Where did it all go wrong?

Surely many of us, when we chose a career in engineering, were inspired by the likes of Brunel?

In his time there was ambition, risk, teamwork, innovation, a great sense of belief that things could be better and personal and collective achievement.

Over my career I have tried to emulate this in whatever small ways I could; in my early days I challenged design specifications for road construction and sought to get more improvement for a fixed or diminishing budget. We successfully used crushed concrete as a sub-base (yet it is still ruled out in favour of virgin type 1). I worked with contractors to solve problems and to create innovative solutions when “the manual” wasn’t able to define the resolution. Early contractor involvement was genuine and enabled projects to be completed on time and budget based on the trust fostered between all parties.

In my experience much of this has been lost; designs are over engineered, contractors aren’t engaged until too late, no-one will take responsibility or make a decision, decisions are referred to a remote higher level or committee and time is lost, putting pressure on contractors. This practice is widespread across local authority clients and even worse with consultants – if it isn’t prescribed in a technical paper or manual, you have no chance of any innovation.

At a recent catch up with some old contracting colleagues I was frustrated by their tales of over-design and poor decision-making by people who have qualifications but appear to have learned very little or are not willing to heed well-intentioned advice from people who have years of experience. Not only is this going against all that Brunel would have espoused but it is wasting public funds at an alarming rate.

Come on people - live up to "The Engineer" title, get out on site, talk to and learn from those who build things, challenge the status quo, take some risks and become a better team!