Training Needs of Design Engineers Are Changing

By David Lengacher, ICF International, Inc.

There is a debate circulating in the engineering community as to whether Lean and Six Sigma practices can be used in the design process. And if so, where do they fit best?

  Despite the fact that this debate is far from being settled,  we are seeing an increasing number of design engineers being offered Lean and Six Sigma training. Because of these factors and the previous unanswered questions, it is time the engineering community addresses an issue that is long overdue. Namely, that the environment in which design engineers are working is increasingly diverging from that of manufacturing engineers. It should be no surprise, then, that as this change continues, their needs for analytical tools are changing as well.

  The direction this evolving work environment is taking should also come as no surprise. In the last decade or so, it has moved away from physical, tangible processes — where physical prototyping was necessary —  and moved closer to an environment that relies heavily on virtual representations, modeling, and simulation. With this transition we have witnessed an explosion in the amount of data that is created and that needs to be analyzed. But the data is not just growing in quantity, it is growing in complexity as well.

  In most cases, management has recognized this transition and has tried its best to accommodate the changing needs of engineers. However,  this often means sending design engineers to Lean and Six Sigma training, which is heavily geared toward manufacturing engineers. Some companies, however, have come to their senses and realized the difference between the two. Those that understand the mismatch are now calling upon training providers to adapt their curricula to provide the kinds of tools that today’s design engineers truly need.

  The most popular solution proposed so far includes modules that cover advanced tools for data analysis. I happen to agree with this solution, and some Lean and Six Sigma training providers are starting to respond by revising their curricula. The sections of curricula that are currently dedicated to experimental design are slowly being replaced with material that is focused on methods used to analyze high dimensional data sets. One such method is principal component analysis (PCA). This is fortuitous because PCA is often found in some of the popular statistical software packages used today.

  Yet some engineers do not agree with this change in curricula because they have first-hand experience with the wealth of information that experimental design can provide when analyzing physical prototypes. Though few would argue that point, most design engineers fresh out of college will never be in a position to use experimental design the way their predecessors have. Again, this is due to the shift away from physical prototyping.

  By the time you finish reading this paragraph, terabytes of data will have been created in companies across the country. Yet a surprising number of engineers have neither the skills nor the training to analyze vast amounts of data beyond regression analysis. Both Lean and Six Sigma curricula should adapt to the new environment in which design engineers are working. A good place to start is to include techniques like PCA and discriminant analysis in training curricula. Design engineers have unique needs and it’s time that we stop trying to squeeze square pegs into round holes.

David Lengacher is a Six Sigma Master Black Belt with ICF International. He has extensive experience in the areas of modeling and simulation, Lean deployment, and strategy development. He holds an MBA from Purdue University and an MS in operations research from the University of Florida and is an ASQ Certified Reliability Engineer. Send comments to [email protected].