Our responsibility to engineer the future Thursday, 22 June 2017

Opinion piece submitted by Jordan Butler StudIEAust, a member of Engineers Australia’s Young Engineers WA committee and an undergraduate engineer.

Often in engineering we discuss the concept of ‘state-of-the-art’ and use buzzwords such as ‘innovation’ or ‘best practice’. In the reality of the modern engineering climate what do these terms really mean?

As engineers, we readily recognise the success of our peers and willingly implement their ideas for the optimisation of our own projects.

But is this an effective means of evolving in a fast-changing and increasingly mobile global market? Do engineers need to develop political clout and be more agile and responsive to new technologies or indeed take a stronger lead?

The National Academy of Engineering in America asked a similar question as it outlined what it felt the engineer of 2020 looked like. In the report The Engineer of 2020 they outlined the need for engineers to anticipate changes in technology and adapt to our engineering future, so thinking beyond current trends. They further argued that this extended to industry, government and academia; not simply to the technical discipline.

This correlates well to Australia, noting that  the engineering response to the economic downturn of the Western Australian mining industry was seemingly reactive, highlighting a lack of forward planning by the industry in the years prior; a lost opportunity for cross-industry collaboration to put in place a contingency plan.

Similarly, despite having some of the best engineers in the world and a lengthy political discussion on the matter, Australia still only ranks 51st in terms of internet speeds, globally.

Put simply; despite our highly skilled workforce, we lag in development.

That isn’t to say that Australian engineers are to blame; far from it. Engineers do not operate in isolation, in addition to the multi-disciplinary environments they work in, they and the projects they work on are subject to economic and political externalities.

This statement would seem near axiomatic to most engineers, yet the state of affairs remains relatively unchanged over time. Engineers and industry alike still tend to find themselves acting reactively rather than proactively to changes in the economy and government. This can be seen in the recent change in the Western Australian Government and the subsequent outcome to the Roe 8 WA highway project.

Fortunately, there is some good news. The 2017 ACT budget included the announcement of a chief engineer to the oversee major projects, including the light rail development. Engineers Australia continues to work with both state and federal governments to prioritise consistent and long-term infrastructure planning regardless of election cycles.

While we cannot necessarily predict the future, we have a responsibility to be prepared for it. We have a responsibility to ensure engineers continue to make meaningful contributions to the communities we serve.

As engineers we must adopt into our practices, a way of being accountable for creating the future we want – let’s not be complacent. The ‘state-of-the-art’ should always be a discussion about what engineering looks like tomorrow, rather than what it looks like today.

To learn how the engineering industry will evolve over the next 20 years and be at the forefront of the next generation of engineers, join the Young Engineers Summit on the Future of Engineering on Wednesday 28 June.

Image: iStock.