where will the next generation of engineers come from

Hi John

One of the biggest problems I had in industry was CNC programers (millers) who could not mill.

Any fool can program a CNC but they can't mill so they do stupid things.

regards David

David, just up the road from me is an aerospace company, they have something like 25 CNC mills, 3 of which are the latest 5 axis DMG at £5000,000 a pop, and 3 CNC lathes.

None of their guys can use a manual machine.

It's just a different learing curve.

Their big Haas mill with 2 metre bed is programmed to run flat out all day, 18,000 rev spindle and all moves are G00 rapid moves. The only variables is depth of cut and step over.

Possibly years ago you had a transition where manual guys moved to CNC but now it's all about being trained to use CNC.

Top end program's run what is known as HSM, high speed machining, tooling is chosen for this.

Ask Ketan, when he was looking at some inserted tooling the tooling people were quoting totally insane feed rates. So both of us went up the road and spoke to the guy one one of the 5 axis machine [ who incidentally program's his own two machines and he's not a fool, I'd like to see some guys program some of the jobs they do ] and asked him if they could use this tooling?

The answer was no, not on the current machines they are running and to get close to what the tooling people were saying they would have to fit the upgraded spindle from 25Kw at 24,000 revs to 35Kw at 42,000 revs.

So tooling at the moment is better designed than most machines that run it. Not much good giving this to a manual miller then is it ?

John S.

That was an Americanism. As Michael Gilligan says above, the word engineer is derived from the French 'Ingenieur':

engineer / ˌendʒɪˈnɪə(r)/

1. noun (graduate) ingénieur m; (note the term 'graduate'

This in turn is derived from the latin root ':

L. ingenium "inborn qualities, talent"

The word 'genius' derives from the same root.

The downplaying of the term 'Engineer' is what puts many off entering the profession as they see a higher status in the other professions such as Accounting and the Law as opposed to the high status accorded to Engineering in countries such as Germany.

The American definition of 'engineer' came about in the 1840s whereas the term Engineer as described above was first used in the 14thC apparently. In England the great engineers of the 18th and 19th century such as Maudslay and Whitwirth et al were described as 'mechanicians', the word is still used in France to describe a sklilled workshop craftsman.

As an aside, the term 'sapper' as used to describe the Mechanical Engineering soldiers of REME (my dad was one in WW2) is again derived from the French 'Sappeur' which is part of the work of their fire brigade who are known as Les 'Pompiers and Sappeurs'.

Best Regards

Terry

Noticing the amount of foreign rubbish (could not think of the proper word, sorry) entering the country, there will be a massive requirement for maintenance engineers in the near future.

I'm pleased in a way because my grandson has just started his second year of a "Maintenance Engineering Apprenticeship" and it will ensure he will never be short of work.

Len. P.

Terry, I am 'Miffed', REME start as 'Craftsman' and progress to 'Artificer' status.

There is a difference in the two ratings as a 'Craftsman' can also progress and becomes an 'Artisan' rank.

Now a Royal Engineer is a 'Sapper' and his life expectancy in battle is about 5 minutes.

So you know what I became, an, 'Artisan/Sgt.' in REME.

Clive

Edited By Clive Hartland on 24/09/2012 19:52:07

Thanks for teh correction Terry. I know that in the Europe a "Dr. Ing." is highly respected and calling yourself an engineer without an engineering degree is like feigning chartered status over here.

"How often do I read, 'I have just retired and am going to take up model engineering and have bought a Lathe, what do I do now .'"

Hmm that comment suggests teaching engineering stopped in the sixties!

Neil

Which stands for Rough Engineering Made Easy.............

Hi,

on the subject of 'apprenticeships' I recently read a comment by a government minister that there are now more 'apprentices' than in the '60s. However what was not said was is that most of these 'apprenticeships' are about a year long and with a very large UK supermarket chain.

We 'plebs' used to call those training schemes, not apprenticeships. Another downgrading by our betters,

Best regards

Terry

We have got to the stage of have maintainance engineers in our railway system, repairing new Chinese built locomotives and rolling stock. Railways has also just made quite a large number of its engineering staff redundant. Ian S C

I seem to remember my father, an indentured toolmaker, refering in the latter part of the war period to "dilutees", a breed of craftsmen trained in a few months to operate just one or two types of machine and needed to supplement the war effort. Much as they were essential at the time they probably started the relaxing of requirements that we see today,

Are modern teenagers so much brigthter than their forefathers that they can do in a year what it took Dad five years and then some to learn? I don't think so!.

In those halcyon years both Government and Private firms took on apprentices and it was accepted that they moved around both the country and industries, cross fertilising ideas as they went.

I was apprenticed into the Royal Ordnance Factories and in my subsequent career through several industry sectors found other former ROF lads at every place that I worked.

I don't see that happening nowadays to anything like that same degree

Bob D

Bob D

It's interesting that you mention the "diutees". I seem to recall that there was much discussion in 'M.E.' in the early years of the war about how people with some knowledge of machining could prepare themselves to be recruited for munitions work. However, it was a bit of a sensitive subject due to the reception that they were likely to get from time-served workers and the unions. My father was one of these, being right on the upper age limit for military service, he was never 'called up'. Being a painter and decorator, he was directed into the aircraft industry and spent the whole of the war fabricating engine exhaust systems. I think that once all the able bodied men had drafted into the services, the severe shortage of labour meant that the opposition somewhat faded away. When I went into the industry, there were still people there who had been recruited as dilutees and had just been absorbed.

The other thing that I remember from those war-time M.E.s was Edgar Westbury's design for a de luxe stirrup pump (far better than the issue standard) for fighting incendiary fires.

Geoff

Some interesting views on the subject from you all

Im from the playstation generation which prompted my question, I was luck enough to have worked through college etc and gone through the mill with regards apprenticeships (a hollow promise about the time British aerospace went west)

I work in a facility that does lots of government funded development in machining ,mori seiki have all their happy little visitors to see the cutting edge of adaptive machining etc ad nauseum We specialise in ALM or growing bits and as someone pointed out earlier The limitations of what we can do is actually the CAD software and computational power available ,not the thought process of machining from solid metals are being rplaced by composites on an almost daily basis

However this was not my point i think I read a book which touched on things i havent used for 15-20 years and it made me wonder that even in a place where its often described as the bleeding edge of technology I still have to think back to old ways of solving a problem or what the foundations or origins of where the new technology has come from

Will this ability to have a thought process as opposed to produce something automatically and not understand where it originated end with my generation or will it just be replaced by another in another 100 years time? ,if progress is to believed the myford I love to fiddle with will be looked upon like the discovery of mankinds first cutting tools or even a sharpened flint.

I find it sad that a book which to me has been a learning tool has brought these thoughts into play especially as its the book which is now considered a dinosaur

Some interesting views on the subject from you all

Im from the playstation generation which prompted my question, I was luck enough to have worked through college etc and gone through the mill with regards apprenticeships (a hollow promise about the time British aerospace went west)

I work in a facility that does lots of government funded development in machining ,mori seiki have all their happy little visitors to see the cutting edge of adaptive machining etc ad nauseum We specialise in ALM or growing bits and as someone pointed out earlier The limitations of what we can do is actually the CAD software and computational power available ,not the thought process of machining from solid metals are being rplaced by composites on an almost daily basis

However this was not my point i think I read a book which touched on things i havent used for 15-20 years and it made me wonder that even in a place where its often described as the bleeding edge of technology I still have to think back to old ways of solving a problem or what the foundations or origins of where the new technology has come from

Will this ability to have a thought process as opposed to produce something automatically and not understand where it originated end with my generation or will it just be replaced by another in another 100 years time? ,if progress is to believed the myford I love to fiddle with will be looked upon like the discovery of mankinds first cutting tools or even a sharpened flint.

I find it sad that a book which to me has been a learning tool has brought these thoughts into play especially as its the book which is now considered a dinosaur

At 35 i to came tho the playstation generation, from a young age i had an ablity to understand electrical and mechanical systems & problems, this was not nurtured tho school (Which is still a problem with the current education system) but as a direct result of my desire to read and where possible in my spare time practise the princables i learned. With a great deal of knowlage passed on by my father a welder, fabricator at BR Wolverton and the local, older, wiser generation with experiance of Aston Martin. Where am i now, i can turn, mill, ect i have a skilled job that involves electronics, machanics but i dont know anything really about CAD, due to perhaps my lack of intrest in the computer generation (im reading up on this at the moment), my son is intrested in what i do and i intend to pass on as much knowlage as i can to him, and hope his intrest stays. My brother is 19 and he is just starting a motorsport development course at collage, he wont be going anywhere near a manual lathe or mill, which will teach basic machining princables but instead will go straight to programming a CNC machine, madness in my eyes.

We have two yong guys on year-long apprenticeships with us. Both graduates, needing 'something extra' to give them a chance of a job despite both being very capable. They do a vocational qualification one day a week and real work for us the rest of the year. Our consultacy subsidiary is already talking about giving one a job next year, last year the apprentice got a job to go to, starting teh day she left us.

It's not hat new - I did 2 1/2 years of 'community programme' after graduating before getting a 'proper job'. and last weekend some 40 peopel who werev on that programme with us in the 80s had a reunion at one of our centres. Many of them have done well.

Neil