UP WITH DEMOCRATIZATION IN ENGINEERING
Recently our office received an article by electrical engineer Bernard Ang of Keysight Technologies (previously Hewlett-Packard and Agilent Technologies) about new ways software tools are helping to advance engineering education for design engineers. If you want to get specifics on Keysight’s tools, visit 3dcadworld.com and search Bernard Ang.
It’s one of several stories we’ve recently received on the topic of democratization in automation and manufacturing education.
Of course, software and the internet are core to making engineering knowledge accessible to everyone. Consider the efforts of Kazakhstani computer programmer and creator of the website Sci-Hub.se Alexandra Elbakyan covered in an April 2023 RadioLab podcast. Her crusade to liberate scientific research papers and other technical literature from paywalled internet zones seems to have been at the vanguard of a larger trend. Now over the last few years, numerous academic journals have suddenly come to support open access of their libraries (finding other ways to monetize their editing and publishing work) and in the U.S. by 2026, all federally funded research will be made immediately available to anyone for free.
Democratization in engineering and automation also takes the form of diverse training, degree, and even job types — a topic we cover in the 2023 Design World Diversity issue. Besides jobs needing bachelor’s degrees, the National Science Foundation also defines those requiring no such degree, including:
Wherever engineering functions can be properly and safely executed by middle-skill staff, our industry should allow it — especially as software tools become safer and easier than ever to use. The problem is that (at least in the United States) training programs for such roles are often lacking.
As a solution, some suppliers have adapted overseas approaches to U.S. training programs and networks. Case in point: Automation company Festo offers job-specific fluid-power, electronic, PLC, digitalization, and lean-production training programs for maintenance technicians, operators, and production planners as well as shop-floor workers and managers. Likewise, the German-American Chambers of Commerce continues to support a workforce-development apprenticeship program to give high-school graduates as well as working employees dual-vocational training modeled after German approaches to merge local community classroom time with hands-on work experiences. I had a positive Praktikum experience during a college engineering internship in Germany via a Berufsakademie years ago and would love to see new generations of young folks benefit from the same.
Most inspiring is hearing about programs in my own community. Here in Northeast Ohio, Lorain County Community College director of advancement Michael Morgenstern champions several such LCCC programs through which students can earn associate of applied science degrees; take courses on smart automation and smart manufacturing; as well as access an automation lab, Fab Lab, SMART Microsystems Center, and Digital Manufacturing lab for hands-on learning. Just one county over, Cuyahoga Community College offers (among other tracks) smart manufacturing and mechatronics tracks.
Drop me a line if your own community college or company has a program that constitutes an effort towards democratization in engineering … and if you’re a young person who’s completed a program you felt was particularly well designed, reach out.
Lisa Eitel
linkedin.com/in/elisabetheitel
Filed Under: DIGITAL ISSUES • DESIGN WORLD
