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EDITORIALS
May/June Editorial
Are We Outsourcing Our Future?................,Or, “How Dumb Are We?”
David Trachtman,
Engineering Consultant
Like all of you, I have been reading the newspapers, listening to the evening news reports about the latest concerning the anxiety over health and safety concerns, e.g., the fuss about tainted food , defective toys (viz., lead paint), and of course their health threats to young and old.
My first reaction was, ‘ Well, if we are importing low priced, poor quality products from overseas (primarily from China),then why not just stop importing all of these items, and stick to the high quality products that we make here?’ We all know that our home grown goods and services are well known for reliability, integrity of product, performance, etc., right?
Well, maybe not!
It seems that many U.S. companies, that own venerable, recognizable brands, go the route of “Outsourcing”.
Now what specifically is ‘outsourcing’? In plain English, it is the process of “sourcing out” a product’s manufacture or a service to others, outside of the host country (e.g., U.S.A. to China). The underlying motivation is to lower costs of products and/or services, often via cheaper labor, and/ or material costs.
In the course of doing all of this it appears that the ‘Outsourcers’ have lost control of product integrity to name just one aspect of the problem, with possibly, reduced performance! “Product Integrity” is why we buy the item in the first place (that is, relying on a well known name, and retaining brand name recognition and reputation).
I really can’t blame the Chinese alone. In fact it is the American company which has decided to relinquish control of the means and process of production, by leaving it to others to retain our previously high standards. This causes me to wonder, are we way beyond tainted toys, toothpaste, and who knows what else? It is unfortunate that we have drifted away from our own best efforts.
Do we outsource our Defense products to others, e.g., Missile Systems, as well as other strategic or tactical products, as open-loop as with commercial products? For the most part I believe we do not, but we need to be vigilant to the possibilities of this compromise leading to a reduction in the integrity of product that has in the past provided great strength to our nation.
I recently read a quote from a large Japanese company’s CEO, wherein he said flat out , “We don’t outsource, but instead will build the plants, produce the products outside of our own country, but still retaining control – by owning, running these production facilities ourselves.” This could be taken as a very prudent business decision by Japanese companies, who are thinking long term, i.e., retaining their customer base by exercising strict control of the process that brought them the consumer base in the first place , while continuing to cut their costs(e.g., via outsourced labor).
So, just maybe we need to , once again take the advice from our friends the Japanese, by reassessing our policies of relinquishing control, of our manufacturing , and, of masquerading as the producer of the products we sell.
What do you think? Shall we demand that we take back what we thought was our own, our very foundation of our capabilities, or do we remain blindsided to how ‘ dumb ‘ we have become while napping on the job?
All U.S. Manufacturing Associations, and the entire outsourcing industry, and, if necessary, the U.S. Congress has to have a stake in making this all work. They have got to insure that outsourced products maintain the same integrity as those manufactured in the U.S. If a highly regarded U.S. manufacturer is outsourcing his product, the U.S. consumer will then be confident that the same product, previously manufactured in the U.S., to its well known high standards, will still meet these same standards when outsourced. This means that the U.S. company needs to insure that the outsourced product has been manufactured and is by process, being held to the high standards of :
Safety
Quality Control
Testing
PerformanceI know for a fact that, in my field of military systems, when we (i.e., the Prime Contractor/U.S. Government) sell a system to a foreign country, many times the host country will ask for “offsets” to the contract, i.e., the U.S. will be asked to provide some of the portions of the system, while other parts of the system are to be manufactured on-site in the host country: factories built, local labor used, but still to the U.S. specifications. This is of course done to insure the high standards of performance of the original U.S. defense system, while providing work for the local economy.
If I had to take liberties with this concept, and apply a bit of New England common sense, and logic, I would address this to our current “outsourcing” issue in a constructive manner. Whether it is a portion of a missile system, or a child’s toy, we, as interested producers, and consumers will be intimately involved in the production of the product.
Think about this complex issue for a bit, and wonder why this was only mentioned briefly during the 2004 Presidential campaign, but, neither political party has raised the issue since. Is it the old Pogo cartoon line once again, “We have met the enemy and it is us!”?
What are your views on this subject of “Outsourcing”?
How can we get a dialog going once again?
I hope I’ve stirred the juices of you logical, organized engineering minds, and that you will rise to the challenge.
April 2008 Editorial
Why Are You an Engineer?
Lori Jeromin
2008 Chair IEEE Boston SectionIn February, I had the honor of attending some of the events associated with National Engineers Week in Boston as the 2008 Chair of the Boston Section of the IEEE. At the Engineers Week Luncheon, I asked a young engineer why he had chosen engineering as a profession. I expected a response involving fascination with technical things, or a passion for ‘tinkering’. His response was ‘I wanted to do good in the world, and I was skilled at math and science.’
His response led me to consider the role of engineering in society. As engineers, most of us recognize that engineering supports much of the infrastructure throughout the country. In today’s high tech world, electronics are everywhere from automobiles to toasters. Bridges and tunnels connect our interstate highway system in a critical network for transporting food, raw materials, consumer goods, and people. In fact, the young engineer mentioned above spends his days inspecting Massachusetts’ aging bridges to insure their continuing safety as part of that network. These are primarily technical contributions. Another dimension of engineering’s role in society is to influence some of the less tangible aspects of modern life such as education, historical perspective, or world peace by technical or nontechnical contributions. In the rest of this column, I will highlight some ongoing projects and organizations that address these less tangible issues related to engineering in society. Most of these are volunteer efforts.
Two organizations within the Boston section of the IEEE address aspects of engineering in society.
The Society for Social Implications of Technology (SSIT) is a cross-disciplinary group in the IEEE that discusses social issues common to all the IEEE societies. Social implications include engineering ethics; environmental, safety, or health issues associated with technology; and the social issues regarding telecommunications, energy, and information technology. Topics discussed in the Boston Chapter during the last couple years have ranged from the impact of information technology on the democratic process to the (not entirely technical) challenges of tapping renewable power with offshore windmills.
The IEEE Milestone Committee, under the leadership Gil Cooke, has brought a number of historical landmarks of electrical engineering note to the public’s attention via historical markers provided by the IEEE. This effort recognizes the contributions of some local engineers to today’s quality of life. A few milestones recently placed in Boston are good examples of electrical engineering’s contribution to modern society. On Franklin Street (near 5 Exeter Place – the ‘original’ Bell lab) is a plaque commemorating the first transmission of intelligible speech over electrical wires as Alexander Graham Bell called to his assistant ‘Mr Watson, come here! I want to see you.’ A plaque in Dorchester celebrates the Boston Fire Alarm System created in 1852, the first municipal electrical fire alarm system using call boxes with automatic signaling to indicate the fire (call) location. This system became the model for other cities, and most of the national fire alarm standards. On Summer Street in Boston, there’s a plaque honoring the power system for Boston’s Rapid Transit (now the MBTA). Starting in 1889, Boston’s West End Street Railway replaced a mass transit system of more than 9000 horses and 2000 cars with electric streetcars, powered via a central station that provided dc power to all the cars. The plaque notes that this innovation ‘…provided an important impetus to the adoption of mass transit systems nationwide.’
Education is another area where engineers can contribute to society – for example, providing students with a strong background in science and mathematics is a continuing challenge. According to the National Science Foundation’s 2006 report on Science and Engineering Indicators, in 1999 between 23 and 29% of middle and high school science and math teachers did not have a major or minor in their teaching field. Project RE-SEED (Retirees Enhancing Science Education through Experiments and Demonstrations), is a program sponsored by Northeastern University that provides training to volunteer engineers so that they can provide hands-on assistance to upper elementary and middle school science and math teachers. Since its beginnings in 1991, volunteers in about 100 communities across the country have shared their knowledge and experience with students to make mathematics and science interesting.
At the national and international level, Engineers Without Borders (EWB) was formed in 2000 to aid the developing world with some basic engineering needs. EWB coordinates and trains engineers and engineering students so that they can team up to help disadvantaged communities around the world to improve their life via engineering projects. These projects typically involve the design and construction of basic infrastructure such as water distribution or filtration, sanitation, or energy systems. In addition, engineers train the community to operate the system, and the community is involved in the design and construction of the system. EWB-US coordinates a number of local chapters in the United States, including a chapter in Boston. EWB international coordinates active member groups in 18 countries, and advises groups starting up in another 20 countries. While many young engineering students and recent graduates participate in projects in this engineering ‘Peace Corps’, there are also professional level groups (such as the Boston Professional Chapter) that involve more experienced engineers to train students and review proposed projects, as well as participate actively in these projects.
At the National Engineers Week luncheon, I also met an aeronautical engineer who has made major contributions to the space program in part because as a child, she was inspired by the night sky, and her father insisted that she could make a difference in its exploration. As an engineer, you can make a difference in society both by your work and by your volunteer efforts.
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Updated: April 25, 2008.