National Academies Press: OpenBook

Engineering in Society (1985)

Chapter: Multiplying Specialties/Interdisciplinary Activity

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Suggested Citation:"Multiplying Specialties/Interdisciplinary Activity." National Research Council. 1985. Engineering in Society. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/586.
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Page 41

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THE PRESENT ERA: MANAGING CHANGE IN THE INFORMATION AGE 41 Multiplying Specialties/Interdisciplinary Activity The rapid—and sometimes sudden—introduction of new products and processes throughout the present era has caused a fragmentation of disciplines into subdisciplines and narrow specialties. This degree of change (and thus of specialization) leaves engineers more vulnerable to obsolescence. A dramatic example was the substitution of transistors for vacuum tube technology in the mid-1950s, followed by the similar substitution of the integrated circuit for transistors some 10 years later. Contrary to what might have been expected, the impact on engineers of those two events was relatively minor. In each case, the fact that there were virtually no engineers specifically trained in the new technologies—and that the changes came so quickly—meant that practitioners of the obsolete technology were the best positioned and best prepared to apply the new technology. They adapted. This capacity for adaptation is often evident when new technologies are introduced. It is even more striking when it involves cross-disciplinary movement. For example, when the manned space program geared up in the late 1950s, there were virtually no qualified aerospace engineers. Instead, aeronautical, mechanical, and electronics engineers, mathematicians, and scientists of all types were able to adapt their knowledge to the requirements of the space-flight regime. When the Apollo program ended rather abruptly in the early 1970s, those several thousand engineers were eventually reabsorbed by industry—although the process was traumatic for at least three years, and its repercussions may still be seen in the careers of individual engineers. Currently, new composite materials being employed in the construction of aircraft bodies require ''composite structures engineers''; since there are few people actually trained in this technology, the need is being met by metallurgical engineers, materials scientists, and chemical and mechanical engineers. One reason for this capacity for flexibility may be that engineering work is often more interdisciplinary than in the past and is becoming even more so. This might seem paradoxical, given the increased specialization mentioned earlier; but in reality, specialization often demands the presence of many specialists in different fields on a development project, particularly for complex systems. Thus, engineers acquire on the job a familiarity with associated or related specialties, as well as added competence to handle real-world problems that are beyond the scope of any narrow group of skills. These countervailing requirements to be a specialist and a generalist are part of what is, in effect, a new definition of engineering. The new definition derives from a pervasive trend toward the systems approach

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