What happens when you're gone?

7/6/2011 6:31 PM EDT

Good points, for sure. My belief (and fear) is that in the future, fewer and fewer people will really know how things work, how to design, how to build things--and they will become a sort of small club of "priests", by default, not intention. Then when society needs somethng real done--not just repackaging and re-spinning what has been done already--they will have to go out and find one of these true experts to get it, .
I'm pretty sure there have been science/speculative fiction stories on this theme, can't remember by who--maybe Harlan Ellison?

7/6/2011 7:47 PM EDT

Number of skilled engineers may be shrinking. Yet, knowledge will pass on. There will be people somewhere in the world. They are curious and willing to keep digging deeper and deeper to get the job done. They may lack the experience. They may hit the wall. However, they will hit the book, search the Internet. As long as the wisdom does not vanish, somebody in somewhere will find it out and learn. I've met fresh graduated engineers who know only a little in the category compared to what my engineers' buddies knew at the time. Yet, they have learned some new knowledge and technique that I didn't know before. I think the presentation of knowledge has been done differently. The fresh graduates just need time to break them down and apply them properly. I am sure they will learn from their peers and seniors. This is how engineers have been trained and will continue so.

7/6/2011 9:38 PM EDT

"Most executive managers ... insisting that their training programs have ensured a continuance of this institutional knowledge"

Believe me, they are right. Maybe not 100%, but 99% of the knowledge worth to preserve are there. Even if you think you have world-changing secret that has not been disclosed to anyone, there is a very good chance it has been discovered or will soon be re-discovered by someone else if it really matters.

7/7/2011 12:03 PM EDT

I've heard the phrase: "If he’s(I'm) gone, they’re up a creek..." many times. I don't know that I've ever been in a place where it's really held true. In general, if anyone with competence leaves, there will be a loss of knowledge base and a disruption of productivity, but it's rare that such a departure is really catastrophic.

That type of occasional disruption is just a part of the cost of doing business. These days, companies generally don't have much loyalty to the individual and thus shouldn't expect much of it in return. Any company that ignores that deserves any trouble they run into someone departs.

There will always be a few virtuosos that break this rule. I suspect that Bob Pease and Jim Williams would be considered so. But the vast majority of us are just people trying to do our best to get a job done well. The sad truth is that no one is indispensable.

7/7/2011 12:49 PM EDT

Duane

the sad truth is the belief by a company's business leadership that no one is indispensible, except for themselves, of course.

The examples of where a company starts to perform much better after "right sizing" out experienced (read expensive) personnel are very few if at all. Going back to Brian's analogy, the docks rarely just collapse through rot, these guys are cutting the support posts with chainsaws (how's that for a metaphore).

7/7/2011 1:16 PM EDT

While I may not believe that any individual is indispensable (management included), I find the trend of reducing and further reducing staff while maintaining or even increasing the workload to be very distressing and even more damaging than the loss of any one person.

At some point in the "right sizing" process, even the most brilliant of engineer can do little more than go into survival mode. Then there is no time for mentoring, little time for designing in quality and little opportunity to let creativity really flow.

7/7/2011 4:52 PM EDT

Literally, this has been happening for 10s of thousands of years, with homo sapiens.

Leaving rants about management aside, I have come to notice that new people do step up to the plate, when this is necessary. Remember that it only takes one person with extra vision, among many workers, to keep things running smoothly. Maybe things will be done differently from what the Old Master had been doing previously, but that doesn't mean worse.

Another point, I think, is that even if Company X was doing amazing things while the Old Master was working there, and even if this Company X folds after this guy retires, there are other companies in competition that will take the lead.

Surely, we have all witnessed this change over the years, and how new guy sometimes does turn out to be fantastic? Surely, this will happen again.

7/7/2011 5:23 PM EDT

I agree with the comments that nobody is indispensable, and that fresh-out engineers tend to be hard-working, eager to learn, and the immediacy of their education may bring advantages of new tricks or techniques with which the old guys may not be familiar.

I am not quite certain what "institutional knowledge" is, but I do know what intellectual property is -- and I'm not talking about the company's patent portfolio, I'm talking about the IP that enables derivative products or enables the next generation product to have higher performance and lower cost compared to the current generation product.

The kind of IP I'm talking about isn't a patent, written in a bunch of legalese -- it's more often associated with files on a network drive, schematics and source code and layouts and that sort of stuff that we engineers recognize as a design database.

And part of that IP database is in the minds of the engineers who developed it, who last tweaked it and solved the latest bug -- those who touched it, wrestled with it, and helped make something of value from it.

When those guys go, without first having brought in new blood to learn the IP, to take part in the tweaking and the wrestling, then the company is left with nothing but a bunch of files on a network drive.

How many times in your career have you had to reverse-engineer something that was developed by your own company? Something for which the answers to all your questions about why something was done one way instead of another way were simply "sorry, the guys who did this don't work here anymore"?

THAT is what companies lose when a generation of engineers retires without helping bring up a new generation to take their places. The company loses its IP, and its ability to quickly generate competitive new products.

7/7/2011 8:57 PM EDT

Being close to retirement age, i think about these things a lot. I've been in the same company most of my career, and I don't really see my replacement anywhere. But it probably really doesn't matter. They don't know how the pyramids in Egypt or Machu Picchu in Peru were built, but they have found ways to build even more technologically advanced buildings without that knowledge. I worry more about when man has finally managed to destroy the earth to the point that civilization collapses and they need to reinvent society from scratch, the only problem being there isn't anywhere to plug in their computer.

7/7/2011 9:16 PM EDT

What is lost with the passing of guys like Bob Pease and Jim Williams is the "elegant solution" to a problem. These guys were masters of their art and could squeeze almost perfect performance from imperfect components with good design. These days, the solution tends to be to just chuck some more bits / megabytes / bandwidth / processing power at a problem, which doesn't always seem to work, especially with analog.

But as pointed out, no-one is indispensible, and in a couple of years time most will have forgotten these names, except maybe a few of us old-timers....

7/8/2011 2:40 AM EDT

This is an interesting topic, but if we look a the way that (for example) China has built enormous expertise in a very short time I don't think it is a problem with losing experience or 'institutional knowledge'. Ideally as you/we (ok I) get towards retirement age we will have been passing on some aspects of our experience to the next generation. (and not just by being the grouch in the corner telling war stories of how we saved the day or invented the hyperwheel). But there is a problem - both here in Europe and also (I think) in the United States, and that problem is that engineering students leaving school or college don't seem to have such a well targeted enducation as they did in my/your/our day.

Actually, this should not be a surprise to any of us! The field of electronics is orders of magnitude bigger than it was when I took my first degree in the early 70's. In almost any field microprocessors, display technology, memory architectures, microwave electronics, assembly technologies, etc etc etc developments over the past few years has been greater than in the previous few years. We have accept the need to mould the next generation to become the experts of the future, its not got any easier - and it never will, its just different and it always will be.

I'm sure in ten, twenty thiry and forty years from now there will be successive 'old grouches' (sory - Old timers!) who will complain that they have all the knowledge. But there will always be a few industry super-gurus and there will always be generations of new engineers that will revere their knowledge and their writings (or their blogs) they way we revere Jim and Bob for theirs.

7/8/2011 4:43 AM EDT

I don’t have a clue about high-speed power issues, either. I don't need to know about high-speed power issues. There is an awful lot more to engineering that just getting "things built".

7/8/2011 9:19 AM EDT

Ahoy, squirts! Quint here

7/8/2011 10:17 AM EDT

two things in the Internet age:
1) when was the last time that you adjusted your timing on your car. answer: you can't. A wireless computer does it for you in a specialty shop. Designed right and consumer friendly, all electronic devices will soon be throwaways or hand-me-downs. The principles are known and can be found on the Internet in online classes and in collaborative design groups.
2) EE Times should develop a peer-to-peer knowledge base of engineers who want to share their expertise and thereby teach the next generation of practicing engineers.
Anybody know of such an endeavor already? Not talking about hobby huts, and formal learning, but real world practical stuff to pass on an share.
Isn't the Internet a wonderful invention?

7/8/2011 10:32 AM EDT

Nic, thanks for your comment and I have two responses.

To the second, we'd love to build a bridge between our audience and college engineering students who need insight and guidance on project. That's in the development stage.

To the first, the last time I adjusted timing, it was on an old '57 Chevy Apache pickup truck. I had to compression start it after and during the downhill roll, the rear axle broke and I nearly crashed into a creek. I'm not missing those days!

7/8/2011 3:16 PM EDT

Not to veer off topic too far, but I'll go ahead and do so anyway. I rthink that the timing in most or maybe all modern cars sets itself constantly, using knock sensors to allow as much spark advance as possible, so the engine can operate at peak efficiency more consistently. Without pinging, and without demanding only one grade of fuel.

My last experience with setting the timing was nearly as dramatic as Brian's! It was on a 1980 Mustang, which was a transitional electronic ignition design. No mechanical points, but it had a distributor just like old cars did, which had to be adjusted. The battery was on the same side as the timing mark and pointer. The battery was old, probably gassing more than normal, and there I was with timing light aimed at the crankshaft mark, just inches above the battery.

BOOM! Lucky for me, my hands were in the way of plastic and acid, and prtobably the acid was not as strong as it would have been with a new battery. Rushed in and dowsed face and hands with water. No problem, but the next time, put a towel on the damned battery! "Next time" hasn't happened yet. We donated the car years ago.

7/8/2011 3:27 PM EDT

I was once told that "you are only worth what it cost to replace you"

7/8/2011 4:33 PM EDT

J.R.R. Tolkien said it best. "The tale goes on, with each of us having our part in the telling of it."

For my part, I am satisfied with what I accomplished and the number of people I helped to mentor. It does not matter if I am remembered, it only matters that I am satisfied with my role while I played it. No monuments or euliges can replace your own assessment of your life. What is said or written about you after you are gone goes unread and unheard.
Reward people for their success when they occur, it is too late to praise them once they are gone.

Thanks,

7/8/2011 4:49 PM EDT

I can tell you from experience what happens when 'management' fails to value experience. Our group of Kohlberg takeover artists took five years to finally get rid of me. (Finally demanded I withhold critical business information from upper management, demanded I lie to upper management, demanded I lie to my customers, in order to expand their private empire. To borrow a phrase, I just said no...) Thus the remains of my local team began delivering test rigs to my house for update & repair, after hours, and at premium fees. The new product they wanted to bring in house is now built in the UK next door to the original plant, by my functional team (not me.) All of those takeover managers are gone except one who is no longer a VP. After several years of marginally sucessful consulting, I, at the peak of my career, can't buy a job. The experience of birthing a quarter billion dollar product line is not in demand when you're over fifty.

7/8/2011 6:17 PM EDT

for JLS...
My favorite book is 'Eternity Road' by Jack McDevitt. I think he probably gets it about right, with a few instances of artistic license. I'd certainly take a shot at the character of Orin Claver if I found myself in that future...

7/8/2011 6:25 PM EDT

Frank E
During my first engineering job, with GM-Delco Remy, the old guys in ignition engineering were were preparing coursework and holding seminars for us youngsters, circa mid 80s. Shared a private office for several months with Jim Boyer, the guy who designed the HEI distributor -to be hourly GM production proof!

7/8/2011 6:52 PM EDT

Bert, you and I may be lucky to be alive! Thanks for commenting. Great tale.

7/8/2011 9:51 PM EDT

The problem is management is mostly correct in their decisions and can recover from most bad decisions. Assuming a streamlined series power structure from the CEO, Dept Mng, Mid Mng, and then Engineer as being components. Then if you look at basic reliability formulas of four series components having .75 reliability, you end up with a result of .75*.75*.75*.75= .31. If you toss in system blindness, kick up promotions, and bean counting mentality, a series of four components could be .75*.65*.55*.8= .21. Realistically worse yet, .5*.55*.6*.7=.12. To improve reliability with low reliability components is best done by running parallel components (i.e. using several engineers). Now I realize practically all organizations do not have this problem because they hire and retain the best of the best ;-). What does this have to do this older engineers leaving with old knowledge? It comes down to your world view. If you think workers skills decay over time and become outmoded (.85 to.4) then you do not care if old workers die off. If you think workers gain skills over time (.4 to.85) then the loss of older workers is a concern. Again, if you believe most technical knowledge is dynamic then older workers might become a drag. If you believe most technical knowledge is mainly static then the loss of older workers is a concern. I tend to believe that .8 of workers increase in their skills over time and .8 of technical knowledge is consistent over a 40 year career. This means .8*.8=.64 of older workers could leave a skill deficit when they retire. If there is useful knowledge transferred from old to new then this is not a problem. If there little or no transfer of knowledge, there is a possibility things will be lost or need to be rediscovered. An example is current NASA engineers are reverse engineering pre 1970’s designs to discover how current problems might be solved by past engineers. Sehr gut everything was not recycled but saved. So much more to say so little space.

7/9/2011 5:42 AM EDT

Maybe we need to take a longer range view. Do we know in detail how the pyramids were build, how the Reims Cathedral was build? Not really.How many engineers today are familiar with the details of steam engine engineering? Not a whole lot I think.
Yet, if we would want to build a pyramid, a baroque cathedral, a steam engine, could we do it? Of course, probably cheaper and faster than the original. We have the knowledge to quickly (re)generate that knowledge. How many people know how to build a 40's regenerative tube receiver? But, if we wanted, we can surely build one, even if a lot of knowledge and experience got lost when Marconi died. I would hope that in the grand scheme of things, there IS progress.

7/9/2011 7:41 AM EDT

Some engineering experience will be lost only because it is no longer needed. I use to know how to transfer information from mag tapes to computers. Lucky for most of us this knowledge is no longer needed.

I have switched companies a few times in my career. Each time the company did not fall apart. When we retire there will be people to replace us and our ways of doing things.

7/10/2011 11:36 PM EDT

A big part of the overall decline in American companies is their attitude towards their older workforce. They only see them as a liability to the bottom line. They have no clue how to leverage the accumulated wisdom in a way that they can create a young workforce capable of incredible things.

Until the day comes that American companies return to leadership that has knowledge of their products and customers, rather than executives that spend their time staring at spreadsheets with all the genius of mice on crack, this is how it will be.

7/11/2011 9:25 AM EDT

I am trying to build a service to pass some knowledge to the next generation. I have created an online training site (http://www.learningmeasure.com) which has as its emphasis measurement and test, but not exclusively so.

If I am successful, I will be able to create eventually more than one site to pass on knowledge, and I wouldn't mind suggestions on how to be more effective.

If you are concerned about passing on your knowledge, do something about it, and I would gladly pass on what you know if you are willing to share.

7/11/2011 10:48 PM EDT

Making certain that "nobody is even hard to replace" is what ISO9000 is all about. Make a task into simple steps that anybody can do and then dump the expensive engineers. Of course, anybody can be replaced-eventually, and at some cost that was not anticipated. I have always tried to share knowledge on jobs, but in many occasions there was nobody willing or able to learn, and in others, those whom I taught left and became a success elsewhere. And at one employer, they asked for copies of all my design s and all my notes and documents, and after I delivered them they let me go because they didn't need my skills any more. Fortunately for all of us I took copies of much of my work, because unfortunately for them the financial guy threw away all the paper files because he didn't see any need for them. That company does not exist in a visible form today, while I still get calls for service on equipment that I designed ten years ago.

7/11/2011 11:01 PM EDT

And the corollary is Nikola Tesla who did it 99/01 while in white gloves and a pressed suit. This irritated Edison to no end.

7/12/2011 2:46 PM EDT

I dont think there is a great danger. Of course, there are things that only an experienced scientist would understand, but "learning everything the hard way" is no justification. Its never a good practice to reinvent the wheel. As far as the "fundamental knowledge getting lost" argument goes, dont we have books and papers for that? I mean, dont all the experts document their experiences in such literature and in minute detail too? If the next generation needs guidance, isnt that a sufficient platform to start exploring?

7/12/2011 2:55 PM EDT

It's not so much about fundamental knowledge getting lost forever, it's about the time it takes to recover or re-discover something that was once known to the company.

Speed of execution is just as important, sometimes more important, than new invention and discovery. I doubt that any company in our business can afford to re-invent the wheel or reverse-engineer it's own products or IP, some of which has re-use value for new products.

7/12/2011 3:30 PM EDT

I was an EE my whole career. My college course load started with DC Circuits, AC circuits, transmission lines, etc. (traditionally power systems and electrical distribution system oriented). Analog courses were mostly tube based. Finally, a new professor taught a series of Communications Theory courses where he actually talked about TRANSISTORS and solid state (he was a former Ma Bell man). Also, might I add, these were ANALYSIS courses, NOT design classes, necessary to be a designer, but not sufficient, as the Math guys would say. My first job as a circuit designer was at a small company that designed and sold its own line of standby/emergency power controls (Voltage, Phase , Frequency relays and cranking controls). They also designed custom products. In short, I learned design (including digital logic and integrated circuits) ON THE JOB. College had not trained me for these. What is needed is more practical design experience in school. That is the only way to replace the Williamses and Peases of the past. We can't count strictly on foreign engineers to keep us going. Industry needs to tell colleges what skills they need to teach and help fund them to get that.We also did our own PC board layout and populating, without CAD and automatic insertion equipment. Today's miniature IC's and BGA devices cannot be hand assembled easily, so tech schools need to teach these skills. The Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Hewletts and Packards of tomorrow, MUST be educated well today.

7/12/2011 5:19 PM EDT

"The sad truth is that no one is indispensable."

Whats so sad about reality? Were all here for only a short period of time. Enjoy it while you have it. Life's way to short to sit around discussing how will they handle it while I'm gone!

The modern reality is you work with others perhaps 3-5 years and things change. People move on, Perhaps you move on. You would have to be a real prim adona to think the place will fall apart without you.

7/13/2011 1:16 PM EDT

Isn't this passing along knowledge the reason I spent a small part of my day doing something useful and the rest of day the writing the documentation and technical manuals? But, of course, nobody reads any of that crap.

What I worry about is the loss of standards where now any slash-dash piece of work is acceptable. In software engineering we now throw more hardware at a problem instead of writing elegant code that is concise and even has a sense of art applied to it. Hardware is cheaper than talented programmers.

When is the last time you read any code that is properly commented?

7/13/2011 3:49 PM EDT

"The graveyards are full of indispensable men.", attributed to Gen. Charles de Gaulle.

No matter how huge your brain, the world will not end when you die. Mankind and all industries have managed to survive the passing of many "great" people.

I am not too worried about engineers retiring since, by then most good engineers understand the need to systemise their knowledge and the bad ones are just rotting in the corner talking about the good/bad old days.

Engineering systems should not be specifically worried about retiring engineers. It is more important to worry about engineers that leave for other reasons such as moving job or premature death. Engineers should be always capturing their knowledge.

Mentoring is also very important as it really helps to expose new engineers to real-world ways of solving issues. Bear in mind though that sometimes the new and untrained approaches will also make breakthroughs. Don't dismiss new engineers too lightly.

7/15/2011 3:27 AM EDT

is this not already true in software.
how many software engineers know how software works ?

most of the time we just plug and pray things together, bloat it up till it works.

7/18/2011 9:20 PM EDT

Bob, The last time that I saw adequately commented code was just after I wrote it. That was because I know that I will not remember what I did in another ten years, so I will need those comments to help me recall what the code does. Properly commented code is much less expensive because it is much easier to understand and work with.

7/19/2011 2:24 AM EDT

well life has its own phases..like birth, end of life is a reality. Make the the best use of this life and spread love :-)

7/20/2011 5:20 AM EDT

All "experienced" engineers should take a little time to pas your knowledge on to your colleagues, and take every opportunity to learn from them. Mentoring doesn't need to be an institutionalized process, it can, and should happen informally. If you teach, you'll be surprised how much you will learn. This will ensure that future engineers do learn from those of us who have made the mistakes and learned a few things in the process.

7/20/2011 5:11 PM EDT

Hi guys,

it is of extreme importance to pass the knowledge and experience to younger generations. It will make their future safer and better.

People become grandfathers and grandmothers for some serious reason. Experience of older people is important factor in survival game.
IQ is only the part of the story. Small one.
It is not enough. Everybody with the real life experience knows that.
Society without good mechanisms for transferring knowledge will be faced with decline and probable destruction.
I live in such society and I know very well what I am talking about.
We used to make some complicated things (even chips and submarines) and we lived quite good without serious debt and crime rate was relatively low.
Today, after some "bright" ideas in management and politics destroyed industry (so called "maximization of the profit rate" and philosophy that the profit is a sense of existence for a company) we have serious and growing debt and serious lack of people who know how to make and produce things.
Physics of society says that once when situation in society gets worse (i.e. crime rate) it is difficult to repair it. There is hysteresis in that process. There is a lot of talk about ecology of natural habitats. Nobody talks about ecology of human society. And there is the answer to our questions.
Human society has some natural structure and it should have it to be effective and prosperous.
It should have it so that new generations grow up psychologically healthy.
Don't let your experienced people die without respect of society and without transferring their knowledge and experience to younger generations. It is a matter of survival.
BTW, look at the China growth. Do you really think that such growth can exist without the concept of "learning organization"?

Bob Pease, rest in peace! There are some young warriors across the globe that will not forget you!
Many thanks for your work!

Best regards to all from the country where Nikola Tesla was born.

7/21/2011 4:40 PM EDT

Experience is everything... I am concerned today that there is a narrowing of education in engineers, combined with a brevity of tenure in any particular position... and that those resulting narrowly skilled people have access to the same shorthand information when pressed - this thing... Which is frequently innacurate and rarely tells the entire story. We used to stand on the shoulders of giants - I am concerned that we will soon be standing ona house of cards.

7/25/2011 3:18 PM EDT

"knowledge meme" Everyone that Ritchey and Zasio taught/inspired/enlightened (like me) will remember at least part of what they learned to pass on. And the books and articles they've written will persist as long as our present civilization exists. We're past the Socratic limitation of oral-only knowledge I hope.