This book explains engineering practice, what engineers actually do in their work. The first part explains how to find paid engineering work and prepare for an engineering career. The second part explains the fundamentals of engineering practice, including how to gain access to technical knowledge, how to gain the willing collaboration of other people to make things happen, and how to work safely in hazardous environments. Other chapters explain engineering aspects of project management missed in most courses, how to create commercial value from engineering work and estimate costs, and how to navigate cultural complexities successfully. Later chapters provide guidance on sustainability, time management and avoiding the most common frustrations encountered by engineers at work. This book has been written for engineering students, graduates and novice engineers. Supervisors, mentors and human resources professionals will also find the book helpful to guide early-career engineers and assess their progress. Engineering schools will find the book helpful to help students prepare for professional internships and also for creating authentic practice and assessment exercises.
Author(s): James Trevelyan
Publisher: CRC Press
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 194
City: Boca Raton
Cover
Half Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Table of Contents
Preface
Author Biography
Acknowledgements
Part I: Preparation for an Engineering Career
1 Engineering: Doing More with Less
Transforming the Planet
Engineering Disciplines
2 Engineering Practice
How to Use This Book
3 Seeking Paid Engineering Work
Fear of Failure
Stage 1: Preparation
Step 1: Create Your Job-Seeking Diary, Build Your Job-Seeking Contact List
Step 2: Start Building Your Network of Contacts
Step 3: Prepare Your Résumé and Online Profiles
Common Mistakes
Review Your Online Presence
Key Attributes
Leadership
Teamwork
Initiative
Persistence
Reliability and Responsibility
Local Work Experience
Ability to Learn from Experience
Step 4: Expand Your Engineering Knowledge: Research Suppliers
Step 5: Expanding Your Knowledge and Skills
Standards
Programming
Contractors
Material, Labour, and Component Costs
Logistics
Economics
Predictions
Stage 2: Visit Engineering Suppliers and Potential Employers
Step 6: Planning
Step 7: Visiting Engineering Suppliers
Step 8: Continue Researching New Job Opportunities
Step 9: Visiting a Prospective Employer
Step 10: Follow-Up Opportunities and Consider Starting Your Own Business
Relocating for Opportunities?
4 Neglected Perception Skills
Perceiving Reality
Prior Knowledge Influences Perception
5 Listening
Practice Exercise: Observing Listening Lapses
Active Listening and Paraphrasing
Writing Accurate Notes
Contextual Listening
Helping Others to Listen
An Imperfect, Interactive, Interpretation Performance
More Listening and Note-Taking Exercises
6 Reading Documents
Practice Exercise: Reading Documents to Learn from Them
Practice Exercise: Written Requirements
7 Reading People
Avoid Email and Text Messages for Sensitive Conversations
8 Seeing and Creativity
Why is Sketching so Difficult?
Practice Exercise: Evaluate Your Seeing Skills
Part 2: Workplace Learning
9 Learning the Ropes
10 Engineering Knowledge
Knowledge and Information
Types of Knowledge
Explicit, Codified, Propositional Knowledge
Procedural Knowledge
Implicit Knowledge
Tacit Knowledge
Embodied Knowledge
Contextual Knowledge
Knowledge Transfer
Acquiring New Knowledge—Learning
11 Knowledge is a Social Network
Mapping Knowledge
Distributed Knowledge
Distributed Cognition
12 Making Things Happen
Step 1: Finding a Peer
Step 2: Discovery, Organisation
Step 3: Monitoring—Another Discovery Performance
Contriving Casual Encounters
Step 4: Completion and Handover
Informal Leadership, Face to Face
Social Culture
Practice Exercise—Knowledge Network Mapping
13 Working Safely
Identify Hazards
Identify Hazardous Events
Identify Likelihood, Consequences, and Risks
Risk Control Measures
First Steps
Cultural Influences
Human Behaviour
14 Making Big Things Happen
Information, Knowledge, and Diversity
Project Life Cycle
Project Planning
Negotiate and Define the Scope of Work, Calculate the Time Schedule
Specifications
Test Specification
Method Specification
Inspection and Testing Plans
Responsibility for Inspections and Testing
Risk Analysis and Management
Approvals
Final Investment Decision (FID) Approval
Monitoring Progress—Continuous Learning
Completing the Project
15 Generating Value
Innovation, Research and Development (1)
Product Differentiation (2)
Efficiency Improvements (3)
Reducing Technical Uncertainties (4)
Performance Forecasts (5)
Inspection, Testing, and Design Checking (6)
Project and Design Reviews (7)
Compliance with Standards (8)
Reliable Technical Coordination (9)
Teaching, Building Skills (10)
Social Licence to Operate: Co-Creating Value with Communities (11)
Sustainment: Operations, Asset Management, and Maintenance (12)
Environmental Protection (13)
Defence and Security (14)
Small and Medium Enterprises
Product and Process Improvement, Research and Development, and Anticipating Future Developments
Collaboration
Business Development Research and Understanding Customer Needs
Cost Monitoring, Control, and Reduction
Risk Management and Reducing Uncertainties
Balancing Value Generation with Cost
Quantifying Value Generation
Learning More
16 Estimating Costs
Estimating
Labour Cost
What Does it Cost to Employ You?
Low-Income Countries
17 Navigating Social Culture
What’s Different?
(1) Respect for Authority
(2) Navigating the Labyrinth of Social Power
(3) Misunderstandings on Labour Cost
(4) Documentation and Organisational Procedures
(5) Language Barriers
(6) Centralised Decision-Making
(7) Access to Financial Information
(8) Learning from Specialised Engineering Suppliers
Some Products Can Succeed
Think in Terms of Value Generation
Outsourcing
Opportunities
18 Sustainability
Climate Change
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Overcoming Resistance to Change
Renewable Energy
Efficiency Gains, New Ideas, or Behaviour Change?
Opportunities
19 Time Management
Understand Daily Physiological Patterns
Classify Tasks
Adapt Your Schedule
Keep Records
Schedule Major Tasks
Allocate Time to Help Others
Say “No” by Saying “Yes”
Defer or Delegate: Documentation and Filing Is the Key
Unforeseen Disruptions, Avoiding Overwork
20 Frustrations
Frustration 1: Working Hard is not Getting me Anywhere
Frustration 2: I Can’t Get a Job without Experience and Advertised Jobs Require Experience
Frustration 3: Admin, Meetings, Accounts, and Procedures: This is not what i Was Educated for
Frustration 4: This Job Does not have Enough Intellectual Challenges for me
Frustration 5: Has this been Done Before?
Frustration 6: Constrained by Standards?
Frustration 7: Yearning for Hands-On Work
Frustration 8: I Can’t Get Other People to Understand my Ideas
Frustration 9: This Company is Run by Accountants
Frustration 10: They Always Cut the Maintenance Budget First
Frustration 11: They are Only Interested in the Lowest Price
Frustration 12: Net Present Value (NPV) Shows the Project is Fine—why don’t they Approve it?
Frustration 13: My Skills and Knowledge are Only Valued in Rich Countries
Frustration 14: I Would Much Prefer a Job where i Could do Something to Help People
Frustration 15: My Emails Go Unanswered
Epilogue – Next Steps
Online Appendices
Index
