Your Life Depends on Engineers

Engineering excellence is foundational for our country to excel and accelerate.? In this post I’ll examine commercial aviation, infrastructure, electric vehicles, and the effects of AI.

Boeing no longer the best:

The number one engineering headline is related to Boeing having yet another major set-back with their 737 commercial airline program.? Many of us remember 2 deadly airplane crashes in the initial roll out of the 737-MAX and the resulting Netflix documentary that captured the event fairly well.? I have built two start-of-the-art airplane factories (A320 and A350-XWB), so I’m well aware of the quality control and precision that goes into aircraft production.? I’ve also interviewed 3 commercial airline pilot-friends-of-mine, each of whom says they are glad they fly Airbus or are trying to get trained on Airbus . ??Also, I’m a 2 million mile commercial flyer (thanks Delta!) who has flown on every commercial aircraft in service, including A380, A350 (my plane), 747, and 787… and yes I book these aircraft on purpose.

Boeing used to have the best aerospace engineering of any company on earth.? That’s not true anymore.? What happened?? First slowly, and then all at once, Boeing gave up on engineering excellence and innovation – at the same time.? At first the two concepts of engineering excellence and innovation may not seem linked, but they are because engineering is about culture.? As with any profession, the cream rises to the top and engineers come in all skill and ability levels.? A culture of excellence breeds the next generation of outstanding engineers.? Innovation programs move the engineering culture forward by creating new challenges and offering new career opportunities, such as the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which is 50% carbon fiber (talk about innovation!).? As final proof to this thesis, I offer NASA and the lunar landing, we are still benefiting from the engineering achievements that happened 55 years ago.

What does Boeing need to do to right the ship (aircraft)?? They need to get back to their roots and define the company as the greatest aviation engineering company on earth that builds the safest and highest performance airplanes on earth. As a raving fan and a shareholder, I'm rooting for them.

Infrastructure

Failures of our infrastructure are too vast to list here, but when things go wrong it costs lives, damage to property, and is devastating to the environment.? A short list to refresh your memory from the last 20 years:

·??????? Levees surrounding New Orleans that failed after Hurricane Katrina

·??????? Train derailments in Philadelphia and East Palestine, Ohio

·??????? Bridge Collapses in Minnesota, Atlanta, and Miami

·??????? Water contamination in Flint, Michigan

·??????? Deep Horizon oil spill I the Gulf of Mexico

In each of the devastating failures listed above, reasonable engineering judgement could have foreseen the failures.? Obviously the timing of the failure was not predictable, but inaction, lack of maintenance, and underinvestment was a theme of all of the failures.? In other words, each one was preventable from the engineering perspective.

The ASCE ( American Society of Civil Engineers ) grades our nations major infrastructure at a C average, with many critical elements, such as water treatment, bridges, waterways, railways, and energy infrastructure earning a “D” in major populated regions.? C’s and D’s won’t get you through engineering school, so how have we let our national infrastructure degrade to the point where we’re not achieving excellence?? That old phrase “we don’t build ‘em like we used to” certainly applies.? Are we leveraging innovation and striving for excellence?? It certainly doesn’t feel that way.

The Main Street draw bridge (pictured at top) in Jacksonville, Florida has been in continuous operation since 1941.

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Vehicle Electrification

America is in the midst of an energy transition.? Power generation is moving at scale to renewable energy from solar and wind, bolstered by battery technology that can store energy during peak production.? On the fuels side we have already made substantial strides into lower carbon fuels such as compressed natural gas and liquified natural gas.?? New zero-carbon fuels are starting to show promise on scaling into the national logistics network, like hydrogen.?

These advancements in energy go hand-in-hand with the national movement to vehicle electrification.? Industry leaders, like Tesla , have embarked on producing a pipeline of innovation and have demonstrated an ability to recruit top talent, establish an engineering culture of excellence, and continuously improve existing products.? Tesla is now entering the nexus of engineering excellence and innovation, the point at which Boeing became a world-class company.

On the other hand, vehicle electrification is the wild-wild west.? Lack of quality and safety protocols have lead to battery bans on aircraft and thousands of catastrophic household fires from e-bikes, e-scooters, and vehicles.? Seemingly dominant electrification companies have been going bankrupt at a breakneck pace as the desire to grow and scale leads to overextended investment and CAPEX, which subsequently lead to the company’s demise in the face of lagging sales or surging interest rates.? Significant companies failures include:

·??????? Enerdel

·??????? Navya

·??????? Lightning eMotors

·??????? Proterra

·??????? Local Motors

·??????? Lordstown Motors

If are a customer of one of these companies or relied on their products in your electrified vehicles the future now feels uncertain.? Any new and emerging industry goes through this disruption and many readers can remember the dot com boom and bust that had a very similar industry churn to what we are seeing now in the vehicle electrification space.

The Emergence of AI

AI is bringing new levels of disruption to the industry along with novel breakthroughs in computing and computer science.? There will be several important winners, OpenAI and 英伟达 appear dominant at the moment, however a long road of epic failures.? The key element for companies looking to sustain a long road of success rely on creating a culture of engineering excellence balanced by a persistent and systematic push for innovation.? The moment a company stops creating the engineering culture will fade and the company will soon be relegated to the dustbin of history.? The tension between algorithms and ethics are playing out right before our eyes in the national news.

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Closing

For America to remain the dominant economy and the biggest creator of innovation will require a rising cohort of journeyman engineers.? From these engineers we should expect a focus on public safety and excellence.? The next great inventing engineers will rise from this cohort to solve the challenges of tomorrow and fix the mistakes of the past.? In a time when the speed of change is on an exponential curve, we need great engineers now more than ever.