where will the next generation of engineers come from

[Ian S CParticipant @iansc]

We have got to the stage of have maintainance engineers in our railway system, repairing new Chinese built locomotives and rolling stock. Railways has also just made quite a large number of its engineering staff redundant. Ian S C

[Robert DoddsParticipant @robertdodds43397]

I seem to remember my father, an indentured toolmaker, refering in the latter part of the war period to "dilutees", a breed of craftsmen trained in a few months to operate just one or two types of machine and needed to supplement the war effort. Much as they were essential at the time they probably started the relaxing of requirements that we see today,

Are modern teenagers so much brigthter than their forefathers that they can do in a year what it took Dad five years and then some to learn? I don't think so!.

In those halcyon years both Government and Private firms took on apprentices and it was accepted that they moved around both the country and industries, cross fertilising ideas as they went.

I was apprenticed into the Royal Ordnance Factories and in my subsequent career through several industry sectors found other former ROF lads at every place that I worked.

I don't see that happening nowadays to anything like that same degree

Bob D

[Geoff SheppardParticipant @geoffsheppard46476]

Bob D

It's interesting that you mention the "diutees". I seem to recall that there was much discussion in 'M.E.' in the early years of the war about how people with some knowledge of machining could prepare themselves to be recruited for munitions work. However, it was a bit of a sensitive subject due to the reception that they were likely to get from time-served workers and the unions. My father was one of these, being right on the upper age limit for military service, he was never 'called up'. Being a painter and decorator, he was directed into the aircraft industry and spent the whole of the war fabricating engine exhaust systems. I think that once all the able bodied men had drafted into the services, the severe shortage of labour meant that the opposition somewhat faded away. When I went into the industry, there were still people there who had been recruited as dilutees and had just been absorbed.

The other thing that I remember from those war-time M.E.s was Edgar Westbury's design for a de luxe stirrup pump (far better than the issue standard) for fighting incendiary fires.

Geoff

[mike mcdermidParticipant @mikemcdermid41977]

Some interesting views on the subject from you all

Im from the playstation generation which prompted my question, I was luck enough to have worked through college etc and gone through the mill with regards apprenticeships (a hollow promise about the time British aerospace went west)

I work in a facility that does lots of government funded development in machining ,mori seiki have all their happy little visitors to see the cutting edge of adaptive machining etc ad nauseum We specialise in ALM or growing bits and as someone pointed out earlier The limitations of what we can do is actually the CAD software and computational power available ,not the thought process of machining from solid metals are being rplaced by composites on an almost daily basis

However this was not my point i think I read a book which touched on things i havent used for 15-20 years and it made me wonder that even in a place where its often described as the bleeding edge of technology I still have to think back to old ways of solving a problem or what the foundations or origins of where the new technology has come from

Will this ability to have a thought process as opposed to produce something automatically and not understand where it originated end with my generation or will it just be replaced by another in another 100 years time? ,if progress is to believed the myford I love to fiddle with will be looked upon like the discovery of mankinds first cutting tools or even a sharpened flint.

I find it sad that a book which to me has been a learning tool has brought these thoughts into play especially as its the book which is now considered a dinosaur

[mike mcdermidParticipant @mikemcdermid41977]

Some interesting views on the subject from you all

Im from the playstation generation which prompted my question, I was luck enough to have worked through college etc and gone through the mill with regards apprenticeships (a hollow promise about the time British aerospace went west)

I work in a facility that does lots of government funded development in machining ,mori seiki have all their happy little visitors to see the cutting edge of adaptive machining etc ad nauseum We specialise in ALM or growing bits and as someone pointed out earlier The limitations of what we can do is actually the CAD software and computational power available ,not the thought process of machining from solid metals are being rplaced by composites on an almost daily basis

However this was not my point i think I read a book which touched on things i havent used for 15-20 years and it made me wonder that even in a place where its often described as the bleeding edge of technology I still have to think back to old ways of solving a problem or what the foundations or origins of where the new technology has come from

Will this ability to have a thought process as opposed to produce something automatically and not understand where it originated end with my generation or will it just be replaced by another in another 100 years time? ,if progress is to believed the myford I love to fiddle with will be looked upon like the discovery of mankinds first cutting tools or even a sharpened flint.

I find it sad that a book which to me has been a learning tool has brought these thoughts into play especially as its the book which is now considered a dinosaur

[Rob keevesParticipant @robkeeves73950]

At 35 i to came tho the playstation generation, from a young age i had an ablity to understand electrical and mechanical systems & problems, this was not nurtured tho school (Which is still a problem with the current education system) but as a direct result of my desire to read and where possible in my spare time practise the princables i learned. With a great deal of knowlage passed on by my father a welder, fabricator at BR Wolverton and the local, older, wiser generation with experiance of Aston Martin. Where am i now, i can turn, mill, ect i have a skilled job that involves electronics, machanics but i dont know anything really about CAD, due to perhaps my lack of intrest in the computer generation (im reading up on this at the moment), my son is intrested in what i do and i intend to pass on as much knowlage as i can to him, and hope his intrest stays. My brother is 19 and he is just starting a motorsport development course at collage, he wont be going anywhere near a manual lathe or mill, which will teach basic machining princables but instead will go straight to programming a CNC machine, madness in my eyes.

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

We have two yong guys on year-long apprenticeships with us. Both graduates, needing 'something extra' to give them a chance of a job despite both being very capable. They do a vocational qualification one day a week and real work for us the rest of the year. Our consultacy subsidiary is already talking about giving one a job next year, last year the apprentice got a job to go to, starting teh day she left us.

It's not hat new – I did 2 1/2 years of 'community programme' after graduating before getting a 'proper job'. and last weekend some 40 peopel who werev on that programme with us in the 80s had a reunion at one of our centres. Many of them have done well.

Neil

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