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I am writing an essay on the financial implications of decisions made by engineers and it would be helpful if any could give me there opinion of what these are.

2006-11-29 11:32:09 · 3 answers · asked by giles 2 in Science & Mathematics Engineering

I should have mentioned civil engineers but good answers.

2006-11-29 16:02:07 · update #1

3 answers

Generally there are several areas that engineers usually have to decide, but this depends on what the engineer is trying to do.

For instance if something is safety critical (i.e. a crane or bridge or tower), then they will choose to make something much stronger than it needs to be.

Say a crane expected to see a max load of 10,000lbs. The design might actually be able to support a load of 15,000, but you tell the public that 10,000 is the safe limit. This is called factor of safety and engineers almost always want to be conservative.

Now an engineer could design it to support 100,000 lbs, but this would make the crane much more expensive than it needs to be. So what happens is they compromise with 15,000 pounds because it is safe enough and not as expensive.


Another topic would be tolerances. For instance, you want a rod 1 foot long. I the real world, it's impossible to get something exactly 1 foot long. We can get close, 1.001 is easy to do, but why do you need such precision if something that is 1.2 feet long will do.

So in many cases you see tolerancing on dimensions, 1 +/- .003. That means something from 0.997 to 1.003 is acceptable. If you want something much closer, say 1.0001, then it'll be much more expensive because it's more difficult to make.


Hope this helps.

2006-11-29 12:03:42 · answer #1 · answered by AL5963 2 · 0 0

Some one once said that engineering is the art of the possible.

There is always more than one way to solve any engineering problem, and an engineer must always juggle limited resources of time, money, and materials to meet goals of manufacturability, affordability, and profit. No one will buy a product, no matter how great the engineering, if it isn’t affordable. No one can buy a product that cannot be manufactured. And no manufacturer will make a product without anticipation of a profit on each one sold.

Sometimes engineers fail in one or more of these areas, often because of unrealistic goals or insufficient information. For example, the Sony Playstation 3 is currently reported to be sold at a loss on every unit sold. Clearly, Sony cannot continue forever to sell them that way, no matter how affordable they are to the end user. Either manufacturing costs must come down or selling price must go up, or both.

Unless Sony’s strategy is to lock the end-user into their product now, at a temporary loss, in the expectation of making a large profit later on their gaming software. Sort of the way razor blades are sold: you almost give away the razor to lock the customer into buying your replacement blades. Same way Microsoft gained dominance over the desktop personal computer market.

At this time there are a limited number of Playstation 3s available for sale at any price, because the laser diode in each unit is difficult to make in large quantities and supplies of them do not meet Sony production expectations. In it’s current state, Playstation 3s are not manufacturable because at least one of the required parts has limited availability. Sony and its engineers are betting this situation will change for the better since the same diode is being used in the Sony blu-ray HD-DVD players.

Often the most important economic decision isn’t purchase price, but life-cycle cost. An industrial machine costs a zillion bucks to make, three zillion is the selling price, but it requires an average of two zillion per year in maintenance over its life cycle. It is expected to last twenty-five years, at which time it is declared obsolete.

How much must the end-user earn with this machine if he is to earn a profit on his purchase? Well, clearly there are other costs besides the three zillion initial investment, depreciated over twenty-five years, and fifty zillion in maintenance over that time. What about the materials consumed to produce whatever the machine makes? What about the salary and benefits paid to the operators of the machine? What about the cost of money to borrow the three zillion in the first place? And is there something else that will do the same or almost the same job at less cost? Does the competition own one?

Sometimes it doesn’t make economic sense to design and build something, just because it is possible, there is a market for it, and a near-term profit can be made. There may be hidden costs like disposal or recycling fees that have to be passed on to the end user. More and more, engineers must take these “non-engineering” factors into consideration before beginning to design anything.

These and other considerations are probably the main reason that engineers often seek an MBA degree to further their careers rather than an advanced technical degree. Doing your job well is one thing; helping your company earn money from it is altogether something else.

2006-11-29 12:18:35 · answer #2 · answered by hevans1944 5 · 1 0

Haven't always made the right decisions, some have been really awful, some have been really stupid ... Some have been very good, and pleasant learning experiences ... People who don't make mistakes(bad decisions) never DO any thing ... The only regrets I have are the Roads NOT taken ... Most of them anyway ... There are some roads that one would NEVER find me on, and those decisions have not only served me well, but have been the good ones ... When in doubt ... DO IT !!!

2016-03-13 00:48:36 · answer #3 · answered by ? 3 · 0 0

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