. We rolled the dice and tried any way, but it kept attracting to the side of the slot and knocking the screw off. We finally had to lay the 200 pound piece of equipment on its back to install the screw vertically. That way worked, first time. Just drop the screw in the slot, nudge to the hole, stand it up and screw it in. Still couldn't use the magnetic screwdriver.

I have no idea was the technical term is for something that is designed but can't be assembled, built, or manufacturer. Maybe we should ask Escher.

[John Coloccia]

I remember once my company designed a new configuration for a particular robot we built. This ran on tracks and was enclosed by a big box...essentially a large, fancy box sorter. Anyhow, we normally load the robot right on the the track from the back door....just slide it in.

We had designed one with a side door and they were assembling it on the manufacturing floor. I was working on some other project but was right near them and could hear them talking. The CEO comes walking through and stops at my project..."Hey, John...how's it going?"...blah blah...just some small talk. He goes to the new robot, takes one look and asks, "How are you going to get the robot in?". You see, it can't go in through the side door..it's got to slide in on the tracks.....LOL.

The solution was that you would just break it open in half, slide in the robot, and then seal it back up, but it was pretty funny.

[Ole Anderson]

Sigh... Engineers: its not easy being us, always the whipping boy. Everybody is an expert.

[Dan Hintz]

Ever try to keep a phillips screw on a screwdriver sideways?
They make screwdrivers with extensible wire prongs that keep the screw snugged against the driver's spurs for just such circumstances.

For future reference :)

[Michael W. Clark]

I've been a mechanical engineer for almost 15 years now and can definitely remember problems I encountered as a young engineer. It was tough with a steep learning curve and plenty of ridicule for mistakes. But, I kept trying to get better because I respected the ones building my designs and understood that if I could learn from them, I could produce better designs. Once I developed a relationship of respect with the fabricators, they had some respect for me as well (even taught me to weld). Not to say that I don't make mistakes and design things that are tricky or impossible to build, but once you have a collaborative relationship, you realize that each person brings ideas and experience to the table that makes the whole project better. This is true for most co-workers, but is especially evident in the engineer vs. builder relationship. I think too many young engineers don't respect the builders for their experience and see themselves as above them, unwilling to learn from the builder. In turn, the builders don't respect the engineers because they think they are inexperienced (which they are) and will not work with them.

Regarding the OP, paper may have already been written, but one example I thought of is the space shuttle that exploded. I think the engineers warned that the o-rings were too brittle and would not seal, but someone else decided to launch anyway? Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

[Anthony Whitesell]

I think too many young engineers don't respect the builders for their experience and see themselves as above them, unwilling to learn from the builder. In turn, the builders don't respect the engineers because they think they are inexperienced (which they are) and will not work with them.

I'm not sure this applies to just young engineers. It may be more evident with them, but I also see it when an engineer new to the team has to work with the builder/fabricator that's been on the team. In the latter case, it's a matter of building trust. Letting the fab guys know that your willing to listen and work with them if they are willing to do the same. No stiff-arming. It can be a load of fun to work side-by-side with the fab guy, tweaking the design to get it built the best way possible in both the design and fab aspects.

I once had to choose some connectors for a new PCB. One was 3 tiers of 16 connections, another was 2x8, and the third 1x10. A total of 76 wires for the installers to connect. I had around a dozen choices and of them did care which was used. So I attended a manufacturing meeting with the shop guys and laid out the scenerio of the board, wires, and connectors and let them choose. They choose a spring loaded 2 piece design. This removed the torque requirement during assembly and allowed the connector to be attached to the wires without the board being present or installed. Looking back, I can see after that meeting I got a lot more respect from the shop guys when ever I went out to "pester" them with questions about something I was working on.

[John Coloccia]

Regarding the OP, paper may have already been written, but one example I thought of is the space shuttle that exploded. I think the engineers warned that the o-rings were too brittle and would not seal, but someone else decided to launch anyway? Please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

It was an entire culture of delusion.

For example, if you're riding in a car and 2 out of 5 lug nuts consistently come loose every trip, you would immediately recognize a dangerous situation. They're not designed to come loose...ever. NASA very much did the equivalent of saying, "Well, there are 3 other lug nuts. We have a safety margin of 60%!". They took signs of serious, but non-catostrophic, failure as a sign of safety.

[Matt McCormick]

problems between the person who designs and engineers thingswithout realizing what it will take to make their concept come true and thepeople who have to try to build that design.
Hi Curtis, Hope the paper goes well. For years I taught a machine shop courseto PHD students so they could work in the shop to construct projects. What agreat job that was,
Young men and women from all over the world.... all with differentpersonalities, goals and world outlooks. To get there they had to be the bestof the best. Some looked at me as a bum with a job, others looked at me as a wizard.Teaching how to run a lathe was easy...... teaching problem solvingharder........ teaching people skills ....real hard! but fun and rewarding. Ithink 90% of them walked away from my class able to work with the riff-rafflike me and get the job done..very well. That other 10%...well they have biggerproblems than a dumb old machinist.
My advice to them all when we finished up theclass was " when you have to work with machinist's.... Bring Donuts annnndtell them you are new and would like to get their advice on your project"I also tell them to go set at the machinist table at break time and just talkto them. The good engineers soon learn it isn't the donuts that have the magic,it is the personal respect that is the magic. I have gotten many phone callsfrom former students telling me how well this has worked for them and also totell me their new machinist is way smarter than the one they had in machineshop class! I laugh and then ask but can he eat 5 maple bars....... I lovethese phone calls. -matt

[Jason Roehl]

Matt, what you described there seems to be a lost art--greasing the wheels. I've worked for so many people that are all about "me" and then are slow to pay when the job is done. What do they get for that? Exactly what they paid for--and no more. But, for the ones that offer a cup of coffee, maybe some doughnuts, even lunch or a tip at the end of a job? Darn tootin' I'll be there at the drop of a hat the next time they want something done.

[Michael W. Clark]

Bring Donuts annnndtell them you are new and would like to get their advice on your project"I also tell them to go set at the machinist table at break time and just talkto them. The good engineers soon learn it isn't the donuts that have the magic,it is the personal respect that is the magic.


Exactly. Donuts were the unspoken for us young engineers at the first place I worked. When Maintenance was working on your project, you brought donuts and sat with them at the "bench" to eat, talk about the lates gossip in the plant, then you would talk about the job. Definitely made things go better and helped get to know each other.

[Matt McCormick]

a lost art--greasing the wheels.
Exactly...... But there is more. When the ice is broken the benifits flow both ways. I want an old machinist to tell the kid :here is how to make that part better and cheaper"....
I want that kid to stand by the guys that have too many jobs going at once on to tell managment to cut them a break they will get it done. We all stand on the shoulders of the ones who went before us. I did not wake up one day with the skills I have, I learned them from the 100 or so men I have worked with over the last 40 years. The real lesson is ... Don't let a title, degree, or position keep you from talking or learning from another. If you do you will be the loser... -matt

[Jason Roehl]

Well said, Matt. I'm a painting contractor in a university town. I've done quite a bit of work for professors of many different fields of study. From time to time I've gotten to pick their brains a bit in their area of expertise, and I generally don't mind when someone does the same with me. I've even discussed techniques and procedures with some of my painting colleagues (the friendly ones, anyway; some can't be bothered to ever learn something new or teach anyone anything).