In the new century, the whole concept of living hood is redefining, and so is engineering. The approach towards engineering needs to be revisited. Engineering as an education and as profession needs to be relooked. Especially potential developing countries like India must redefine engineering practices to capture leverages it is getting in the new century.

1. A Nirjhar Chakravorti
Presentation
Technological Advancement
&
Present Engineering Practices in India

2. Nirjhar Chakravorti….. a Mechanical Engineer by profession,
has completed engineering in the year 2000, from Jalpaiguri Government
Engineering College, India.
Nirjhar has received Post Graduate Diploma in Business Management
(PGDBM) from Institute of Management Technology (IMT), CDL,
Ghaziabad.
As an engineering professional Nirjhar has worked at different industries,
like Iron & Steel, Power Plant, Machine Tool and Paper Plant.
During professional life, Nirjhar has worked on different engineering
activities, like core design, management planning and project engineering,
along with the analysis of life cycle costing for capital expenditure of a
profit making company and organizational re-structuring.
Nirjhar’s interest is to know different technology and process engineering.
Nirjhar Chakravorti
Email: nirjhar.mechanical@gmail.com

3. Who Are Engineers?
Scientific Technology
Discoveries
E
N Research Design Economic
G Solution to
I
Applied
N Execute
E Science &
E Technical
R Problems
S
Advertise
Commercial
Application

4. Present Engineering Practice in India
• Core industry
 Steel
 Cement
Technology  Power
• Transport
 Train
 Bus
Imported from  Ship
advanced countries  Aerospace
• Automobile
• Infrastructure
Improvement  Water treatment
Basic  Alternative energy
of existing •
technology Software
technology • Information Technology

5. Role of Engineers in India
Detail Engineering
(for Product & Process) In Core
(based on technological knowledge received from overseas)
Sector,
Process Planning Engineers
work as
Production Planning Supervisors
Manufacturing
Maintenance In Software
& IT Sector,
Supply Chain Management Engineers
work as
Quality Assurance Labours &
Supervisors
Marketing & Sales
IT Services
Management & Administration

6. Role of Engineers in India
• Mostly in Academic level
R&D • Mostly theory based
• Not much on hardware (i.e. development or improvement of
T machinery or equipment)
e • Inadequate fund
c
h
n
• At miniature scale
o • Only few corporate encourage fundamental engineering
l Basic • Government own few company where basic engineering
o Engineering can be practiced
g on • Indian Civil & Structural Engineers get more opportunity
y Industrial of basic engineering compared to other engineers
Application • Thrust on Basic Engineering is missing at newly evolving
streams, also (eg Computer Science, Software and
Information Technology)

7. Why India Lacks Technology?
• Inadequate Fund for Industrial & Engineering Research • Lacks
• Technology can be acquired from overseas Government
• Government’s focus is on production and earning as much Policy
Government
Policy
money as possible • Lacks
• Developing research and basic engineering infrastructure political and
and culture needs sustainable policy and monitoring, which economic
is not possible, because frequent changes in governing interest
persons, who live with varied interests and potential
• Investing money for fundamental engineering involve risk
of failure
• Short
• Investing money on fundamental engineering does not
sightedness of
produce quick money (Acquire money from such investment
Corporate Indian
takes time. Most of the Indian businessmen are interested
Policy Businessmen
to earn quick maximum money out of dynamic and
• Conservative
changing economy)
approach of
• Multinational Companies (MNCs) are not interested to
MNCs
transfer core technology out of their countries and use
Indian engineers as cheap knowledge workers only.

8. Why India Lacks Technology?
• Method of instruction or quality of teaching
• Gap between students-teachers relationship • Lacks
• lack of world-class infrastructure and facilities which can't Government
be seen consistently across all colleges Policy and
• No honest and effective government control over control for
Engineering
infrastructure (including teachers quality) of private engineering
Educational
Policy engineering colleges education
• Lack of faculty at most of the government engineering • Lacks quality
colleges teachers, in
• Conventional approach of syllabus general (at
• Failure of system to create awareness amongst students mass level)
regarding necessity of knowledge, instead of focus on jobs
only
That’s why India lacks
Fundamental Engineering
Knowledge, i.e. Technology

9. Is Technological Advancement Necessity?
Yes
Why?
Economic
Nation’s National Nurture
Competitiveness
Prosperity Security Talents
in Global Market
If India wants to be a Super Power, in true
sense, then Technological Advancement is
necessity.

10. What can be next step?
Present Engineering
Practice
Value
Quality
Addition
Development of future
engineering product and
practices

11. Focus for 21st Century
Quality
Engineers Process Product
Paradigm shift in Implementation of
engineering Total Productive Implementation of
educational syllabus Maintenance or Six Total Quality
and system Sigma or Lean or any Management System
 Quality education other system  Quality embedded
system to nurture  Quality embedded in new Product
quality engineer and
quality engineering
Process
in new Design
support staffs. Design  Quality assurance
 Quality of  Quality embedded at every stage of
classroom and at each step of product
laboratory education manufacturing manufacturing
to be enhanced process

12. Focus for 21st Century
Value Addition
Environment Cost
Material Safety
Friendly Effective
 Cost Effective
 Product Cost
material
 Manufacturing
 Material for
Cost
Compact Design
 Erection Cost
 Lighter Implementation
Bio Degradable  Operational
material of Aspect &
Pollution free Cost
Impact study
 Maintenance
(Focus shall be
Cost
on development
(Life Cycle Cost
and selection of
Analysis)
newer materials)

13. Focus for 21st Century
WHY QUALITY?
Engineers Process Product
To develop new
product, process and  New Quality driven Product and Process
system, engineers design capability is essential to explore in global
needs to be educated market.
in an environment  Quality of product and process is essential for
which promote business development, because
knowledge based
quality education. Quality = Customer Satisfaction.

14. Focus for 21st Century
WHY Value Addition?
Environment Cost
Material Safety
Friendly Effective
To value human
life.
 To save earth Unfortunately,
 Business
 Growing global in India, value of
development
pressure to  Limited human life is not
 Money does
implement resource a major focus!
matter, especially
environ friendly  Material cost But interestingly,
in a developing
technology is major cost of a human safety
country like
 In-house product has direct
India, every
technology can relation with
penny counts!
save lot of money long run
business
sustainability!

15. Key for Technological Advancement
Long Term Research Based Approach
Long run honest government policy for technological
research:
 Identification of areas which shall be prioritize for research
Government and development
 Planning and implementation of research work
 Monitoring progress of the research work
 Corporate to be encouraged for technological innovation, in
terms of business opportunities
Corporate firms to promote technological innovation. Practicing
Corporate technological innovation is not charity, rather it provides long
run sustainability and larger market share.
Engineering institutions and colleges to work for innovation.
Institution Institutions practice education, so it shall encourage teachers
and students to think out of the box (even with limited available
fund!).

16. Key for Technological Advancement
A National Drive for Engineering Advancement
 Identification of areas of development
 Development of existing identified products and processes
 Development of identified new products and processes
 Development of human resource (i.e. engineers and
engineering support staffs, by creating a new paradigm shift in
educational approach)
An honest long run holistic approach for
technological advancement.

17. Few possible steps for future
Government initiative to promote technology
If government do not want
Government should
to increase “overhead” of
identify and prioritize
“technological
products or process which
advancement”, then it can
has to be nationally
invite any corporate to
developed. National effort
develop such priority
should be organized to
product (with an
develop those products or
understanding of mutual
processes as per priority
benefit) based on national
list.
projection on technology.

18. Few possible steps for future
For Engineering as a profession
Empower (or create) an umbrella organization across all disciplinary and
professional engineering organizations (like Institute for Engineers) with power
and influence.
Enhance the visibility, prestige, recognition, and influence of members of the
umbrella organization in the eye of industry, government, scientific and
engineering community, and the Indian public.
Any organization who declares as engineering organization should disclose
number of engineers in the organization along with monthly take home salary
of engineers. There should be minimum salary structure for each age-group of
engineers, which has to be strictly followed by organizations.

19. Few possible steps for future
Drive for engineering education
What to Do?
we should strive for broader intellectual span. This should be combined
with strong skills in knowledge integration, synthesis, innovation,
communication, and teamwork.
Engineering students should gain both the capacity
and the commitment for lifelong learning, since
Remember the technology treadmill is accelerating, and those
3 Idiot!! relying on old skills and past learning will quickly
fall off. But even broader skills and abilities are
necessary, including the social skills and skill of
quality management system.
Increase the scholarship in engineering higher education

20. Few possible steps for future
Drive for engineering education
Curriculum for engineering education shall be re-established considering national drive
for technological needs.
Engineering education should be restructured as an academic discipline, thereby
providing students with more flexibility to benefit from the broader educational
opportunities offered by the various engineering colleges, with the goal of preparing
them for a lifetime of further learning rather than simply near-term professional
practice.
Government shall establish more control on educational standard of various private
and government engineering colleges. If government want honest national drive for
technology then quality must be focus.
If government has not “priority” to enhance quality of various private and
government engineering college, then some government college shall be identified
as model engineering college for state of the art engineering education.
Institute like IITs and model engineering colleges shall not prepare engineers for mere
job! Government must ensure brightest future for students of model colleges.

21. Few possible steps for future
Drive for engineering education
Excerpt from “Engineering for a Changing World” by James J. Duderstadt, President Emeritus and University
Professor of Science and Engineering, The University of Michigan:
The current pedagogies used in engineering education also need to be challenged. Although science and
engineering are heavily based on laboratory methods, in fact they are usually taught through classroom lectures
coupled with problem-solving exercises. Contemporary engineering education stresses the analytic approach to
solving well-defined problems familiar from science and mathematics–not surprising, since so many engineering
faculty members received their basic training in science rather than engineering.
To be sure, design projects required for accreditation of engineering degree programs are introduced into
advanced courses at the upper-class level. Yet design and synthesis are relatively minor components of most
engineering programs. Clearly those intellectual activities associated with engineering design–problem
formulation, synthesis, creativity, innovation–should be infused throughout the curriculum. This will require a
sharp departure from conventional classroom pedagogy and solitary learning methods. Beyond team design
projects, engineering educators might consider adopting the case method approaches characterizing business
and law education. More use might also be made of internships as a formal part of the engineering curriculum,
whether in industry or perhaps even in the research laboratories of engineering faculty where engineering
design is a common task.
Yet as any engineering dean will quickly note, a significant shift from the lecture paradigm to more research or
experiential learning through undergraduate research experiences, team design projects, or internships will
require a substantial investment of faculty time and financial resources.

22. Our Future for Technology
Can we develop To stay as
our own No week nation/
technology? To live with a
 Corruption
Political and  Lack of fear of
administrative political and economic
will administrative fallout at any
 Minimize will
waste of other Y  Fund time!
fields e problem
 Change in s
education
system
A prosperous developed nation

23. Lets begin…..
With a hope for shinning tomorrow……
Thank you.