Instrumentation Frustration

It all reverts to (trying to) compete with people that are jumping off roofs for their families to survive. S.M.

Good point. Not the most pertinent topic of conversation, I know. But i've been relegated to a dark corner of my office, with nothing better to do but winge and b**ch and subsequently inflict my frustrations on the unsuspecting web community.

So on that note thanks for the post. It's always discerning, as though you've said something completely retarded, when a conversation string, is well.........not a string at all.

Why?

MBAs. That's why.

There is hope!

I'm in the O&G industry, and our organisation always seconds technical staff into outsourced project design to ensure continuity of control philosophies and successful integration with existing systems. It's a matter of organisational foresight ...

I imagine that the international O&G industry operates similarly...

You're new here aren't you?

You will be amazed at the types of questions asked at CR4 sometimes and the obvious lack of deep knowledge and intuition displayed for all to read jaws agape...

Technical caliber and pedigree is falling off big time. Apart from functional problems with some bog designs there is a lot of dangerous blundering going on by folk who could do with a little more mentoring.

Mentoring. Do you remember that? That's all it is now, a memory.

CR4 is becoming a defacto mentor of last resort. I hope it's not too late.

I hope most, if not all, of those jaw dropping questions are not coming from engineers.

In my little corner of the world, I get to decide who to invite to my Pre-Project Review meetings. If there is sufficient instrumentation, I invite the approprite personnel. Everybody should have a chance to contribute. Ultimatly, it's my job to reconsile the competitive requirements and make sure the dang thing works.

-A-

Quality - Schedule - Cost ... Pick two you can calculate the other...Schedule and cost are the two most chosen.

I don't know if you realise just how correct you are! Put that formula into a matrix and you have the exact method several of my previous employers have used to run multi billion dollar O&G production facilities.

It might not seem obvious, but to some degree miniaturization of electronics (esp. surface mount) and the modular idea has contributed to a generation of "technicians" who don't need to be as tightly integrated with "engineering." Only fairly large and complex boards are deemed worthy of the time to repair them. When technicians routinely had to troubleshoot to the component level it was a different world. Or at least that's how it appears to me.

I wouldn't lump instrument techs and engineers together as "one and the same." It is 2 different worlds. But you are correct. They should be complementary and synergistic.

I don't want to generalize unfairly, but, it seems to me, that too many products are designed in a vacuum, with little real world experience or testing by actual end-users and/or technicians (and their feedback/input). Profit becomes a numbers game where flaws can be tolerated within certain bounds. A company is lucky if they have people like you to try to point out that there might be a better way. Unfortunately, they may not have the foresight to listen.

You hit the nail on the head! We live in the "plug and play" generation. Fault finding at a component level is a lost art. It's not taught anymore. A skills shortage in this part of the world has forced the government to develop a training curriculum on a "need to know" basis. As long as a technician can identify a component, they are deemed competent. Of course that diminishes the knowledge pool as the older generation is whittled away.

I wouldn't lump engineers and technicians together either. I have a feeling both parties would be abhorrent to the idea. But i was reffering to a time a little before modular was a concept. I'm talking about the era of Nikola Tesla and Thomas Edison. The engineering greats who persued knowledge in the field of the broadest sense, not just what they needed to know to make a light bulb or the AC motor. we would never develop without that inquisitive spirit that brought the world SO QUICKLY" out of the dull glow of a candle and into the bright world of today.

What I would like to do is to encourage, if not the persuit of knowledge, the absorption and acceptance of the wider professional community's collective knowledge. I have had a lot of involvement in the training of young instrument/electrical technicians and all too often I am dissapointed to see them reject or blatantly ignore information that they cannot see the relevance of in relation to thier day to day tasks. They want to know the "how" and not the "why". Even better if someone could just hand them a step by step procedure! Why not just train a monkey and have it turn a screwdriver. It would save the company millions!!

Some of us *are* still teaching component-level diagnostics, and will keep doing so! I would agree with you that technical education tends to be too shallow, and the politics of the educational world seem bent on prioritizing the number of graduates over the number of competent graduates. I think there are a lot of factors contributing to the decline of technical competence in the I&C field.

The attitude you refer to ("just give me a step-by-step procedure") is rampant among students too. So much of what passes for education in America boils down to memorizing facts and formulae, and not really understanding concepts. As a teacher, it feels sometimes like I'm fighting a cultural battle -- getting my students to see that there is a lot more to their chosen careers than mindlessly following procedures and memorizing facts. The rewarding part is when students do come around to accepting the challenge and realizing they are up to the task!