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Which part of Engineering is Offshorable?

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Alan Blinder and Alan Kreuger's surveyAlternative Measures of Offshorability states the following:

Jobs that can be broken down into simple, routinizable tasks are easier to offshore than jobs requiring complex thinking, judgment, and human interaction. [Blinder/Krueger; 2009, 7]

Offshorability appears to be particularly prevalent in production work and in office and administrative jobs. By industry group, it is most common in manufacturing, finance and insurance, information services, and professional and technical services. More educated workers appear to hold somewhat more offshorable jobs. [Blinder/Krueger; 2009, 39]

So this begs the question, which part of my definition (see another post) of structural engineering is offshorable?  I would venture to say it is the applied science, mathematics, and code verification portion (about 20% of what we do).  Anything that can be done automatically from a computer is offshorable (analysis models, drafting, science, etc).  Everything else (design) is not.  That being said, I do not think analysis and drafting would be done well overseas without having an engineer or drafter within the locality of the project review the work.  The local experience is invaluable in our field.  For example, the outsourcing of steel drafting (called detailing) has become a major problem in the steel fabrication business.   They charge very little overseas (detailers overseas charge $5-$30/ton as opposed to $60-$80/ton locally) but there are so many mistakes that can arise by using overseas detailers.  The 20k savings of using an overseas detailer may end up costing the fabricator 40k in extra welding costs or mistakes in interpreting the AISC code.

Think about what a robot can do - that part of engineering is offfshorable.  Engineering is a complex task that involves high levels of judgment and experience.  It also involves human interactions (meeting with architects, site visits, working in collaborative teams, etc).   None of this is offshorable.  Our scientists and mathematicians may need to worry more about this issue than we do.  The applied science or code procedure portion of what we do may be considered offshorable, is only 20% maximum of what we do.   Our software will continue to do more and more code verification and analysis, but again that is still a small portion of our daily activities as an engineer.

As an example of why even the applied science portion cannot easily be done by a computer, see my article Twilight of the Idols.  It compares a terrible floor system solution from a computer to a good floor system solution from an experienced engineer.

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Erik invited speaker to EDIFICIA in Mexico

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Erik will be heading to Monterrey, Mexico as an invited speaker at the EDIFICIA conference in early November at the Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (ITESM).   ITESM is widely considered the largest and most prestigious private engineering university in Latin America.  “EDIFICA 2011: XVIII International Civil Engineering Symposium” includes conferences and workshops to improve future Mexico’s infrastructure and structures and to promote sustainable building technologies.  Erik will speak about new construction technologies using his projects such as the Linked Hybrid project, the Jinhua Pavilion , and the Box Office.  He will also deliver portions of his Manifesto for Growth throughout his presentation.

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The Design of Design!

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Gordon Glegg's wonderful little book The Design of Design (1969) starts off with a bang.   The brilliant mechanical engineer and author begins his book with:

An engineer has almost limitless possibilities. He can, and frequently does, create dozens of original designs and has the satisfaction of seeing them become working realities. He is a creative artist in a sense never known by the pure scientist. An engineer can make something. He creates by arranging in patterns the discoveries of science past and present, patterns designed to fit the evermore intricate world of industry. His material is profuse, his problems fascinating, and everything hinges on his personal ability. His successes and failures become incarnate in metal. They grow up and confront him, sometimes with surprising results. A scientist can discover a new star but he cannot make one. He would have to ask an engineer to do it for him. [Glegg, 1969:1]

Well done Gordon!   Let's make a poster out of this.  If we added this to our classroom doors or our workplace walls, we replace the tired notion that science is the most rewarding profession.   Our high school students might embrace the engineering profession.    Our college students might stay in the engineering major (the reality is 50% drop out).   Our offices would surely benefit as well.   Hmm, I better add this poster idea to my manifesto.

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The American Engineer?

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Billy Vaughn Coen  states in "The Engineering Method" by (1984) that

Numerous studies show that the American Engineer is less well read, a better family member, more conservative politically, more oriented to the use of numbers than to general philosophical positions in making a decision, and goal oriented. [Coen, 1984]

My manifesto contained within this blog is partly a rebuke to this (except for the family part).  It doesn't challenge the perception of who we are, but who we are.   Presumptuous?   Yes, of course, after all, I did write a manifesto.   When writing it, I realize some things will come off as too simplistic and can be misleading.  It is meant to be read as a coherent whole, not piecemeal.   If I have offended anyone, I meant to, but not in the negative way.   I hope I have positively offended you!  Now please write back and offend me too at ean@structuresworkshop.com    My intent is not to provoke, but to seek truth, to be clear, to translate what I do as an engineer (when designing buildings), as an educator, and  as a citizen and human being.   It shouldn't be provocative.   In 20 years, this is all going to sound pretty straightforward and bland (this is not a goal, just a natural progression towards truth).   Also, most these ideas are not mine, I steal them.   Sometimes I don't always know where I steal them or from whom.   I am sorry about that.   I couldn't figure out where I got the idea that goals are unhealthy.   That came from within - I am really excited about that one.   The ideas about the design process were easy -  I just looked at my sent items email folder for one day.  I have read many  of these ideas before but they are scattered and not coherent.   That was why I decided to lay it all out.   It is a draft, and my manifesto will always be a work in progress… towards quality- just like engineering.

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Is Engineering closer to Art than to Science?

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A quote taken from the "Historical Definition of Engineering" by Edwin Layton, Jr. (1984) contains the definition that engineering is the great creative science.   A prominent civil engineer, Thomas C. Clarke, held that

Science is the discovery and classification of the laws of nature. Engineering, in the broadest sense, is the practical application of such discovered laws...engineering is the great creative science. [Layton, 1984]

This is better than we are applied scientists but it still puts too much emphasis on science.      Edwin Layton agrees and states...

Engineering is a community of people who are practitioners of a creative form of cognition, engineering design, akin to that practiced by artists.   [Layton, 1984]

Our method, the engineering method, is closer to how an artist goes about their work than it is to the scientific method.   For more definitions of engineering that characterize it as an art, see Jon A. Schmidt's excellent article "Philosophy and Engineering" in Structure September 2008 issue.

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Engineering is the Use of Engineering Heuristics

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In "The Engineering Method" by Billy Vaughn Coen (1984), Coen states correctly that everything in engineering is heuristic.   A heuristic is something that helps the engineer make a design choice.  

The rule of engineering is: do what you think represents best practice at the time you must decide...the definition of the engineering method depends on the heuristic; the rule of the method and the rule of judgment are heuristics...all engineering is heuristic.   [Coen, 1984]

Coen lists some sample heuristics such as:

  • "Engineering is trial and error" or
  • "Work at the margin of solvable problems" or
  • "The yield strength of a material is equal to a 0.02 percent offset on the stress-strain curve"   

 This is what the engineer does, this is the engineering method.   Engineering is the use of engineering heuristics.   It is as simple (or complicated) as that.   My problem with this definition is only the word "heuristic", it is too complicated.    I think it should be called "design aids" or "engineering guides" to reveal a solution to an ill-defined problem (as opposed to well defined problems of applied science).    So in this sense, engineering is a decision making process by an engineer who applies know-how and personal values (similar to my definition).

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My Definition

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This is what I came up with…         Structural Engineering is the design of BIG things.

The know-how required to do this is immense and requires lifelong learning.  Engineers are 1% to 10% of each of the following:

  • Scientists 
  • Mathematicians
  • Computer Scientists
  • Information Seekers (State of the Art)
  • Specialists in Structural Systems
  • Experts in Construction
  • Citizens of a Locality of Construction Practices and Material Availability
  • Cost Estimators or Knowledgeable of Best Practices to Reduce Cost
  • Experts of Local Fabrication and Construction Technologies
  • Experts of  Building Codes, Specifications, Standards, Guides, and Regulations
  • Risk Evaluators and Code Interpreters
  • Experts in Structural Calculations
  • Experts in three dimensional representation in the mind
  • Experts in Synthesizing Complex/Unsolvable things to Simple/Solvable things.
  • Experts in Analysis Modeling using Software
  • Skeptics of Structural Engineering Software
  • Debaters of Efficiency and Economy and Elegance
  • Artists, Philosophers, Poets, Dreamers with Unconstrained Self Expression
  • Drafters or BIM Specialists
  • Collaborators working with Design teams
  • Listeners of Vision and Needs of Project/Client/Architect
  • Knowledgeable of Collaborator’s field
  • Users of Rules of Thumb (Heuristics)
  • Experts in the ability to make decisions under great amounts of uncertainty

Civil (Structural) Engineering is the design of big things.  Mechanical Engineering is the design of dynamic things.  Chemical Engineering the design of strange things.  Electrical Engineering is the design of invisible things.   My definition suggests Engineering is design of Big, Dynamic, Strange and Invisible things.  You might ask, well Architects design big things too don’t they?  This is correct, but they are not hired precisely because the thing is big.  We are.  This definition may contribute to a positive “rebranding” of the profession and I believe it will  improve “career appeal”, and reduce our “brain drain” if we simply and succinctly told the truth.   Why is the retention rate in engineering schools around 50%?  That is a real problem but I think it is a marketing problem.   Our educators are not good engineering mentors and they likely mislead our students into believing we engineers merely complete calculation procedures.   Engineering is so much greater than that!

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A Completely Wrong Utterly Untrue Definition

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This is the most common definition…

Engineers are applied scientists

No!   Scientists are applied scientists.   Our educators are applied scientists.  Scientists make sense of what exists in nature.  They test and examine nature.   Scientists discover.    Engineers take nature and make what exists outside of it.   Engineers invent, create, and make.  Engineers are makers.  Engineers are designers.  Engineers design real things.

In Alan Harris famously said in his essay Architectural Misconceptions of Engineering:

Engineering is no more applied science, than painting is applied chemestry [Harris, 1975:17]

The applied science portion of what we do is actually the easiest and most straight forward.  It is objective and has its’ own linear, step wise methodology.  That is why the young engineers are doing the calculations and the modeling, while more experienced engineers are not.   Yes, it needs to be right, so there is a lot of responsibility in this phase but that doesn’t make it difficult.   The experienced ones are doing the other 90% of what we do, the more difficult tasks, tasks that require much more than a calculation.  Design is the other 90% of engineering that is only achieved after one graduates from being a mere applied scientist (or technician) to being an engineer!

Borrowing from Donald Rumsfeld, scientific application or procedural design is about the known knowns.   Design is much more about the known unknowns.   So why do we align ourselves so closely with science?    Because it is “hard”?   Nope.  It is because we have allowed the educators of our profession to define it for us.   Our educators are not engineers, they are scientists.   That is okay, but let’s be honest about it.   Please understand, I love science, but I am as much an artist as a scientist and I suspect so are you.   They only differ from scientists in the fact that they absorb themselves in practical problems.   They are great educators and researchers and I am incredibly impressed by our educators – but they are rarely engineers.     They are really “practical” scientists.  They rarely  design big things.   Is there any other professional major where the person who is teaching the thing, does not perform the thing?  Law?  Architecture?  Medicine?  Engineering may be the only one.  Research is very different than practice but we have a system in place that rewards science and research over the richness of engineering practice.   Research is science, not engineering.   I am not saying we replace the incredible faculty we have with engineers, nor am I suggesting that the curriculum should change.   Design is learned in practice, and applied science is learned in school.   That is all fine.   I am merely describing who are educators are.  I do think our educators have the responsibility to know who we are, so this blog is for them too.

The Urgency of Engineering Education Reform by William Wulf presses this point further:

Engineering faculty are, for the most part, judged by criteria similar to the science faculty, and the practice of engineering is not one of those criteria. The faculty reward system recognizes teaching, research, and service to the profession, but it does not give the same status to delivering a marketable product or process, or designing an enduring piece of the nation's infrastructure. [Wulf, 1998]

Am I the only person who finds this strange?   Our Architecture schools are completely different.   They encourage their faculty to have their own practices.   When I interviewed for a position at an Architecture School, they asked me questions about the buildings that I designed.  The tenured faculty of architecture schools are often well known architects.   Why is it so different for us?

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A Misleading Definition

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Here is more of the same from the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE)…

Engineering is the creative application of scientific principles used to plan, build, direct, guide, manage, or work on systems to maintain and improve our daily lives.

This "application of science" notion is so pervasive that it sounds like it is pretty much all that we do and suggests that our creativity is not employed for artistry, self-expression, costs, or constructability, but solely for science.   That is just plain weird – and wrong.  This is pretty disappointing and the fact that the word "design" is missing again.  Design is the defining characteristic of engineering.

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A Consequentialist Definition

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The American Society of Civil Engineers unfortunately defines civil engineering (of which we structural engineers are a subset) as…  “The profession in which a knowledge of the mathematical and physical sciences gained by study, experience, and practice is applied with judgment to develop ways to utilize economically, the materials and forces of nature for the progressive well-being of humanity in creating, improving and protecting the environment, in providing facilities for community living, industry and transportation, and in providing structures for the use of humankind."   

How could a definition of engineering omit the most important word – design!  This again sounds like we are merely applied scientists, which is not the case.   It is lengthy, dull, and fails to describe what we do, instead focusing on the end product, what we make.  Saying that a cook makes cake does not describe cooking very well.   

ASCE also states:

“Civil engineers make civilization possible.”

Again, this weak definition fails to describe what we do, just the end product of our work.

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A Flawed Definition

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Another good but flawed definition from the British Institution of Structural Engineers, is…

Structural engineering is the science and art of designing and making, with economy and elegance, buildings, bridges, frameworks and other similar structures so that they can safely resist the forces to which they may be subjected.

This sounds pretty good, right?   Unfortunately, it fails completely in describing how one goes about designing.    Like all other definitions, it puts too great an emphasis on force resistance.    Yes, we proportion members based largely on forces, but that is only one of many design considerations – we also have to take construction practices, architectural constraints, client needs, and many other factors into account.  As Hardy Cross put it, "Strength is essential, but otherwise unimportant."

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A Popular Definition

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A popular but limited definition of structural engineering is…

Structural Engineering is the Art of molding materials we do not wholly understand into shapes we cannot precisely analyze, so as to withstand forces we cannot really assess, in such a way that the community at large has no reason to suspect the extent of our ignorance.  

This is from Dr. Brown in 1967 or Dr. Dykes in 1978 (For its history, see Jon Schmidt's "InFocus" column in the January 2009 issue of STRUCTURE, "The Definition of Structural Engineering.")  This is clever and fun but only addresses uncertainty of forces and materials.   What a limited understanding of what we do!   This applied science portion of engineering is what they teach in school, so it is a popular definition in the classroom.   Yes, we are experts in the ability to make decisions under great amounts of uncertainty, but that is only one aspect of our work.   Stress and strain are necessary calculations but represent only a small fraction of all that we do; otherwise, we could be completely replaced by a computer.  Those of us who do genuine engineering are never concerned about this.

Shipping Container Engineering

A shipping container uses the full depth of the corrugated metal walls to span 40 feet (much like a wide flange beam needs it's web.  It acts as a deep beam which is as deep as the height of the container.  Therefore, structurally, these walls are very important to keep.  To keep costs down, you want to "let the container be a container" and try to keep the walls.  Unfortunately that is often at odds with flexible space and leasing requirements of offices being a minimum of two containers wide.  So some walls need to go.   If the walls are fully or partially removed, the container becomes much more complicated.  It can lose almost all of its stiffness and shear capacity.  You need to introduce reinforcing (horizontal members or columns) because the small base channel cannot span very far in flexure.   You can accommodate small window openings but determining size for unreinforced or minimally reinforced openings can be complicated.  This is due to the walls having different properties in different directions - in the horizontal direction, the web is as flexible as an accordion - but in the vertical and shear orientation it is very stiff.  There is additional complexity in determining how to economically reinforce modified containers - that is, how to minimize field welding and simplify the connections to adjoining containers and foundations.  

The container can be joined the same way they are stacked on a container ship, using steel assemblies that have manual levers to lock the containers together at each of the four corner castings.  They may also need additional welded plates to tie them together horizontally.   Given all the costly reinforcing required, the only way to make a shipping container building economical is very close collaboration with the owner, architect, and builder.  This was the case on the Box Office project.

Coastal Construction in Rhode Island

Rhode Island, all new construction or substantial improvement (cost > 50% market value) shall be designed and constructed to resist flood hazards and flood loads per the following codes:

  • IBC 2009 Section 1612:  Flood Loads (IBC Highlights)
  • IRC 2009 Section R322:  Flood Resistant Construction (IRC Highlights)
  • ASCE 7-05 Chapter 5:  Flood Loads
  • ASCE 24-05 Flood Resistant Design&Construction (ASCE 24 Highlights)
  • Rhode Island Building Code SBC-1 (2010) Appendix G

The base flood elevation (BFE) will need to be determined for the project.   The BFE is the height above sea level using NGVD 29 or NGVD 88 reference datum for the 1% flood event.   Flood Insurance Rate Maps (FIRMs) show special flood hazard areas (SFHA).  Digital Flood Insurance Rate Maps (DFIRMS) have been updated for all RI communities.   For Maps, see the following links...

DIRMS have the following zones:

  • ZONE VE (commonly referred to as "V Zones" or CHHZ "Coastal High Hazard Zones")
  • ZONE AE (contains both "A Zones" and CAZ "Coastal A Zones"*)
  • ZONE X

Coastal A Zones (CAZ) are not located specifically on these maps but  are defined as zones where breaking waves are between 1.5 feet and 3 feet.   It is necessary to determine whether a structure located within Zone AE falls within CAZ. Coastal A Zones (CAZ)and V Zones (CHHZ) are areas that are subjected to high-velocity wave action and must meet the provisions of Section 4 of ASCE-24.

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