angrytheorist

[angrytheorist]

Role of Engineers in a Developing India

INTRODUCTION

Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics – these are the four broad fields that form the STEM of a nation’s development. Science and Mathematics formulate the theory over which Engineering and Technology develop, to bring ideas into realization.

Engineers have led our country into the modern era, from building megacities to the world’s third largest rail network and second largest road network to connect these cities. They have built huge dams, thermal and nuclear power plants to power the nation. Cars, trucks, trains and airplanes that keep the nation moving. And communication systems that keep the nation connected. Arguably, engineers play the greatest role in building a nation’s economy.

 THE CURRENT GROWTH STORY

When the Indian economy opened up to global markets in the early 90s, the IT sector was taking shape. With companies like Infosys and Wipro, Indian engineers started gaining a foothold in the software industry. It is the service sector backed by IT services, that have led GDP growth in the past decade and a half, and now forms more than half of the GDP. Indian manufacturing, on the other hand, has remained in the shadows, with most of the produce going to the local markets rather than being exported. Even then, India is not self-sufficient, and a lot of high-value goods are directly imported or simply assembled and packaged in the country. It contributes only about a third in the GDP. In contrast, China has been the world’s manufacturing hub in the last few decades, with industrial output nearly ten times that of India.

Majority of the population (nearly 55%) in India is employed in agriculture with contributing only a sixth share in the GDP. Now, over the past couple of years, the service sector has showed signs of a slowdown, as the growth in the sector has somewhat plateaued. Agriculture in its current form has negative growth rates. The onus is now on the manufacturing sector to lead the growth story.

 THE FOUR PILLARS OF GROWTH

Growth is directly dependent on the engineers involved in the nation-building process. No sustainable growth is possible without a solid platform of in-house tools and technology. The future growth in India is dependent on four major sectors – all of them with engineering at the helm. Each of these sectors needs innovative engineering ideas, tools and technology for optimal performance to hold the roof of a developed India. They are:

1. Manufacturing

Engineers have to play a key role in boosting the manufacturing sector. New processes must be designed that increase efficiency of various manufacturing lines, while maintaining good levels of quality, to bring the overall cost of products down so that these goods can compete with imports. Engineers also need to design cost efficient manufacturing solutions for domains that have not been tapped into in India – from semiconductor fabrication to metallurgical produce. These processes need to be downscaled to open the doors for small and medium scaled industries in these domains, which are the source of most industrial investment in India.

2. Energy

To drive the nation forward, both literally and figuratively, Engineers need to develop energy resources for India. With fossil fuels now slowly becoming a thing of the past in most of the western countries, India is still heavily dependent on coal and oil. For a fast paced and environmental friendly development (so that we don’t choke our people before they see the fruit of growth), we need to devise more sustainable sources of energy. It may involve expanding the uranium based nuclear power plants while designing them to be safer, or introducing thorium based fast breeder reactors. Engineers need to work on this while tapping renewable sources like wind and solar, and making large-scale deployment of these feasible for Indian conditions. Only then it will be able to effectively support the manufacturing sector.

3. Transport Infrastructure

Even though India has amongst the largest rail and road networks on the planet, a large portion of it is old, poorly maintained, and inadequate for the sheer number of people using it. In their current state, both the roadways and railways are inherently unsafe with a large number accidents and deaths reported every year.

The transport infrastructure is the pillar that connects the cities, the industries and the people. It is necessary to build a robust transport network that enhances efficiency rather than being the bottleneck in India’s growth process. After all, the manufacturing sector requires good logistical support - goods need to be moved around the country amongst industries and to the consumers. Engineers need to develop higher speed transportation mediums and specialized freight corridors to streamline traffic movement and cut short delays.

4. Software & IT

Even though this is where India has performed well over the past two decades, the software industry is now more oriented towards small scale development and support, rather than large-scale commercial software. With the introduction of cloud services by larger software firms, these small-scale software services firms will have few takers. Software Engineers need to reform the sector with increased focus on areas like Cloud and Artificial Intelligence. Initiatives like the Smart City program, which help augment urban development, need to be worked upon.

 SKILL DEVELOPMENT AND EDUCATION

Organizations need highly educated and skilled engineers to bring forward innovative ideas, and bring these ideas into fruition. Unfortunately, the output from even the best engineering institutes in the country hasn’t been up to par as of late. We need skilled engineers, not people who can cram a textbook. The following should be the focal points in engineering education:

Focus on skill development in engineering education. Practical knowledge is a must for a better grasp of real-life scenarios.

Invest in, and promote research. Engineering students need to be trained to think out of the box, generate new ideas, and help them bring these ideas to life. This will help them better identify problems, and devise solutions to these problems.

 THE PATH TO GLORY

For India to become a developed nation, we need a strong backing from our engineers. High quality engineering is the only thing that can drive the four major pillars of growth, which in turn shall lead to economic development. We need to strive not just for quantity to serve our huge population, but quality too, and expand our reach globally, to put India on the path of glory.

[angrytheorist]

Making Indian Engineering World-Class

Introduction

Engineering ─ a very popular word among the people of India. According to the Oxford Dictionary:

Engineering (noun) - the branch of science and technology concerned with the design, building, and use of engines, machines, structures, etc.

But is it what we define it as? People generally associate engineering with studying in an Engineering college and obtaining a degree. So clearly, we do not understand the real meaning of it. And thus, engineers are not able to utilise their full potential to solve the problems that the country faces.

There are numerous challenges before Engineering in India can be termed as World Class. These can be broadly classified into three categories:

No experience in tackling real world problems

The Engineering College muddle

Lack of proper infrastructure and facilities

No experience in tackling real-world problems

Real engineers are problem solvers.  They are given the tools only to help them solve problems using all the knowledge of physics, materials, electricity, fluids, thermodynamics, and various other subjects that must in their heads all come together.  The vast majority of engineering graduates from India will not be able to solve any real world problems.

The problem with having to train graduates is that there are many with good marks obtained by the usual methods, where learning a subject is not necessary, let alone knowing it well enough to apply what you know.

India has forgotten all about "scientific temper" and does not apply itself scientifically to even the simplest problems it needs to solve.  India's construction standards, for instance, are well over half a century old.  With all the new materials available now, why not set new standards? Why do Engineers have to follow European Standards or American Standards for any scenario? And even if these foreign standards are to be implemented, it is not done in the proper manner as most engineers do not have the skill and savoir-faire to apply them.

Even basic problems at home could not be tackled by Indian engineers. Let us look at some examples.

To clean the Ganges, Indian engineers could not come up with any sort of plan.  So, India had to call in some experts from Europe.

For how long has Indian Government supported the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited?  Well over 50 years.  They have not made a single plane Air India can use.  Indian Air Force has been forced to acquire most of its planes from Russia or the USA.

Indian Railways is in disarray, as the engineers have not been able to provide a single management system to track and radio-control the trains in case of emergencies, even after so many rail accidents over the past few years. Also, India's trains have gained only 10% in average speed over the last thirty years.

Ashok Leyland and Tata have been making buses for a very long time and continue to do so.  But who makes the buses of choice on Indian roads today?  Volvo and Mercedes Benz.  How hard can it be to make a fast, comfortable bus?  Pretty hard, apparently.

Why do products sold under the tagline “German quality you can trust” are considered trustworthy but a similar product under the tagline “Indian quality you can trust” will not be actually trustworthy? Because the product is not engineered well in India. This is where Indian Engineering falls short.

Another problem is that most of the innovative Engineering in India is focused on creating lower cost alternatives to products already available. It is a useful approach, but the downside is that this “Jugaad” technique is not going to be useful in the longer run. There is no enthusiasm for innovative research among the engineers, hence we are dependent on foreign engineers to improve our living standards. Indian engineers in only very small numbers can function at the cutting edge of engineering and innovation. Researchers in India also seem more motivated by publication of their research, not patenting and commercialization that could advance the impact of their efforts.

The “Engineering College” muddle

The vast majority of Indian engineering colleges produce herds that usually go nowhere.  Some years ago, they knew enough to be somewhat readily employed.  Now, even that is gone, and the numbers of graduates have increased.  End result is that there is a clueless mass of people with useless degrees.

Even the staff members in engineering colleges can hardly get students enthused about the amazing things they should do as engineers, and every effort on their part seems futile.

Most of the "projects" that Indian engineering students put together as part of their curriculum in order to graduate are simply copied from other colleges, who copied from someplace else.  This whole "project" gibberish is a deceitful scam.

India's engineers can work on very specific projects that someone else puts together, when they are assigned particular tasks after training for those tasks. Taken fresh from college, companies will be lucky if they don't produce an adverse effect of them. Anything out of the scope of their immediate thought process is termed as “hasn’t been taught” or “impossible to do”.

Also, Engineering Colleges have been teaching the same concepts and theories which were being taught four decades ago, even when some of those theories have failed or are irrelevant to today’s engineering needs. Newer and updated stuff is not being taught, and hence students are unable to do anything when given the challenge in the “real” world.

Lack of proper infrastructure and facilities

India remains one of the world's fastest growing economies. But cultural, educational, infrastructure and leadership challenges are inhibiting growth of its innovation and commercialization efforts.

India faces a shortage, and even an absence in some cases, of the necessary support mechanisms that foster commercialization and innovation - research funds, venture capital funds, and start-up capital, as well as awareness programs and initiatives. A lack of these support systems has resulted in a limited number of innovative ideas, relatively few motivated individuals, and subsequently, very few or minimal incentives for people to generate innovative ideas.

Around ₹32,000 Crore was allocated for education and research in the first Budget of the current government, which comes out to be about ₹260 per person per year, while more than ₹1 Lakh Crore was allocated for just subsidies (other than food subsidy).

Lack of a research focused environment is the sole reason India has not yet found solutions to the innumerable problems it faces, and is not ready to wrestle the challenges of tomorrow.

What to Do?

Ian P. McCarthy, director of the CMA Innovation Centre at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, said, "Research on the interplay between innovation systems and economic development is regarded as being important to national and regional competiveness. Yet, there is a dearth of research on how these mechanisms function in India."

The key words are “RESEARCH” and “INNOVATION”. Research drives innovation. It is this innovation in Engineering that we are looking for, that will help us solve the problems of our society and the country. We need better solutions for the challenges, solutions that are relevant to the situation in our country, and solutions that are economically feasible and practical. The research should be need based, not necessarily limited to what we need right now, but also what we may need in the future.

Indian companies must focus on local needs by improving basic civil infrastructure such as transportation, sanitation and water, health-care and energy systems. Nearly 400 million people in India, for example, lack access to electricity. India spends less than 1 percent of its gross domestic product on health care.

For its educational and research institutions, India must scale up its entrepreneurial courses and programs and focus on research and technology development relevant to India's infrastructure needs - water purification, energy, pharmaceuticals and pesticides for crops, for example. Improvements need to be made in the Engineering education system. Some of them may be:

Having a wide scope of education is important, and I believe most engineering programs already require this. However, great improvements may be made by improving the quality and relevance of these courses. Focusing on the key areas where one would need to be educated to understand and make good decisions would better train future engineers.

Engineering, being a very practical field, requires experience and exposure to the "real world" to be fully capable and successful. Integrating work experiences with education is key to training good engineers who can both "hit the ground running" when they start to work and appreciate and get the most out of their education while they are still in college.

If more engineers will be needed, and there is concern that the required numbers will not be able to make it through the current curriculum, it may be best to develop and offer a parallel curriculum that would be less intense. This would obviously not match the training the engineers who complete the standard curriculum would get, but it may allow those who could not complete the regular curriculum to enter the engineering field.

Part of the engineering curriculum should be adjusted to better prepare students for what they will encounter in their work. Statistics, problem solving, safety and basic business acumen are areas in which every engineer should be knowledgeable.

Public relations is important, and helping to teach people about the value of engineering, the roles that engineers play in our world and the opportunities that exist for engineers may help many to be inspired to become engineers. While it is clear that the current state of engineering education could use some adjustments, we need to be careful that we do it in a way that actually improves it. Taking measures that sound good on paper but nearly compromise the educational standards may just be taking the easy way out.

We need to motivate ourselves to be better, and find ways to help others meet higher standards. It sounds tough, but tough problems are where engineers shine. Let's make sure we do so in our education and training as well.

There are standout organisations like the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which has somehow managed to put together interdisciplinary engineering teams for its successful space research and exploration program. Such organisations need to inspire Young India to engineer a better present and a better future. Only then, we would be able to transform Indian Engineering into one which is truly WORLD CLASS.

#india #engineering #quality #education

[angrytheorist]

Engineering Challenges for Knowledge Era

INTRODUCTION

We live in a progressive world. A world that is evolving into something new day-by-day. We have today the most comfortable and easy-going lives we have ever had, all thanks to Engineering. This Engineering has its roots in knowledge, hence the age we live in can be termed as ‘Knowledge age’. According to Wikipedia:

“The Knowledge age is a period in human history characterized by the shift from traditional industry that the Industrial Revolution brought through industrialization, to an economy based on information computerization.”

In this era, the most valuable entity available to human beings is the understanding of the world, rather than the tangible items like land, gold, money, etc. It is now not just limited to the ‘experts’, or just represented in books, but now it is something that brings about all the change in the world.

Knowledge might be classified into two categories: ‘know-how’ to do a thing, and the ‘know-what’ about anything. The former was considered enough up until the recent years, when the ‘knowledge boom’ occurred with the spread of the latter.

But today’s Engineers are simply not ready to face this era. The challenges are humungous, but the challengers are not fit. The knowledge economy is collapsing even before it is completely here. To revive it, we need to strengthen some facets of the underpinning of this economy.

1. RESEARCH AND INNOVATION

Research is a process of continuously developing a discipline. It focuses on using the knowledge gained from one field and applying it in other fields. It is a series of systematic ‘investigations’ and drawing new conclusions by generating new results. It is one of the fundamentals of Engineering – using our knowledge for introducing new ideas to solve the everyday problems we face, and innovate to build new products that make our lives easier. But there is a major deficiency in the ‘innovation culture’ in our country.

1.1 Underfunded Research Research is something in a very nascent stage in India. It is severely underfunded, as the government funding in the field is meagre and private funding institutes are virtually non-existent. In the union budget of 2015-16, just INR 300 Crore was allocated for scientific and engineering research for the whole year. That’s less than INR 2.50 per person of the country. Imagine giving this small amount to the Engineers and scientists to solve the problems of 121 crore Indians! As a matter of fact, for an average engineer, the research opportunities in Kenya are 1.5 times better than India!

1.2 Lack of proper IPR Laws Absence of suitable Intellectual Property Rights laws is a big cause of lack of interest in Research in India. Hard-working engineers abstain from spending their effort in research in India with the concern of theft. On the other hand, most of the research scholars in India indulge in plagiarism, resulting in the effective research output shrinking to zero.

1.3 Brain Drain Due to the above reasons, there is a significant issue of ‘brain drain’ in India. Engineers are leaving India for other countries. According to a study conducted by LinkedIn, the number of professionals in India actually decreased by 0.30% from January to December, 2014. Most of these had migrated to countries such as the USA or the UAE in search of better opportunities. This is a huge loss of valuable knowledge and skill that could have been extremely useful in a situation we find our country in.

2. ENTREPRENEURSHIP

Thinking of an idea to solve a problem is just not enough. The idea needs to be converted into something tangible that can be put to use by the society. And this is where Entrepreneurship comes into play. A solution in the garage is no better than no-solution, which can be converted into an actual useful product/service by an Entrepreneur. But there are a few roadblocks, which include:

Engineers need funds to convert their ideas into reality, which are not readily available. Investors are just not ready to invest in new technologies and businesses.

Even though there has been a startup boom in India over the past few years, none of them are actually profitable. This is also holding back potential innovators from taking the entrepreneurship route.

Moreover, the training and education required for a person to become a good Entrepreneur is severely lacking in Indian educational institutions. An Engineer with an idea simply doesn’t know how to proceed to bring the idea to the masses.

3. SKILLED AND KNOWLEDGEABLE MANPOWER

Another challenge for Engineering in India is the lack of knowledgeable and skilled Engineers. There is a complete lack of skill as the focus has shifted from learning to getting jobs. A graduate from one of the topmost engineering institute is worthless for the job if (s)he doesn’t know how to apply the education at the workplace. This can be attributed to:

Engineering colleges are just churning out textbook-worms who have underdeveloped skill levels and lack the know-how to put their ‘knowledge’ to the best of use.

The academia is delivering huge numbers of graduates who are just focused on getting management jobs with fat paychecks, rather than using their abilities to figure out problems.

The industry is also happily taking in rather unskilled employees and continue selling the conventional technologies instead of bringing innovation to the table.

The research scholars have become really confined to the field at hand, as opposed to going interdisciplinary. The researchers are just not skilled enough to try mixing their ideas with the other fields, collaborate with others, and pool their knowledge to build a better solution.

So, the essence of it all is that the very foundation of Engineering in India is not very strong as per the requirements of this knowledge era. But there are remedies to this situation, which require the collaborative work of the entire Engineering fraternity, and the nation as a whole.

It cannot be emphasized enough that there needs to be more focus on research. The Indian government needs to play its part better by setting up world-class research institutes and allocating more funds towards scientific research in India. The setting up of a strong IPR framework protecting the work of Engineers and Researchers is an urgent requirement too. This will stem a lot of brain drain and attract not just Indian but foreign researchers also.

There need to be better entrepreneurial opportunities available to Innovators. This is not just the task of the government or the investors, but the Innovators themselves need to up the ante in terms of what they are offering. This requires an improvement in skill, which should now be the prime focus of the Engineering education.

The industry needs to work in tandem with the academia to train engineers in essential skills so that they can guide the talent-driven economic revolution to usher in the knowledge economy.

The focus should not be only on the Engineering stream a person is associated with, but STEM – Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics as a whole. This will really help bringing in new perspective to the problem-solving approach. STEM is actually the ‘stem’ of modern knowledge that builds upon the foundation of the 20th century wisdom.

In the words of our former President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, “My message, especially to young people is to have courage to think differently, courage to invent, to travel the unexplored path, courage to discover the impossible and to conquer the problems and succeed. These are great qualities that they must work towards.” The world is changing rapidly, and with that the needs of the world are changing on a daily basis. Engineers – the crisis managers of the world – need to assess the challenges. The transformation of Engineers to thinkers, explorers and innovators needs to happen promptly, so that they can adapt well in this knowledge era.

#engineering #india #knowledge