DEVELOPMENT OF SCIENTIFIC PERSONNEL FOR THE MECHANICAL ENGINEERING DISCIPLINE
M. L. Puri (April 10, 1973)
This book provides a holistic vision of training for the profession of mechanical engineering. It talks about shortfalls and mismatches in training and the requirements of the professional milieu. It offers concrete proposals for developing the technical arts in order to overcome the lacunae that beleaguer our system and create a scientific temper among trainers and learners alike.INTRODUCTION
Achievement of accelerated economic growth hinges on self-reliance in Science and Technology that we really need. In turn, this hinges on availability of scientific personnel to produce and apply such technology.
The term scientific personnel, as applied to the mechanical engineering discipline, is a broad one. It includes scientists, technologists, engineers and managers. They all participate in the conversion of ideas into designs and methods and later into hardware and related services.
In other words of Professor Blackett, the scientist provides “know why” and the technologist “know how”. The engineer applies “know why” and “know how” for specific tasks and the manager organizes scientists, technologists, engineers and other personnel into working teams and leads them for achieving given objectives.
Science, technology, engineering and management cannot function effectively in isolation. For optimum benefit to society, they have to function as components of an integrated system that supports the growth of ‘technical arts’ for efficient fashioning of materials into useful products. Development of scientific personnel has to be considered in this context.
TECHNICAL ARTS
In the industrially advanced countries, technical arts have been continuously developed with the aid of basic and engineering sciences, since the time power was first applied to the tool. In those countries there are traditions of great respect for technical arts and there is professional competence of a high order for their scientific advancement and application. These assets, which form the backbone of technological self reliance, enabled Germany and Japan to perform their economic miracles after virtual ruination in the Second World War.
In India, as in other developing countries, progress in technical arts has been retarded and that has retarded our economic growth. This was largely due to the country being under colonial rule at the time of industrial revolution. As a result, progress from handicraft to factory manufacture did not take its natural course and development of technical arts to cater for the needs of mechanized industry got inhibited. Further, in the Imperial environment practice of technical arts, which are essentially rooted in manual craft skills, ranked lower in the social scale and the intelligentsia seeking status and prestige tended to keep away from them. To a considerable extent, this handicap still persists and its eradication is as important as development of the technical arts themselves.
Scientific personnel in the mechanical engineering discipline would be expected to play the ‘lead’ role in correcting this position and crux of the problem is to equip them for that role. That would also be the essence of programmes for rationalised development of scientific personnel.
PRESENT STATUS:
Cadres of higher level scientific personnel in the mechanical engineering discipline are generally formed from the pool of mechanical engineering graduates. Accordingly, the content and quality of training imparted to these graduates is a matter of paramount importance. However, the actual position leaves much to be desired, as the information given hereafter would indicate.
In CSIR’S Technical Manpower Bulletin of April 1972, there was a report on “Unemployment among technical personnel and graduates”, based on the special census enumeration undertaken in 1971. This report indicated that out of a total of about 50,000 mechanical engineers 16,800 or one third were unemployed {there was large scale unemployment amongst engineering graduates from other disciplines as well}.
The number of 50,000 mechanical is meagre for a country like India. At the present juncture industrial growth and productivity in the country are suffering, to no small extent, for want of ‘appropriate’ technology and innovation. In such an environment, the demand for qualified engineers should out-strip the number available, but the actual position is the opposite. This only means that the mechanical engineering graduates are not in a position to deliver what the industry really needs. This is distressing since training of engineering graduates takes time and each graduate costs the nation some 50,000 to 75,000 rupees.
The situation underlines the imperative need for identifying areas of ‘mis- match’ and initiating requisite corrective action.
TRAINING NEEDS
Scientific personnel in the mechanical engineering discipline may have to function as salaried employees or self-employed workers. In the normal course, bulk of them should be engaged in manufacture, repair and maintenance of equipment. A smaller proportion would enter the fields of design development, consultancy and research. Some would take up sales engineering. All of them would be called upon to ‘manage’ their jurisdictions. They would be expected to have an enlightened understanding of the country’s socio-economic set-up and a clear idea of their relationships with other disciplines. Of particular importance would be their outlook, attitude and values, as also their capacity for leadership in bringing about technological change in the face of deep rooted impediments.
The under graduate course should enable the student to cultivate a live interest in the basic problems of a developing environment, develop the discipline of scientific but pragmatic approach, grasp the principles of science and engineering, acquire elementary craft skills and get proper grounding in the fundamentals of design, manufacture, repair and maintenance. In this manner, he would be equipped to apply his basic knowledge and skills in solving ‘real life’ problems and advancing his own proficiency with confidence and discrimination.
Accordingly, curricula of theoretical instruction and practical training for under graduates would have to be reoriented with a strong ‘practice’ bias; and the training institutions concerned would have to be properly equipped to implement the new curricula.
TRAINING METHODS:
Reorientation of training curricula would involve deletion of redundant learning load, pragmatic adjustments of weightage for different subjects and topics therein, re-casting of instructional texts / exercises and adoption of rational up-to-date methods for theoretical instruction and practical training, with due regard to the end purpose.
Special attention would have to be focused on basic training to initiate the student in the domain of technical arts, as this would have a governing influence on the student’s capacity for contribution in technological innovation and productivity when he takes up positions of responsibility.
In industrialized countries, the average educated person is machine minded and practices a good deal of ‘do it yourself’. In so doing, he applies his mind, scientific knowledge and skill to improve his tools and methods of work. On the other hand, in India the educated person has thus far generally kept away from manual work and quite often work places, tools and methods are primitive – at times even hazardous – and such working environment further repels the educated. This vicious circle has to be broken and basic training for the engineering graduates, who would hold key positions in the industrial hierarchy, has to be reoriented to induce the process of desired change.
It is important that working environment in the basic training areas should be congenial and conducive to systematic working on up-to-date lines. Equally important is the calibre of Instructors and the content and quality of instructional material. Induction of students in technical arts should be systematic and at a level that appeals the student’s mental make-up. Particular emphasis should be placed in bringing out the underlying principles of correct practice and special care should be taken to make the trainees method, quality and cost conscious.
TRAINING FACILITIES:
Basic training in technical arts would require an induction centre, a basic training workshop and instructional facilities in different work centers attached to the training institution.
The induction centre should have a well organized area for visual display and demonstration. It should also have class room facility where audio-visual aids could be used.
The basic training workshop should have sufficient number of work places to enable independent work for individual students for the required duration. Machinery, plant and other equipment in this workshop should be up-to-date, similar to what the student may expect to find in modern industrial practice.
Each training institution possesses laboratory apparatus, service installations and a variety of other equipment. Repair and maintenance centers for these assets should be developed with a training bias. At the same time, the institution should undertake maximum practicable design and manufacturing activity to meet its own requirements and facilities for this purpose should also be developed with a training bias. In this manner, the students would be able to observe and, where practicable, participate in ‘real life’ exercises. Properly managed, a good part of expenditure incurred in the above mentioned area would get reimbursed by utility output and net additional expenditure chargeable to training would be correspondingly reduced. However, the primary advantage would lie in the substantial improvement in content and quality of training for technical arts, that would be achieved through this approach.
The basic training workshop and aforesaid areas for repair, maintenance and manufacture should be developed as representative models of good engineering practice, which the students may confidently adopt for extension when they take up positions of responsibility.
POST-GRADUATE TRAINING:
Along with reform in undergraduate training, there is urgent need for post-graduate courses in manufacturing engineering, repair and maintenance engineering and industrial engineering. These courses would help to improve job potential of mechanical engineers and provide better technological support to the drive for higher industrial productivity.
They should incorporate:
Arrangements for rectifying deficiencies in basic training of engineering graduates, who join such courses.
Properly guided shop floor experience in manufacture, repair and maintenance centres.
Monitored individual and group projects for the trainees.In establishing the above mentioned courses, guidance may be taken from the two reports which a “Working Group on Engineering Training and the Requirements of Industry” in UK submitted in 1966 and 1970 respectively.
MODUS OPERANDI:
The aforesaid reorientation of undergraduate training and introduction of postgraduate courses call for ‘in-depth’ project studies and successful development of pilot projects before extension. However, these projects would be of value only if ‘quality’ is given the primary consideration.
CONCLUDING REMARKS:
Observations made in the foregoing constitute some loud thinking in the light of my own experience. They deal with only the ‘pre-appointment’ part of personnel development. The ‘post-appointment’ part needs a separate treatment.
What I have said is by no means comprehensive or final. It is intended to provide a basis for discussion. It would have served its purpose if it helps to stimulate thought and action on more rational and pragmatic lines in this matter of national importance which is agitating our minds.