Over engineering

[Willl]

Was that a union worker ?

 

[qstott]

Lately I have been refering to common sense as "uncommon sense". Common sense is not as common as it used to be

 

[turbo36]

Blah Wah Bla Bla Bla

Engineers are stupid.

Blah Wah Bla Bla Bla

If only the stupid engineer who designed that part would have made the gusset stronger, it wouldn't have broke.

Blah Wah Bla Bla Bla

The tractor that broke in two should have been built with a frame. The stupid engineer that agreed with greedy accountant to not have a frame is personally responsible for the fact that the loose bell housing bolts caused the casting to crack.

Blah Wah Bla Bla Bla

If my son becomes an engineer, I will disown him.

Blah Wah Bla Bla Bla

Not only are engineers stupid, they won't listen

Blah Wah Bla Bla Bla

The transmission should be stronger. Those guys are idiots.

Blah Wah Bla Bla Bla


........ This song could go on for days. I can see the spiritual chant of the anti-engineers in the medicine lodge, with sage smoke billowing up, clearing their mind so that they can see visions of perfect devices in the cloud. The college educated drawing and sculpture artists could have a viewing port into the lodge, sensing the visions of the designs through telepathy, rendering them in 2D and 3D.

Final design adjustments could be made by reading the entrails of field mice.

The religion of "common sense" is just that(a religion). It is practiced by those who choose to not spend the time to actually evaluate problems.

In the first parable(it is unlikely to be an actual event), why didn't the operator suggest his solution when they had the problem? Did he not care? Are you saying that every "engineer" who walked through the facility failed to listen? Was the operator so disinterested in the company's performance that he didn't know there was an issue(The fix was easy)? Was it only laziness that drove him to apply his deep intellect to the obvious and easy solution to the problem?

You all illustrate why people choose to become anything but engineers. Only the most foolhardy and idealistic purse the profession. School would have been so much easier(and socially entertaining) if I had just skipped calculus, engineering physics, transport phenomena, etc. etc. I could have simply gotten an art/business/sewing degree, and used common sense to design things.

It makes one chuckle(or something that sounds similar).

Chris

:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Thanks, from one of those "stupid" engineers.

 

[turbo36]

Actually, I am one of the most popular engineers at the facility that I am currently at(among the operators). I recently moved to a policy of confronting the offensive. The religous philosophy displayed is killing us as a society. With "common sense", you can rationalize any behavior you like.

Anybody think that some people are offensive?

Chris

I have outlawed the use of the term "common sense" in my Company. Most people fail to accept the fact that all knowledge is learned and thus not "common" at all. When they push back at that concept I ask them how they know that if they touch something "hot" they will get burned and almost universally they will say "because I touched it and got burned". "Ah" I will reply "so it wasn't common knowledge until you discovered it???":laughing:

 

[DANOCHEESE]

So the term " does'nt have a lick of common sense" cannot be used? Maybe retained knowledge!!

The problem is that I was raised with the policy of We can;t afford to hire a person to come repair it so figure out what is wrong and fix it. One learns to be fairly smart or you won't survive.

 

[beppington]

Most of the "most admired professions" or "most trusted professions" types of lists I've seen have engineering near the top, but occasionally I encounter a complainer - I like to ask them how we would ever have put a man in space without engineers. These seem to usually be people who think they know better but aren't willing to change their position in order to do anything about it.

 

[mad_planter]

Intentionally offensive.

I'm sorry you feel that way. My intent was to point out you can learn something from others who see things from a different perspective. I felt the comment was dismissed because I was implying that those with less education and training were just picking on those who actually did the design. But after growing up on dairy farm and working on my own machinery for years I believe that equipment could have been made better by consulting with the guys who would be expected to keep it running for years by asking them what bottlenecks they see if they had to repair and maintain the equipment.

Engineers across all the fields have done incredible jobs at innovation and design, but I often see a degree of arrogance and defensiveness that seems to come with education and training (not just engineers seem to suffer from this andI've done it myself many times) that causes people to be very dismissive to some ideas. Admittedly sometimes those comments that are made are just "sour grapes" by jerks, but sometimes there's some neat ideas from unexpected sources.

 

[dynasim]

mad_planter

The story about the blow hard was meant to insult engineers. The ball point pen story was meant to insult engineers. What you are saying is that when someone insults me, I should just take it.

You say you are an atypical(and good) engineer because you take surveys of what the technicians want, and do that(I am paraphrasing for effect).

I say a good engineer utilizes clear objectives and knowledge of all the available useful data(including the effected parties limitations/strengths/knowledge) to develop safe, robust, maintainable, buildable, cost effective designs.

Your statement

"The same thing goes for designing a machine. Most engineers are not going to look at their design of engine and say "what if I had to change the oil filter" What if I have to change the heater hose, etc, etc. But if you bring in a mechanic who doesn't design engines, just works on them. He's going to see things from his perspective; Namely that getting to the oil filter is a pain in the butt and how on earth am I going to change that heater hose if it breaks?"

is so far off the mark, as to not need any rebuttal. Are you saying automotive engineers don't take replacement of oil filters into account? Perhaps the oil filter should be mounted on the console for ease of access (I am being sarcastic.)

There are good engineers and bad engineers.
There are good operators and bad operators.
There are producers and there are leaches.

This is true in every walk of life.

Chris

 

[Mace Canute]

I think a lot of the derision for engineers comes from seeing things that cost several hundreds of dollars to fix because of an engineers decision to reinvent the wheel...and failure to realize that a round wheel is better in almost all circumstances than a square wheel. Change for the sake of change? How about the engineer that thought 3 threads in a head was adequate for a spark plug? How about putting the connector for heater hoses to heater cores behind the firewall instead of in front? Or spark plugs where there is no room to actually change them? Or lift the cab off the chassis to do head work? Or having to have way remove the grill,etc, just to change a burned out headlight? These are just automotive related items, I'm sure examples can be found everywhere. Is it a wonder that a layman looks at such things and asks "What were they thinking?"

 

[RoyJackson]

I think a lot of the derision for engineers comes from seeing things that cost several hundreds of dollars to fix because of an engineers decision to reinvent the wheel..."

Design Engineers don't always look at maintainability, but they do look at cost of manufacturing.
Manufacturing Engineers or Industrial Engineers also focus on the manufacturing end (costs and producibility).
We Quality Engineers just ensure the Production groups (internal and suppliers) meet the design specifications.

There are warranty groups, but they're interested in field failures (and costs).

So, it's not necessarily the engineers causing the problems. The things most of us experience are due to the Accounting Dept running the show.

The only industry that I've seen that looks into maintainability is aerospace...but I'm sure the Agricultural equipment industry considers maintainability too.