BP Oil Disaster and the Need to Renew Higher Education

Another round of product recalls is flashing. Maytag issued recall notices for 1.7 million dishwashers that could ignite a fire (and electrocution?) because of defective electrical circuits. Toyota, Ford, and Honda and the other major auto manufacturers recalled millions of cars for various safety defects because of design problems and resultant accidents and deaths. Mattel has to recall toys for kids made from toxic lead. Graco and Simplicity baby cribs that have a design defect that caused baby injuries and some deaths issued recalls for over 200,000 units.The and many other design and product failures reflect upon the overspecialized nature of higher education today, particularly in the field of engineering.

The BP oil disaster stands out as the most publicized and disastrous product design blunder of the last 35 years, with the possible exception of the unanticipated collapse of the Twin Towers after aircraft impacts that should not have caused total collapse and the deaths of thousands of additional people. The Minnesota bridge collapse a few years ago that also caused many deaths and injuries, and the explosion a Challenger Space Shuttle in 1987 that killed seven astronauts were also definite engineering design failures. The latter occurred because of the failure of an improperly designed rubber seal made by Thiokol, a prominent aerospace company, whose engineers and management shoul have been able to avoid by simple testing.

These types of engineering design failures are just a few of those that have occurred since the 1970’s, and the incidence of similar deadly engineering design failures are likely to increase in the future as engineering education continues to become over specialized. Product design and engineering of products from autos to super high buildings to aircraft and oilrigs and including virtually all infrastructure necessary for modern life are becoming more prone to catastrophic and unpredictable failure because engineers who design the various things are themselves the products of a failing engineering education system.

Engineering is inherently an interdisciplinary holistic application of science and mathematics preferably for the benefit of humankind. Education must achieve this essential result. When I attended UCLA in the 1950’s and 60’s it did. No longer are engineers educated holistically anywhere in the USA. Aspiring engineers are educated as specialists that are becoming narrower each passing year such that the individual knowledge base becomes concentrated about a narrow slice of science and technology. The real world in which we all live requires holistic understanding of a broad range of knowledge, not a narrow slice. Engineering education produces just the opposite of what is necessary. Therefore, when engineers are employed by corporations, government agencies, or educational and research institutions they enter as specialists who are not educated to approach design and manufacturing of products with the broad base of knowledge required. They depend on other specialists who are also victims of overspecialization in other slices of engineering specialties. Designs conceived and developed by teams of specialized engineers may sound nifty, but it just cannot produce the intended safety and reliability of a product that is necessary. As the saying goes; “Too many cooks spoil the broth”. This is as applicable to excellent food preparation as it is to the excellent engineering of a product. The more complex the product the more critical it is to approach design and production with holistic engineering. Every aspect of the product; its use, the methods of manufacture and the end operation in service must be considered to achieve a result with the necessary service life and maintainability. This is virtually impossible if the overall engineering approach consists of inputs of a conglomeration of specialists who do not share a common knowledge base or technical understanding.

Engineering requires the amalgamation of many scientific and mathematical understandings including materials and their physical and chemical properties, environmental influences, structural design and properties of structures, welding and joining technology, forming and shaping technology, and most importantly the influence of manufacturing processes on material properties including fracture resistance, corrosion resistance, and imbedded defects among some of the more salient. Engineering education has become so overly specialized that even the specialists are often unable to understand one another. How could a team of such specialist expect to finalize a design that has the necessary attributes and safety? The likelihood is remote. Even when engineering is accomplished holistically with individuals trained and educated so as to speak in common terms and relate to real engineering needs it is impossible to assure absolute safety of any product or to assure avoidance of premature failure. Engineering at its’ very best is still no more than an attempt to use materials having properties that are not always predictable for purposes that are subject to unexpected conditions and use. Therefore, unanticipated failures are inevitable.

The worst outcome of a failure must always be a prime consideration and the decider for the implementation of any design, and every engineering design must be subject to detailed down side failure analysis with this in mind. Engineering education today produces a schizophrenic approach to product development, design, manufacture, and end use where engineering responsibility is so badly fragmented that the resultant products are ones that no one is responsible for and that everyone is at fault for if catastrophic failure occurs. Management ultimately must shoulder the greatest share of responsibility for premature failure of any engineered product since management is responsible for hiring, and organizing their engineering departments and establishing engineering budgets and functions. Corporate management hires inadequately educated engineers because they do not know any better. Most corporate executives are overly specialized as MBA’s, lawyers, accountants, or other narrow specialty fields as well as the engineers that they hire. Management is itself often unqualified to tell academic institutions that they failing to train and educate holistic engineers.

Unfortunately, necessary improvement in the education of engineers will be very difficult and extremely slow to accomplish because universities have gradually become institutions where specialists teach future specialists. Narrow specialist train more and more narrow specialists. Academic institutions foster specialization and invariably award and promote individual specialists for excellence in their narrow field of research and publication. When students have no other option for their education, who is at fault when engineering failures in the real world occur as the BP disaster brings home dramatically. Engineering education in the USA, and most other educational disciplines as well, are overspecialized to the detriment of those presumably educated, and to our country’s detriment at large. We must not continue to produce narrow specialists after four or more years of higher education. Time is late, but holistic education in engineering and all other disciplines is more essential than ever for survival in the 21st century and beyond.