The Training Needs of the Profession for the Next Decade
The main theme of this Address is the training of professional engineers, although it is apparent that training cannot be completely divorced from education. Primary education is dealt with briefly, but sufficiently to indicate its importance. A proposal is made for a system of mentor and tutorial guidance extending from the sixth form through the industrial student stage, and through University to Corporate Membership of C.E.I. and into management.At each stage of development the responsibilities of the various participants are clearly outlined, and proposals are made for training and educational programmes. These are broad enough to be applicable to almost any discipline, and should be tailored to suit the individual requirements of any organization. The Address is concerned with the methods which should be adopted for manager development, not only for the graduate but right through, as a continuing process, for all grades of management.
The Growth of the Engineering Profession: Statistics and Conjecture:
The Engineering Profession in the developed countries has greatly increased in numerical strength in recent years but the future pattern is not clear and forecasts of manpower needs in industry are unreliable. Nevertheless, statistics indicate that the United States has, relative to the industrial population as a whole, a clear advantage in technological manpower in the Western World though Russia may, perhaps, be even stronger. The difficulty of evaluating the evidence is stressed. In the world as a whole international co-operation tends to reduce the inequalities of distribution but an enormous task lies before the developing countries which need to produce and retain many more engineers.
ORGANISATION OF ENGINEERING DESIGN DEPARTMENTS—PILOT NUMERICAL COMPARISONS
Abstract To look for patterns in the organisation of engineering design departments, a pilot comparison has been made of numerical information on the employment of engineers, draughtsmen and technicians on design and supporting development in a variety of firms. The results indicate patterns in the distribution of designers by salary level and in the proportion of designers engaged in co-ordination of design. Some pattern also appears in the relative costs of design, but none of the results appears to have any relation to the duration of design or to the number of engineers relative to the number of draughtsmen and technicians.