Engineering as a Social Enterprise (1991) / Chapter Skim
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Business, Consumers, and Society-at-Large: New Demands and Expectations
Business, Consumers, and Society-at-Large: New Demands and Expectations
Pages 41-57
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From page 41... ...
The intensity of those demands and expectations is related to what has emerged as a national crisis of confidence, stemming from the convergence of several unprecedented trends over the past decade or so. The United States has shifted from Lade surplus to chronic deficit and from the world's largest international creditor to its largest international debtor.
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From page 42... ...
The world's leading postgraduate programs in science and engineering are here in this country, but they are increasingly filled by students from abroad because so many Americans apparently lack the training, the desire, or both to fill them. All of this points to the need to raise the status, understanding, and recognition of the engineering profession.
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From page 43... ...
At the same time, the traditional demands for an automobile that is cost-effective and state-of-the-art in short, one that will help the engineer's firm remain competitive by meeting customer demands have been intensified by the globalization of competition and the accelerated pace and diffusion of technological change. Global Economic Interdependence and Competition The globalization of competition, often discussed in the context of our national crisis of confidence with the exchange of buzzwords rather than the analysis of fundamental forces, deserves special note.
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From page 44... ...
manufacturers, are now building cars cost-effectively in this country for export to Japan. The Need to Set World Standards The lesson for industry and for the engineering profession is that leaders in today's global marketplace set world standards for innovation, quality, and value.
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From page 45... ...
The automobile is a good example of the tension. The customer demands mobility, style, comfort, convenience, reliability, affordability, and value; society demands safety, fuel efficiency, and pollution reduction.
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From page 46... ...
Rather, both sides need to be aware of the stakes involved when public policy in the form of legislative or regulatory requirements impedes, rather than harnesses, the working of market forces. One of the greatest lessons of the past 20 years of regulation is that market incentives are in most cases far more effective in achieving societal goals than regulatory mandates that attempt to command and control economic behavior.
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From page 47... ...
One of these, Project PATHFINDER, is a $1.65 million cooperative venture between the California Department of Transportation, the Federal Highway Administration, and General Motors. The other, funded with $8 million is called TRAVTEK.
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From page 48... ...
Emissions from new passenger cars have been reduced substantially since clean air regulations were first introduced. There are three important categories of emissions from the vehicles on our roads today: unburned fuel in the form of hydrocarbons; partially burned fuel or carbon monoxide; and oxides of nitrogen, a by-product of the combustion process.
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From page 49... ...
Currently, 85 percent of the auto pollution comes from the oldest 50 percent of the vehicles on the road. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that by the year 2000, as older vehicles are replaced, fleet average hydrocarbon and carbon monoxide emission levels will decline by 40 to 50 percent, and oxides of nitrogen emissions by 33 percent, from current levels.
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From page 50... ...
Adding to the pressure on the engineer, the societal demands weighing against such individual consumer demands are also dynamic rather than static, as are the consumer's demands and the competitive pressures discussed earlier. Trade-offs have always been the centerpiece of the engineer's challenge, but they have become broader and more difficult.
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From page 51... ...
Similarly, the United States rushed into a synthetic fuel program that was all but dead by the end of the 1970s, with little to show for the money spent. In retrospect, one of the greatest ironies of the 1970s was that the auto industry achieved major progress in meeting societal demands for energy conservation and pollution reduction, but was nonetheless widely perceived to be dragging its heels.
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From page 52... ...
There was a time, of course, when the automotive engineer didn't see a need for that kind of up-front discipline in planning and managing his projects. In fact, the auto industry itself evolved as a loose network of subsystems and components—an axle operation here, a gear operation there, and an engine operation in a third place, for example.
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From page 53... ...
The old hierarchical or adversarial structure of authority is giving way to more cooperative, consensus-based, decentralized authority models. This shift away from traditional labor relations to what might better be called "workplace relations" reflects changing individual values and greater educational and skill requirements, shown first by Japanese and Swedish manufacturers as examples of successful employee involvement and participatory management to drive competitive advantage.
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From page 54... ...
Peter Drucker, the dean of management theorists, has predicted that the combined impact of mergers and acquisitions and the increasing need for specialized skills will lead to a drastic reduction in "middle" and "upper" management ranks between now and the year 2000 (Drucker, 1988~. In his view, more and more managers will be performing technical or specialized production or marketing-related work rather than "general" management functions, and many "professional" people will be earning more money than the managers to whom they report!
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From page 55... ...
Lifelong learning and retraining The very uncertainty and dynamism of world circumstances require ongoing lifelong education rather than a process that ends with the receipt of the diploma. The pace of technological change, the growing internationalization and interdependence of markets, and the growing intensity of competition in most industries dictate that education and training be a constant process.
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From page 56... ...
. Externally, changing societal demands and expectations focused on engineers also mean that they must be effective communicators with those looking in on them (news media, legislators, regulators, public interest
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From page 57... ...
This implies increased leverage, broader opportunities, and more complex challenges for engineers, requiring in turn new skills, greater flexibility, and a broader perspective. As business, the individual consumer, and society work together to balance conflicting demands and make difficult tradeoffs, it is clear that engineering will increasingly become a "social ente~pnse" as we move toward the twenty-first century.
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