Flexibility

1. Foundations of Engineering Design NSF/ASME Student Design Essay Competition, 2008 Jonathan Holmes, MSME Student – Georgia Institute of Technology Advisor: Dr. Janet K. Allen The goal of this essay competition was to generate a consultant report to identify the characteristics of a successful company in the year 2030. The essay focuses on the technology sector of business development as this will continue to be the “hot-bed” of engineering design and will also continue to be the sector where increasingly complex systems will thrive. A consumer electronics company was chosen due to the similarities to so many other business models that we will see in the future. Issues in the Future of Design The essay identifies several major issues that will be commonplace in the future of business and thus engineering design because of the tight correlation between business operations and decisions in engineering design. 1) Dedicated business units will rise and fall depending on the strength of the economy and constant change of consumer interests. 2) Competitors will fight for the leading edge of design and technologies as approaches such as open source software packages will continue to reduce barriers. Advantages will slip quickly as development of new technologies increases exponentially. 3) Increased focus on core technologies will be needed to stay competitive. 4) Communication networks and an increasing population of educated designers will mean new technologies will be replacing old technologies more frequently. 5) Online sales among other things will continue to replace the current model of how a business reaches consumers. “…the key to this success will be through the molding of a more flexible workforce and creating an environment that will foster innovation.“ Successful businesses will continue to be driven by profits and returns for their shareholders. With competition rising over the coming decades from markets in China and India for instance, it will become a necessity to avoid supporting business units that are closely aligned with the most profitable products – the cutting edge products. Organizations will be forced to streamline their engineering resources and individual engineers will need to become more flexible and adaptable to an ever changing environment. Even current education approaches will see radical changes to accommodate the changes in this environment. Identifying Key Technologies Flexibility Partnerships Being responsible for several portions of product and/or system design will be difficult with the exception of extremely large corporations. With a refocus of businesses to align with their core engineering expertise, the need for strategic partnerships will be greater. Deep and far reaching networks of partnerships will become the standard for the typical corporation. Due to reliance on these partners, the current models of technology protection, such as patents, as well as communication between these partners will be drastically different. These networks will exist on a global scale and will constantly be changing to address the ever changing needs of customers. Complex Systems 2030 Innovation Research andDevelopment Increasing demands for fossil fuels, and rising Asian markets are just a couple of examples that will drive the change to a truly global market. In this highly competitive global market, significant investments in research and development of key technologies will be necessary. Another thing to consider is that one of only a few engineering resources will continue to drop in price – the cost of computational power. This means that research in computation and the use of sensor networks to streamline large systems will only increase. Also ways to monitor the progress of new developments will be crucial to allow organizations to remain at the forefront of their respective fields. How will companies operate in the year 2030? One of the key characteristics that will need to drive businesses into the future is flexibility. By forming partnerships that will strengthen the appeal of product offerings businesses will be forced to reduce their engineering departments to offer concise yet powerful solutions. This is an important differentiation that will help preserve sustained growth in the future. The other resulting characteristic of this analysis is the need for innovation. To be innovative is to create something new. Many feel this means some entirely new creation of ideas, which oftentimes is not the case. What is more common is a novel combination of products or ideas innovatively. By keeping a close eye on the customer and their desires, companies will venture to anticipate their customer’s future needs. In the future of design it will not be so much an issue of creating unique ideas and then searching for markets to force these ideas in, but to start by looking for the problems first and then finding appropriate solutions to those problems. The last key characteristic is the ability to design around complex systems. With increased computing power and larger markets, system design will take on a whole new meaning. In summary, businesses that offer innovative solutions to components of complex systems all while maintaining a flexible and adaptable work force will lead us into the future of design.