Design Perspective
From the ASME division chair
By Thomas R. Chase, chair of the Design Division, 2002-2003
Design is an exciting vocation: Endless and rewarding
challenges are the norm.
This is an especially exciting time to be a mechanical engineering designer.
The business of design is changing at an exhilarating pace, as evidenced
by the articles that follow in Mechanical Engineering Design.
Thomas
R. Chase
Bringing a new product or process to today's market is no small feat.
Designers must be alert to identify new market opportunities. We must
involve our customers in defining specifications. We must develop practical
solutions to fill those specifications within a constrained cost. The
final product must enhance the lives of customers in some way or another
to succeed.
Interestingly, ASME's Design Engineering Division faces these same challenges
as a professional organization. We have recently begun a self-appraisal
of how well we are meeting the needs of our customersÑour members.
One exciting outcome of this self-appraisal has been the development of
a draft business plan by our incoming Chair, Bahram Ravani. This is the
first such document in our 58-year history.
Why should we change from our status quo? Thanks to an enthusiastic and
talented volunteer base, the division can already count many successes.
We have grown to be the largest division within ASME. We host our signature
International Design Engineering Technical Conferences every fall and
a technology transfer conference during National Manufacturing Week in
Chicago every spring. We sponsor two ASME Technical Journals and co-sponsor
the new ASME/IEEE Transactions on Mechatronics. Our global presence has
improved substantially over the last decade due to the efforts of our
International Activities Committee.
Despite these strengths, we can do better. We want to become more agile
in identifying global and societal needs in design engineering. We want
to improve our engagement with others in our professional field. We wish
to enhance our support to engineering practitioners. We will modify our
mission statement to clearly state that our members' careers are as important
to the division as our role in providing leadership to the discipline.
Those are our goals. But how do we achieve them?
We intend to improve our agility by holding strategic retreats where we
can anticipate the evolution of design engineering as a professional discipline.
We will seek to engage with organizations that set the direction of design
engineering, such as the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology.
We will also seek further engagement with our sister divisions and the
local sections. We have already partnered with the Computers and Information
Management Division at the International Design Engineering Technical
Conferences and with the Chicago sections to host an annual dinner during
National Manufacturing Week.
We intend to establish new activities in engineering practice, such as
developing a certification program for design engineers, authoring a code
of ethical practices for design engineering practitioners, and seeking
involvement with professional engineering examining boards.
And, we intend to enhance the careers of our members by establishing programs
in continued education and life-long learning, as well as by leveraging
our long-term sponsorship of the National Student Design Competition.
The division can succeed only with broad-based support and the participation
of our membership. We thus encourage feedback from you on whether you
believe our plans will enable us to serve your needs better. To reach
current members of the Executive Committee, go to http://www.asme.org/divisions/ded/execCom.html.
Design is exciting, and even more so when we share the experience with
our peers. That is why we hope you will join us, by contacting the technical
committee closest to your interest or any member of the Executive Committee.