Inaugural address. Computers and the professional engineer

Abstract

The rapidly increasing population in most parts of the world is making most countries more and more dependent on technological development. There is, therefore, a most urgent need to find means of making engineering systems more economical in the use of raw materials and natural resources, easier to control and operate, simpler and more reliable. This calls for ingenuity based on a better understanding of the principles involved in these complex systems, and for just as much creativity and probably better engineering judgment than does the development of bigger and better systems. The challenge to the IEE at the start of its second 100 years is therefore to ensure that its members have the education and training to make them resourceful in emergencies, experience wide enough to have critical judgment and the determination to combat inefficiency wherever it may be. The development of computers is described in the paper to illustrate this need. Powerful and inexpensive computers with large data banks and a supporting data-transmission network should open up wonderful new opportunities for professional engineers. Computer-aided-design techniques should allow professional engineers to spend more time on creative work. The young engineer will be able to call on the designs of his predecessors, held in data banks, and to use his ingenuity to modify these in the light of new techniques and materials. Simulation methods enable a designer to test the performance of his designs quickly, and so he can try out many different designs in a few days instead of years. Provided that he is a good learner, therefore, he can gain experience very quickly indeed. It should therefore be possible to modify our engineering education to avoid the tedium of having to learn formulas and facts by rote, and, instead, to concentrate on an education which prepares engineers for a creative role in society.