"A Decade Down the Line," Engineering Management, Feature Article, March 2004

engineering management

a decade
down the line

ASME gets a major organizational makeover to face the world 10 years from now.

by Jean Thilmany,
Associate Editor

it's a speedily changing world out there. To paraphrase a business mantra, companies need to continually reinvent themselves in the face of change or watch profits dwindle away. The same is true for the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

ASME, a nonprofit member society, doesn't function as a corporation: Executives aren't motivated to meet a bottom line goal. They are, however, motivated to best meet member needs, and to retain and recruit new members, all at a time when new technologies appear around every corner and engineering disciplines commonly overlap.

With that in mind, the board spent the last year overseeing what promises to be a widespread and soon-to-be implemented ASME reorganization effort titled Continuity and Change. Continuity is for the core ASME mission and values, which remain the same for this nearly 125-year-old organization; change is for the way that mission is carried out, which needs updating.

Today, for example, most engineers rely heavily on the Web and on e-mail to communicate, and to get and transfer information, said Reginald Vachon, the Society's president.
"ASME has its Web site, and we're developing this, but not to the point where it's responsive to what people would like to have," he said.

Retooling the Inner Workings

The roots of the Continuity and Change effort stem from two reports made in June 2000 to the Board of Governors. The Council on Public Affairs and the Futures Team each reported that the internal workings of the Society weren't keeping pace with external changes in society at large. This could have a severe impact on ASME's future.

Right or wrong, the reports said, ASME labors under a stereotype. Though members found the Society useful, and wouldn't change many things, they also called it stuffy, somewhat moribund, and immune to change, said Virgil Carter, ASME's executive director.

The Society isn't threatened, he added, but if it continues to function as is for another quarter-century, it just might become so.

The futures team spent one year querying members on exactly how ASME could change to suit them better. Many cited lifestyles that were no longer in synch with ASME.

Members reported increased demands on their time, for example. Because they had less time to devote to a volunteer organization, they couldn't get involved with many ASME activities. Not that they didn't want to, but there are only so many hours in a day.

They also spoke of the need for better electronic access to Society information.

Because ASME often didn't evaluate the world changing outside its doors, it couldn't help members grapple with new job definitions. For example, new technologies affect the way members do their jobs and the skills they need in the workplace.

"When new technology comes on board, we need a new way to assess it," Carter said. "Our heritage is that we assimilate, develop, translate, and deliver technical information. But we weren't positioned to put that information together in light of new technologies.

"Nanotechnology is the best example," he added. "We need a better way to identify new technologies on the horizon."

Reginald Vachon, president.

Also, today's members usually don't work exclusively as mechanical engineers, Vachon said. In what he called today's multidisciplinary work environment, engineers are called upon to perform a mix of mechanical, electrical, biomechanical, and other duties.

Industry experiences the same issues and also needs a retooled ASME, Vachon said. He said the industrial sectors the Society serves are ASME's customers.

In March 2003, with the initial report on the future of ASME in hand, the Board of Governors apportioned money for three separate studies that would eventually join to form the Continuity and Change initiative.

Those studies, which encompassed internal goal-setting, external marketing, and reorganization efforts, are part of the overall reorganization initiative. The Board of Governors is expected to vote to accept the program when it meets toward the middle of this month. If the board votes its approval, expect the upcoming year, from June 2004 to June 2005, to be one of change at the Society, as the initiative is rolled across the organization.

All this change, of course, isn't random. It's all in line with the vision ASME set out for the professional society it wants to be 10 years hence, Vachon said.

The amount of work and self-examination the Society has done within one year is unusual and amazing, Vachon said.
"The board really needs to be complimented on its courageous actions," he said. "It's not changing to be changing, but changing to be consistent with a vision of where we want to be 10 years from now. Without a vision, we would be doing things just to be doing them."

That vision includes recruiting new and younger members and making ASME membership available to engineers across the globe.

Vachon likens this period within the Society to halftime at a football game. It's akin to the point when the coach comes into the locker room to talk to players before the second half. The coach might outline a strategy for the team, based on what he's learned by observing the opposing team in the first half. And he'll set out the end vision for the players: Win the game.

Strategy, Vision, Effort

There were three studies begun during the past year, since March 2003, that the Board of Governors is expected to accept as part of a cohesive reorganization effort.

The strategic marketing study, done by the Plexus Consulting Group of Washington, determined what customers and members want the Society to provide as well as the services it can reasonably offer.

The market for ASME's services has changed. For example, the study cited the need for the Society to bridge differences among industry, academia, and government, and among different engineering disciplines.

This study helped volunteers define how a one-decade-older ASME should function and sets out a strategy for how to meet the vision.

The second program, the Balanced Scorecard, sets out definitive ways to reach the ASME vision for 2014. The Balanced Scorecard approach has been used since 1992 by many Fortune 500 companies to break down a company's strategy into specific steps it must take to meet its strategic goals.

The scorecard links the organization's strategy to its resources, and also offers a system to track strategic and financial performance.

"The Balanced Scorecard helps you develop the initiatives, and the metrics and measures associated with the initiative," Vachon said. "It gives you a way to continually measure performance.

"Instead of the classic approach of developing strategy every two years and then putting it on a shelf, it gives you a means to see how effective you are in meeting your initiatives and in executing your strategy," he added.

One of the ASME objectives that the Balanced Scorecard sets out is reaching out to young engineers, many of whom want to be entrepreneurs and who look for guidance in that area.

"That doesn't mean we're ignoring academia and students," Carter said. "But we need to put emphasis on those areas because we're giving them short shrift."

Virgil Carter, executive director.

The third element is the organizational study conducted by the management consulting firm Arthur D. Little of Cambridge, Mass. This firm also conducted the 1980 organizational review for the Society.

For this study, the firm worked with volunteers and staff members to assess ASME and put in place the structure developed via the balanced scorecard.

After presenting its reorganization efforts at the November 2003 Congress in Washington, ASME scheduled four general assembly meetings to apprise members of the effort and to get feedback. The Board of Governors seems likely to vote to accept the Continuity and Change Initiative at a meeting scheduled for March 12 and 13.

How is ASME expected to look during this year of restructuring? How will it look in the future?

Expect to see a new council structure, Vachon said. ASME's regions as well as the Council on Engineering will be restructured, he added.

"The reason for this is that there'll be more opportunities for ASME members and customers to share technical information and knowledge," Carter said. "This is an improvement beyond what the council structure can provide."

In the future, expect also to see younger members on board. "Some of these vision statements of the future are bold statements that describe an ASME very different than today," Carter said.

Vachon congratulated the speedy one-year reorganization effort, which shows that ASME is still nimble enough to change, and change quickly. And that proves the Society can rely heavily on the input of members when deciding how best to reorganize.

"When people are in an organization, they sometimes say, 'Why don't we reorganize this way?' And management says, 'Okay,' and does it," Vachon said. "But then, when they're not happy, employees say, 'No one asked me.' We got together to reorganize following a structure where members have as much say as possible without complete anarchy and chaos.

"This is really stepping out and leading," Vachon added. "I don't want to speak for all organizations, but this effort is rather unique in an organization like ours. We can handle reorganization. We can restructure for the future. We can say, 'This is what we need to do and this is how quickly you need to do it to meet the future.' "