Trends in Trainings on Engineering Standards

Phew! What a task! Here goes:

A1) This is best achieved by carrying out a survey. For a statistically-significant response, a large data set needs to be established, which is going to take some time to collect. CR4 is unlikely to have the momentum or the enthusiasm needed to produce such a data set in a reasonable time, so it might be better to look elsewhere. One of the more attractive possibilities is to contact Engineering institutions directly and enquire if they have any central data that they might share. All of them have telephone numbers, which would aid understanding of the quest at the far end and should always be considered the first line of approach in any business situation.

A2) This is commercially-sensitive information, which may be considered inappropriate for respondents to share on an anonymous international forum. Further, one wonders what value there is in currency conversion in a changing global environment; the Swiss Franc, for example, has fluctuated against the Pound Sterling by around 8% over the past twelve months and it is difficult to see how to remove that influence from any correlation calculation. Further, what kind of Engineer (rhetorical question - NNTR)? CEng.? T.Eng.? I.Eng? Unregistered? (for example)

A3) The time taken, and an allowance in organisations' time budgets to achieve it would be the most significant challenge, for Engineers are better deployed more creatively. Many Engineering institutions run training programmes for various topics and it is largely up to the individual to make arrangements with organisations in order to attend, contribute and achieve qualification. The value of such qualification is out of all significance when compared to the value of job-specific training, which can be carried out largely in house.

Any insights on how corporates are planning to train their fresh engineer workforce since a significant skill gap is likely to be created as many skilled engineers would be near their retiring age.

It would be best to contact those <...corporates...> directly. Telephone?

The good news for government-employed engineers is that they tend to receive more trainning, at employer expense, than those engineers in the private sector... The bad news is that much of that difference is of a workplace-senstivity-variety, and not of a personal-technical-development variety...

Some of the larger employers have been known to fund additional degree completions, but only to a select few (special) employees... (I have seen one case where three other young, up-and-comming, supervisors had their Masters in Systems Engineering degree paid for, but only one of ten classes was actual system engineering...)

With the advent of increasing on-line engineering options that are becoming available, Businesses may possibly compensate program completors if it was in a directly-related work category... and they may not...

Some engineers have resorted to spending a week of their vacation time at a (professional development conference) to take one or more work-related seminars, all at their own expense, and thereby gain some possible work-place recognition, and co-worker envy, in the process...

Such efforts as license exam preparations are usually at the examinee's expense, with the reward being that the successful examinee is then qualified to apply for more responsible engineering positions...

Any estimates on what percentage of engineers in a company would be trained by their employers and what percentage would be taking trainings at their own expense. How much, on an average, would an engineer be spending by himself on his/her training on an annual basis?

One would be unable to calculate a meaningful <...average...> without access to a dataset of 2 or more records. However, the information may well be confidential to organisations and individuals and there is likely to be a reluctance to reveal it; this sort of thing will skew the calculations.

It is difficult to envisage what meaningful information would become evident by taking an <...average...>.

The forum is unlikely to obtain the dataset required. The adventure is called research. Researchers can be hired locally to carry this sort of thing out and that approach is recommended.

That would all depend on the size of the company/corporation. While I have never really worked for a very large company, even smaller size companies do sometimes pay for "education" if it is directly applicable to what they do and it is a "requirement" to get or maintain some kind of certification.

Then norm that I have found in my 40+ years as a professional engineer,,, is that if you want to further your knowledge, you generally have to make the time to do it yourself without the aid of your employer. If you decide to do this, ensure that your employer is made aware of your achievement(s) after you successfully complete same. It may be a bargaining chip to increased remuneration, but if nothing else, it is something for your resume.

Then why are there so many Standard Development Organisations (SDOs) in the market selling standards? I believe they are selling these standards to corporates. Then what does these corporates do with these standards? If they want their employees to follow these standards, then they must be training their employees on these standards.

Not necessarily. With many trades, it is simply the case of using the technician's versatility in doing things slightly differently. For example:

• after wiring a UK 3-rectangular-pin plug, wiring a Swiss 3-round-pin one is very similar even though the standards are widely different
• cutting a metric thread on a rod is little different, in principle, to cutting an imperial one.

There are a lot of companies that will sell you any standard you want, and some even have the certification to audit those standards because it is a business, and any business has to have profits in order to stay in business.

Some "customers" rely on the standards to try and get a quality product, or more importantly, one that conforms to the "codes/standards", because they feel that any company that has a "certification" will produce a quality product which conforms to the relevant "codes and standards". A lot of the codes (approval criteria) have to do with consumer and/or public safety, a very important matter. All of the "international" codes are made up by committees from many different countries to try to standardize what is a safe product(especially consumer goods).

Classic example is ISO9001 on quality assurance. It does not tell you how to make your product, only assure that your system conforms to the system you write. If you have ever been audited, you will know that auditors follow a paper trail which is meant to "build" quality into what ever product you make. The paper trail can be perfect, but it does not guarantee your product is. The only check on that in the standard is customer complaints, and even if you get them but do not record them, your system is still good even though your product is not. This, however, is usually not a good practice as your customer(s) will eventually abandon you because of your quality.

As for "training" to these standards, yes, larger corporations may pay the fees for the training(and then write them off as a cost of business), but smaller organizations usually have a limited training budget due to the sales volume they have, so "training" is done on an informal basis, usually in-house. The "standards" the apply to the fabricating process are not strict "cut in stone" methods, only guidelines which can be interpreted in many different ways by many different people. You will find it very difficult to find two separate companies whose documentation is the same.

Training can be for how to interpret the standard (sometimes but not always done by an outside firm) and then for how to use your representation of the standard to your product - internal training.

Thanks for responding.

Any insights on what percentage of "trainings on standards" are done in-house and what percentage is outsourced. How much could be the budget of large corporates for training their engineers on standards? As per my research so far, engineers, on an average, receive 30-40 hours of trainings per year. Is this correct? For an organization, such as Bosch, which would be having close to 0.1 million engineers, how many engineer-hours of training could possibly be happening?

I can not throw any light on how many hours are spent in-house versus outsourced. I can only speak to my own experience.

For the most part I have worked for medium to small companies. While I did get some outsourced training with a few of them, it was specific to my position or something that was to be added to my position(s).

Other than those few courses, I have done all my "training" on my own, adding to my experience through a little research but mostly by "trying" to do what needed to be done. Mistakes were made surely, but nothing that could not be remedied quite quickly.

One thing about finding out and educating yourself, you will be more likely to remember it. I find myself most often these days as the trainer.

<...As per...research so far, engineers, on an average, receive 30-40 hours of trainings per year. Is this correct?...> Of course it is <...correct...>, because the answer is in the information that become evident in the answer to the question.

One would be unable to calculate a meaningful <...average...> without access to a dataset of 2 or more records. However, the information may well be confidential to organisations and individuals and there is likely to be a reluctance to reveal it; this sort of thing will skew the calculations.

It is difficult to envisage what meaningful information would become evident by taking an <...average...>.

The forum is unlikely to obtain the dataset required. The adventure is called research. Researchers can be hired locally to carry this sort of thing out and that approach is recommended.

In the case of construction-related Code administration and/or enforcement organizations (similar to your SDO's?), the Public Works, Structural, Electrical, Mechanical, and other, Codes are typically updated every two to five years...

Inspectors are required to keep themselves current on those Code changes, from one edition to the next. Each edition is up-dated to reflect the more recent experience in order to increase the safety of construction activity, and occupant usage, in response to natural, and unnatural (disasters)...

Each Code revision involves purchasing a new volume at the cost of several hundred dollars, each... Formal (re-)trainning costs an additional x-hundred dollars more...

City, County, State and other, Agencies may, or may not, compensate their Inspectors each time...

There may also be a (re-)certifying process involved as well, also at the Inspector's expense...

The advent of new construction materials, and/or construction, methods can also involve a similar re-certification of the relevant Inspectors...

National and International Standard Code organisations vie with each other for which one has jurisdictions over which geographic locations, such that certification under one organisation does not transfer automatically to another...

Engineers licensed in one state can not automatically ''practice'' in another...

And, it is un-ethical for an engineer in one engineering discipline to ''sign-off'' as having done work in an un-licensed discipline...

So, Engineers can be in similar situations to Inspectors...