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Prof. Paul created pathway for Lankans to learn engineering – Part II:

IESL for practical and open dialogue

Eng. (Prof.) Robert Hoisington Paul memorial lecture titled ‘Engineering Education and Practices: Issues and Future Challenges’ was delivered by Eng. Mangala P. B. Yapa recently at the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka (IESL)

Similarly, today after enjoying that freedom for over six decades, and in my own personal view quite disarrayed and perhaps even lost in our focus, we are about to launch ourselves from a middle income level country to a developing country… It is a time that we need more and more people in the calibre of late Prof. Paul. In that context it is most relevant.

The questions that immediately come to my mind are;

Eng. (Prof.) Robert Paul

Where are we? And in which direction should we go from here?

Let me give you some food for thought.

I just returned from an overseas business trip to Japan. On my way, I dropped in to Mumbai, to speak at the SMP (Shipping, Maritime and Port) World Expo 2012 Conference held in Mumbai and last night attended the India-Japan Networking Session organized by Japan Marine Equipment Association (JASMEA) and CHEMTECH Foundation of India.

At this forum, I had the great privilege to meet and intimately talk with some stalwarts of the post-war Japanese Industry.

Perhaps you may not be aware, but Japan had Aircraft Carriers in their possession, when the WWII began; perhaps the only Asian Nation to be so. But the mighty Japan was totally destroyed in the Second World War. It was General Mc Arthur of the USA, which adopted a campaign called 'Zaibatsu Kaitai', which meant the complete destruction of the major Japanese Industrial base, which the Americans believed contributed immensely to the Japanese military might. Obviously, the Americans didn’t want this strength to grow and complete destruction was the choice, and hence 'zaibatsu kaitai'.

Economic growth

One Itazawa, the President of Kamome propellers, with whom I spoke last night in Mumbai, told me that the Japanese Yen, at that time was so low and the parity rate for US $ was equal to 320 Yen! In Sri Lanka, it remained very much higher levels, and as I remember in 1975; i.e. almost 30 years later it was Rs. 12.00 to a US $. JY at that time would have been around 220 for a US $. Today, the parity rate is 75.36 Yen per US $. The Yen has appreciated well over 400 percent, whilst our humble Rupee has consistently depreciated almost 1,000 times!

Where is Japan today? It is still the world’s second largest economy!

Who made it possible?

Is it the politicians? Is it the economists? Is it the lawyers? Is it the doctors?

Indeed, I have no malice or disrespect to the other professions and professionals. They certainly have important roles to play in social development, but in my humble opinion there cannot be any debate that the economic growth and development of a country depends lot on its production capacity and engineers have a crucial and a key role to play in such development!

Japan became the manufacturing nation of the world! It transformed from a country that merely copied inventions made by others in the world to a nation that innovates consistently. Perhaps even today the inventions are made elsewhere, in the USA and the West, but the Japanese were able to come-up with products and services that make a whole difference in life of every citizen in the world. So much so, that even the mighty Western nations could not keep pace with the fast and consistent growth of Japan.

Now South Korea and China too has emulated Japan. It became a proven model for developing countries to adopt.

Where are we, Sri Lankans, today?

What is wrong with us?

More specifically, we all must ask what is wrong with our engineering education and perhaps even practice that makes us not as good as Japanese or South Korean or in the least Chinese engineers?

Secondary education

Has late Prof. Paul gone wrong? Ladies and gentlemen, I doubt, very much!...

Simply said, I personally believe that we have not been able to evolve and change along with time….

My dear colleagues, I believe that we need to engage in a greater debate and discussion on this crucial issue and find where things have gone wrong; what needs to be corrected and how, where and when we need to correct?

Believe me; enough time has been spent on squabbling on petty things...

It is with deep concern and regret that I state that even all of us, senior engineers waste most our time in dealing and addressing absolutely minute matters, instead of paying our attention to more important and bigger issues such as this.

Now I wish to move myself into the dilemma of a practicing engineer.

I have just completed 28 years in the industry; starting as a trainee engineer and working and walking up to this position. I am indeed very proud to say that I ‘worked’ as well as ‘walked’ up to this position. As a professional and as an individual, indeed I am very proud of what I have been able to achieve, but am humble enough to accept with disappointment that I have not done enough to uplift the profession that I have ‘accidentally’ fallen into. Accidentally, because I was not planning to become an engineer, during my secondary education and followed the bio-stream and it is in the Soviet Union, this diabolical turn in my life took place. This is the very reason when Ranjith Rubasinghe asked me to deliver this lecture, I most happily agreed, though it seriously confronted with my schedule. I thought that I should never miss an opportunity like this to express what had been bothering me for many decades, thoughts that are boiling inside me for over two decades.

What is wrong with our practicing engineers?

Before going further, I must state that my comments and explanations are situations and issues that I have come across, in my day-to-day work. By exposing those so called 'silly nuances' perhaps one might even suggest that I am making myself a fool, as it is not customary to speak about one’s silly deeds in public. Nevertheless, I thought I should still do this, as I believe that, it is good to be seen as a fool, than been seen as a wise man, and be sincere to your own self, especially by being so it brings greater benefit to the society.

Let me also add that my revelations are in no way to criticise or bring disrespect to any individuals, who may think that I am talking about some episode in their life. That is not the purpose. I am simply illustrating situations purely to make a point and certainly not to bring disrespect or ridicule the individuals involved. It is my hope that if we are able to understand what is wrong, at least in those situations, perhaps such revelations may lead us towards identifying the root cause(s) that impacts our profession.

Once I was in a Board Meeting, in one of our subsidiary companies. As reported at the board meeting a major milestone of an engineering project that was to be completed had not progressed well. Being an engineer, it is my usual way to dig a little deeper into such issues. So, I asked what had gone wrong. A senior engineer immediately quipped, “…the Consultants are very strict, the concreting of the weir was not accepted by the Consultant and now we have to demolish it and completely re-do it!” Obviously, I didn’t stop there and asked him why the Consultant rejected the concreting. Again the answer was “…well, the contractor has used sand containing mud, and he is not happy with it”!

Practical situations

When asked why it was not noted by our Site Engineer in the first place and why we presented the work to the Consultant, who in my view, most likely correctly decided to reject it, the answer I received placed me in a serious dilemma. I was told that the Site Engineer was busy, and the problem is that “…we didn’t have a good QC guy at site”!

Now ladies and gentlemen, this may look a very familiar scenario and such answers may be given and heard almost everyday, not by one but by many senior engineers!

Do you agree? Is there any comment from your end?

I of course am bewildered with such answers!

Another example….

As you know, we are into international shipbuilding, which we are very proud of and brag about so much outside that “… we are the only Sri Lankan Engineering Company who is able to do so and so forth”.

However, the following example, which was experienced a few days back, places me in a serious dilemma.

In the process of shipbuilding, we bring in and integrate lot of equipment manufactured by foreign OEMs; we check the compatibility of their equipment in our design, provide output parameters that we expect from their products and even quality and performance characteristics of such equipment under varied conditions.

The OEMs design and manufacture the equipment and supply them to us and we install and perform trials during which we validate the complete system.

Industry norms

There was a Rudder assembly that we ordered from an OEM in Germany and it had to integrate with the Steering System that we have ordered from another OEM in the Netherlands. Usually, both these systems; i.e. the rudder and the steering are outsourced from one OEM, but in this particular case it was done from two parties, as the Ship Owner insisted upon it.

After installation of all equipment and trying out the vessel, our engineers along with the Commissioning Engineers noticed some sluggishness or stickiness in the rudder movement, at certain speeds.

To be continued

 

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