"Mistakes, Fixes, and Better Mousetraps," ME Online Web Exclusive, Sept. 10, 2004

for 9/10/04

Mistakes, Fixes, and Better Mousetraps

What makes an engineer 'good'?

by Sam Yedidiah

It happened about a half a century ago. We were a team of about five or six engineers who were working in the same office for about 10 years. This gave us ample time to learn the capabilities and shortcomings of each of us. While some of us were regarded as better performers than others, it never crossed our minds to ask why.

One day, the company hired a young engineer who just graduated from a technical institute. During the introductions, the young man did not waste any time. After an exchange of names, he confronted everybody with the same question: "Tell me, what is the meaning of the expression 'good engineer'?"

This question caught us completely off guard. "Why is he bothering us with such a silly question?" we asked ourselves. However this young fellow was so persistent in his quest that gradually this question became the main topic of our conversations during lunchtime.

Many decades have passed since then. However, some of the arguments and opinions expressed during these conversations remain valid until this very day. Here are a few of them:

One engineer: "On my first day at the campus, I was told by my peers that a good engineer never makes any mistakes."

Another engineer: "Our professor used to say that if an engineer claims not to have ever made a mistake, it proves that he has never accomplished anything. To err is human. However, when a good engineer makes a mistake, he knows how to rectify it in the easiest, fastest, and least expensive way."

One engineer: "In our college, an individual who knew more was regarded as the better engineer."

Another engineer: "My former employer had a huge staff of engineers. Those who knew more than the others were not necessarily always the better performers. The best engineers turned out to be those individuals who knew best how to put their knowledge to practical use."

One engineer: "I believe that a good engineer is the one who is capable of coming up with a better solution to a given problem."

Another engineer: "Our professor used to say that a good engineer is the one who can come up with exactly the same solution as another, less qualified engineer. However, he accomplishes it for one cent less."

To a certain extent, all of these assertions contain a certain validity.

While it is impossible to eliminate errors completely, a good engineer will make fewer mistakes than the others. A good engineer also will find the best, fastest, easiest, and least expensive way to correct them.

More knowledge opens up more possibilities for the practicing engineer. But only if he knows how to put it to good, practical use.

The ultimate goal of an engineer is to design "a better mousetrap." However, such a design will be hardly of any practical value if its cost is considerably higher than customers are willing to pay.

I learned this from experience.

It happened at the beginning of World War II. At the time, I was residing in what was then a poorly developed country, which was under British rule. The war had practically cut us off from the rest of the world, so many entrepreneurs tried to develop many new products locally.

At that time, I was working as an assistant to a consulting engineer who specialized in designing special-duty machines. One day he got an order to design a machine to produce isolating plates from the stems of a cattail plant. The customer provided us with the principles of his idea, and also told us about the existence of certain potential problems for which we needed to watch out.

At first sight, this seemed to be a simple, straightforward task. However, during the design work, we came across a problem that could be solved only by creating another problem.

After many fruitless attempts to solve this problem, my employer decided to sacrifice one feature for the benefit of the other. This same night, I conceived an idea, which provided a solution to the dilemma. The next day I told it to my employer. His response was, "NO."

I was shocked. I asked him: "Why? What is wrong with this idea?"

His reply was: "There is nothing wrong with your idea, but who will pay for it?" Afterward he explained to me that, while I came up with a workable idea, its implementation would be extremely expensive. This was it—how I learned the meaning of the expression "at the cost of one cent less."

Sam Yedidiah is a centrifugal pump consultant who lives in West Orange, N.J. He is an ASME Life Member.