Lost Art of Pulling It Apart Engineers an Aussie Tech Wreck by Clint Steel - Article Example

Text 1 – “Lost art of pulling it apart engineers an Aussie tech wreck” Argument The argument in the article states that the decrease in comprehension of technical systems leads to decrease in the quality of engineers. This decrease in comprehension and understanding of technical systems is due to young Australians lacking exposure to technology which does not motivate them or interest them to develop an intuitive understanding for engineering and also not taking the ideal subjects in high school for an engineering degree. Good quality engineers develop new technologies that enable to do things easier, faster and cheaper which in turn makes things affordable. Article Though it is essential for the improvement in technology what is important is not just the technology but how it impacts the life of a normal human being. Application of technology in real life situations is much more important and how technology solves problems of the common man is of prime concern for it to be adopted. A person has to have a vision as to how this technology can be adapted for the human race and not just an understanding of technology or its related fields. The prime example is that of the world’s leading technology company which has created maximum wealth for its shareholders and has made it easier for its users with its simplistic design and ease of use. Apple is now world’s best performing technology company on the stock exchange with a market capitalisation of $222.12 billion dollars (Helft & Vance, 2010). The fact that should be of interest here is that the CEO and the person who runs and leads this organisation is a non-engineer (scribd, 2008). Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, is not an engineer but rather belongs to the arts field. He had a vision about how the computer could affect and change the lives of common people. Steve Wozniack was the technology person in Apple though it was the marketing brain of Jobs which could visualise the benefits of the technology to the common man and how it would revolutionise the world. In an interview Wozniack had mentioned that early in his college days he had designed a device that helped make free phone calls. It was Jobs who identified an existing problem in the real life and had applied the technology benefits that this new device brought to solve the same problems and thus sold them to local time-sharing outfits. Selling them to these outfits Jobs made the equipment cheaper (it was expensive before Wozniack created the device) and thus more affordable and easier acceptable to the public (Wozniack, 2009). Even the famous and respected Southwest Airlines that revolutionised the airlines industry and brought air travel within reach of the common man was not started by technologists or engineers. It was brought together by Rollin King and Herb Kelleher who were not from a technology background. The value-add that they brought to the industry was their understanding of humans and their problems. They used the existing technology and made it affordable, cheaper and easier for the common man (Financial Inspiration, n.d). Engineering has always emphasised on the fact of not re-inventing the wheel. According to knowledge-management-online.com continuously reinventing the wheel is an inefficient activity and expensive while a systematic reuse of existing knowledge base will show immediate and substantial benefits (Knowledge Management Online, n.d). This means that if something innovative has already been developed then it should be developed in such a way that it can be easily used by others who can utilise its benefits to create something new and which in turn can be better for the society. This leads to reduction in cycle time for developing a system which uses this entity. This led to the creation of modular systems which can be easily fitted and removed so that the person using it can look at improving the system rather than re-inventing the wheel and building the whole system from scratch. Development of single module is actually costly but if we find a way to mass produce this module which can be used elsewhere then the overall cost reduces (Fast Product Development, n.d.). If a microchip becomes faulty we do not need to understand the underlying architecture and try to repair it; we just throw away that chip and replace it with a new one. This creation of modular systems which can be easily replaced has also to be factored in for people not understanding the basics and being able to repair the system. When repairing a module/system becomes incomprehensible due to advance in technology, people find it easy to replace the whole module rather than take time to understand the module and repair the same. Technology is seen as an enabler and a means to the end rather than the end in itself. The emphasis in today’s world is design of a system and how quickly users will accept the product rather than concentrating on building the most sophisticated product with all the technical capabilities which none will be able to use. It is a synergetic, cohesive relationship that brings to table both these skill sets and creates new value to the human race on the whole. The skill of tearing apart a system and putting it together is also getting tougher these days. In the earlier days it was easier to tear apart a car, bike and put them together. This created an interest in people and an inherent inquisitiveness. The present day systems, in the race to integrate various functionalities in as small a package have inherently become more and more complex in their design as well as build. This increase in complexity is making it far more difficult for people to understand the design as well as to understand it at the component level to sate their curiosity and ability to tear apart and re-build them. The ways in which systems are created in today’s world are also a factor for the reducing interest for people towards understanding the components of a system and look at DIY (Do It Yourself) methods, books and attitude (Ron, 2010). This is also evident in the software industry. Earlier programmers had to write code in assembly language or machine language and had to do all the tasks needed for making a software program work on a system. This made a programmer knowledgeable about all the aspects of the working of a system from hardware to software. Increasing complexity of software programs and modelling needed to solve today’s problems has led to vast improvements in this industry has led to the programmer working at a specialised level. The super fast growth has led to many standards and interfaces that could support this growth and thus led to great modularisation and abstraction at many levels of the system. This development makes the engineer cut off from developments at other levels of the computer field like hardware, system architecture etc. If the developments would have affected the programmer’s daily work then it would have been mandatory to be updated on all fronts. The modularisation is increasingly cutting off engineers from other components of the system and each engineer becomes specialised in that field of area/study. There is a constant conflict in the education system especially in terms of helping the students understand the basics, origins and genesis of a field of study with that of explaining the development and overall progress made in the overall field and understanding the overall depth of complexity. The years of progress and development has to be explained in a compressed time frame which should help the student appreciate the overall field of study. The most successful billionaires in the tech history that people can think of are Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison, Michael Dell etc. One common thread that can be found across all these people is that they dropped out of college and did not complete their college education. The innovations in the technology front or on the business front have come in one form or the other from these people or from the organisations that they head. Larry Ellison the face and the brand of Oracle once famously said that he has all the disadvantages required to be successful and that his constant questioning of authority, conventional wisdom and doubting authority had made him enormously successful in life (Linde, 2010). This is one of the takeaways for any student in any sphere more so in the engineering domain. The constant innovation needed in the engineering field needs constant unlearning and relearning. The learning that has happened has to be questioned repeatedly and this has to happen even if the learning and its implementation has lead to successful results. This constant questioning and validation leads to path breaking innovation and this is what adds value to the society at large at many levels and helps in constant progress for the society and to civilisation. References 1) scribd, 2008. All About Steve. [online] Available at: [Accessed 8 September 2010] 2) Helft, M. & Vance, A., 2010. Apple Passes Microsoft as No. 1 in Tech. [online] Available at: [Accessed 9 September 2010] 3) Wozniack, S., 2009. Founders at Work. Interviewed by Livingston. [online] Available at: [Accessed 9 September 2010] 4) Financial Inspiration, n.d. Herb Kelleher - An Inspirational Story and a Symbol of Freedom. [online] Available at: [Accessed 8 September 2010] 5) Ron, 2010. Lost art of pulling it apart engineers an Aussie tech wreck - Comments by Ron. [online] Available at: [Accessed 8 September 2010] 6) Knowledge Management Online, n.d. Why KM - the importance of knowledge management. [online] Available at: [Accessed 9 September 2010] 7) Fast Product Development, n.d. Modular Design of Products, Hardware and Software. [online] Available at: [Accessed 8 September 2010] 8) Linde, S., 2010. All the disadvantages required for success! [online] Available at: [Accessed 8 September 2010] Read More