You might have heard of the AUKUS program. Australia, the U.K. and the U.S. are cooperating to produce a fleet of common submarines to be shared among them so that they can better coordinate their military efforts globally. If you have, then you likely also know how controversial it has proven to be. Most of which have been political, but one of the latest controversies has a decidedly engineering aspect to it – and makes for a great and timely demonstration of a key lesson for global engineers.
You can read about it here in The Age. But the key points are:

1. Funding has been increased considerably.
2. Production rates have still stayed at around 1.2 per year.
3. This is not enough, and the production capacity has become the major impediment to the success of this program.
4. Austin Dahmer, a senior policy official at the US Department of Defence, has said “Any recommendations that consist of more money without a mechanism to materially compress those timelines will not change the outlook.”
5. Arthur “Trip” Barber, who sits on the National Commission on the Future of the Navy said the idea of AUKUS is a good one, but the issue is production caused by an inability to keep workers.

Many engineers will read the above and be able to think of similar situations that they have been in. There is a strong desire to make this happen – this desire leads to effort on the part of those in leadership, but nothing seems to improve. This is despite throwing money at the problem. In fact, it is probably because money is thrown at the problem. This is congruent with a mindset that comes from ignorance – there is no real understanding of the challenge so the instinct is to allocate more funds to keep doing more of the same instead of doing things better. More money flows, but it goes into the same wasteful efforts.
You possibly recall the story of Ford Motor Company taking over production of bombers in WWII. It was in the hands of the generals, but they simply did not know how production worked. We are seeing history repeat.
This phenomenon, though, is not unique to government and the military. I have seen it happen in industry as well. Managers, who, instead of asking how to support those who had the knowledge and were trying to get the job done, would allocate more leaders (leaders who were just as ignorant). This then resulted in even less progress as these extra leaders spent more time distracting those trying to do the job than they did supporting them. Why did management do this? They lacked the engineering knowledge to understand what was actually happening.
Think about this notion of how a lack of engineering management can be so problematic, and now ask yourself these questions:

• Who do you think would make a good leader of the AUKUS program?
• What would you do if you were leading it?

This reflection will help consolidate your understanding of engineering management and the knowledge you might want to acquire.
The above shows how important it is to have an understanding of engineering fundamentals (not just first principles, but the fundamentals of the art of engineering and its practice) when managing any program with a large engineering element to it.
The reason why this is important for the global engineer is because different parts of the world have different attitudes to the role of engineering in government. China is famous for having around 80% technocrats in its government. President Xi studied chemical engineering. In the West the classic backgrounds are law, economics, and political science. And then some countries are more likely to have military leaders (Myanmar, Thailand, Pakistan, Egypt, Israel). This can mean that in different countries, there is a different assumption of what knowledge a leader should have. And it will not always align with an understanding or an appreciation of engineering, but sometimes it will.
This is something to be aware of if you ever plan a significant change of workplace. Keep an eye open for situations where management keeps throwing resources at a problem, but things do not get better. It could be an opportunity for you; or a warning: do not get involved.

This article is another part of the retro-engineering series. Where we take a look at engineering efforts of the past to find insights into the generalities of good engineering practice. This then lets us become better global engineers. This time we will explore the time a group of General Motors (GM) engineers were engaged to develop what many consider to be the first true heart pump.

If you want to read more about this project, then take a look at this article in the New York Times.

In summary though, a team of engineers from GM developed a heart pump that, on July 3, 1952, was used in the first successful surgery where the patient survived while a mechanical heart maintained blood supply. This was a major step forward in open heart surgery.

The first thing that I note about this project was that it was an automotive company that was engaged. I understand that GM was and is a large company with many capabilities, but I would also think that a company that specialises in pumps would be better suited.

So why was GM the company of choice for this project?

It was because, in 1949, Charles E. Wilson, a GM president, was also the chairman of the newly formed Michigan Heart Association. And this was because Wilson had a major interest in heart disease. If he did not have such an interest, then he would not have been a member of the association and unlikely to have been approached. Who knows who would have then been engaged or if the project would have even progressed at all.

The lesson here for the global engineer, have other interests and network so that you can be a part of more opportunities.

So that explains the first step – finding out about the project and being invited to join – but what about the decision to actually get involved, and take on such a challenge?

This is an example of understanding the transferable nature of engineering fundamentals.

“We have pumped oil, gasoline, water and other fluids one way or another in our business,” wrote Edward V. Rippingille Sr., the leader of the team of engineers and researchers who developed the heart pump. He wrote further, “It seems only logical we should try to pump blood.”

There are indeed differences to how blood and Newtonian fluids behave, but, at the same time, lessons from pumping the latter can be applied to pumping the former. Rippingille showed the ideal global engineering perspective that one should not assume a new field is completely foreign and off limits to them. Instead, it was realised that there are fundamental commonalities, and that these can be used when moving from one field to a new one.

But still, it was different, and those involved were wise enough to understand this. The General Motors Research team started by reviewing almost everything that had been written anywhere on the subject. Further, Rippingille travelled extensively, examining various pumps that had already been made for such use but had failed for one reason or another. This shows an at least implicit understanding of the importance of systemic thinking and first principles. By studying the prior art, an engineer can quickly acquire the respective domain knowledge needed for systemic thinking and use of first principles. And that’s what would have been achieved by reading prior art and looking at what others had done.

But even then, with all that research done prior, it was not a linear product development process.

Over a period of 30 months, 6 to 10 concepts were built and tried – and 84 dogs were lost through testing. For this project to work there was funding from The Michigan Heart Association and GM had provided support as a public service. This commitment and support did not seem to waver after the first prototype. Thus, there was an implicit understanding of the need to implement solutions to better understand the challenge – many call this iteration, but, in contexts like this where the challenge is new, the global engineer knows it to be co-evolution. And initial failures are not just one more step to success, they are an essential part of defining both the challenge and the solution.

Despite the example of engineering expertise noted above, there was some hint of cognitive laziness or automatic association.

Sometime later, Dr. John W. Kirklin from the Mayo Clinic, who was conducting research into heart-lung machines, reviewed The Michigan Heart Pump and one that had been developed by IBM. He noted the former looked like a car engine and the latter looked like a large computer. This led to some thinking the engineers actually miniaturised a V12 for the job. In reality, this was more likely a case of fixation – where a designer has ideas in their head that they do not realise they have and that they and can’t shake. These are not always bad – and in this instance it might have allowed the engineers to focus more of their engineering efforts on the real challenge – moving blood.
​
In summary, the case of The Michigan Heart Pump is an excellent example of global engineering expertise: engineers networked, found new opportunities, understood the fundamentals, leveraged existing knowledge, understood what it really takes to tackle such a challenge, and let their fixation from prior experience reduce the cognitive effort. It is something that you and I can use as a reference for engineering best practice.

Do you ever give thought to who was the smartest person ever? Or, compare one supposed historical genius with another? I am more inclined to compare them. The notion of intelligence and smarts has proven to be too difficult to quantify in this context to work out who the smartest is. A comparison though, I have found, reveals more about the way we choose to think and what we choose to learn so that we can be better at what we do.

So, in this article, I am going to compare two people history has decided are geniuses for two rather different reasons: Sir Isaac Newton and Leonardo da Vinci.

One of the things I find most remarkable about Newton is the story of how he solved for the Brachistochrone curve. This is because I am quite fascinated by the related isochronous curves and because of how quickly Newton found the solution compared to others at the time. It was a challenge set by Johann Bernoulli in a scientific journal for all those who read it. It seems that Newton did not read it because Bernoulli sent him a letter directly. While another requested one and a half years to find the solution, Newton found it on the night he read the letter (after getting home from work at The Royal Mint).

What strikes me about da Vinci is how he used the scientific method to find knowledge to help him with things as diverse as inventing machines for specific tasks and his painting. He got his hands dirty – literally. He would dissect people so he could then understand their form – allowing for better paintings. He also paid detailed attention to what he saw – using his studies of light to revolutionise the use of shadows to enhance the 3D effect in paintings. He never learned mathematics or Latin and never pursued any formal advanced studies. He was not part of the contemporary scientific community. But with the knowledge he gained, he evolved insights for ideas on mechanisms and inventions such as a strut bridge, an automated bobbin winder, a rolling mill, a tensile strength tester of wire and a lens-grinding machine.

While Newton invented the reflecting telescope, it is hard to imagine him making such advances in art or contemplating numerous types of mechanisms and inventions like da Vinci did. While da Vinci showed considerable scientific expertise, it is hard to imagine him deriving formulae for natural phenomena.
It is indeed as if each of them had powerful brains made for different things, and one could not expect one to also be good at what the other did.

But is this true?

If we go back in time further again, then we can consider Archimedes. He was definitely inventive. Think of things like: the Archimedes' screw, the compound pulley, a crane used to lift and drop attacking Roman ships, an odometer. He also came very close to inventing calculus without algebra and only geometry – making him all the more impressive.

Could Newton have achieved even more if he got his hands dirty? He did put on disguises to bust counterfeiters so he was the type to get visceral if needed – if only he put that ability to something scientific or technical.

What would da Vinci have achieved if he could have applied mathematics to his inventions for faster optimisation and assessment? He certainly had the mental capacity to learn and master mathematics – imagine if he could have used mathematics to find the most viable invention ideas to progress further.

Or, would they each have lost what made them unique and impressive?

We will never know, and each can, regardless, be very content with what they did achieve.

But it is hard to imagine any harm in them broadening their skills to augment those they already have.
​
And that’s the lesson for you as a global engineer. As you move from one role to another, think about the new skills you might need – and then develop them. Even now, think about skills that could help you just a little or might help in the future – and then develop them.

I have just finished reading a book called The Cognitive Athlete by Clint Rahe.
The book focuses on methods used in the military, professional sports, and other high-performance fields, and then explains how you can apply them to efforts that are cognitive in nature.
I am not going to review the whole book, but I am going to share with you the basic thrust and something I noticed that is ideal for global engineers.

The basic thrust.
We should not think about time management to maximise our performance as professionals. Instead, we should better understand how our energy levels work so that we can work on the right things at the best time.
This could mean working out when you are most able to think clearly and take on the most challenging of tasks – and then scheduling that time to be free of meetings so you can focus on the hard stuff.
It could also mean finding the time when you are least capable, and then allocating that time to reply to routine emails.
By aligning your periods of maximum energy with the more challenging tasks, you become much more productive.
Further, you should also find ways to automate or routinise as many tasks as you can so that you have energy reserves left over for the tasks that truly need your cognitive capabilities. This includes things like checklists for checking drawings, a standard procedure for approving purchases, and a uniform way for reporting faults in maintenance.
In addition, if you are going to have a period of high demand, then you need to have a period to ramp up prior and then a period of recovery and reflection afterward. What was interesting about this aspect was that these periods could be throughout a day, a week, a month or a quarter. There was no consideration of periods that go for longer. Meaning, if your job is pushing you to 100% until the end of the year, when you can rest, then you are not operating at 100% energy levels – and you are likely far from working optimally.
This is a very rough summary, and if you want to know more about how to maximise your cognitive ability so that you can perform at a higher level, then get yourself a copy.

Why this is important for the global engineer.
As a global engineer, you need to be able to shift to new contexts and still perform well. The perspective of The Cognitive Athlete allows you to understand the nature of cognitive energy expenditure that is required in any new role you find yourself in.
This could be a result of national practice, company practice, or the nature of the specific challenge.
I now know times when I need this more:

• I have worked in countries where the norm is 5.5 days a week so I needed to management me energy differently from other places.
• Some roles were continuous in their nature – always solving problems as they presented – so I had to plan my energy usage on a daily and weekly basis to ensure I would not burn out.
• Other roles had definite busy periods and periods of different task types – I would therefore need to plan for periods to note lessons learned (so I would recall them for the same time next year) and use a short break to get myself in the right frame of mind for the next period.
• I have also worked in roles where, due to time-zone differences, I needed to work at times not aligned with my natural rhythms, and I would need to be more mindful of making the most of those periods where my energy aligned with the opportunity to work on more demanding tasks.

As a global engineer – or as any type of professional – you too can find you will need to better align your energy levels with your job. And efforts for better alignment will pay off big time.

My biggest takeaway from the book.
I certainly appreciate the new perspective on managing energy instead of time. But for me, the one thing that really stuck was the notion of taking time to reflect upon performance after a major event. I am going to think now about those kinds of large singular events where it is beneficial to pause afterward to contemplate how well it went and in what ways so I can do even better next time with better long-term preparation.
Think now about those rarer large events where you don’t get to learn from your experience as much as would be ideal. Maybe you too need to pause after those and take some notes for future reference.