Engineering professions 2 Skills for innovation
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Engineers will need a broader range of skills and a more interdisciplinary approach to innovation if they are to contribute to the burgeoning service industry in Britain and around the world. By Mark Dodgson, David Gann and Irving Wladawsky-Berger
W
hen Apple sells an iPhone, it has sold much more than a piece of hardware. It has drawn the buyer into a ‘service economy’, providing access, at a cost, to
a vast array of information services. There are currently more than 220,000 third-party applications available for the iPhone, offering a bewildering array of services, and creating a great deal of new wealth. This is just one example of innovation in services –
innovations that differ in many ways from those found in the industrial economy. It is important to analyse the changing pattern of innovation, and engineers need to appreciate the differences to acquire and develop the capabilities they will need if they are to make a bigger contribution to a new wave of economic growth. We believe that, if engineering graduates are to make
a greater contribution to innovation in services, it is important to provide them with appropriate education and training in four broad capabilities. These are: the traditional engineer’s knowledge of a specific domain; analytical skills; the ability to collaborate with people from other disciplines; and knowledge of organisational systems and processes. Analytical skills are required for decision-making
in complex and unpredictable social systems, such as urban environments, healthcare and financial systems. These skills need to be strongly mathematical and should utilise the massive increase in the amount of data available from sensors and computing. Analytical skills also require expertise in simulation and modelling of these systems, complex control theory, real-time information analysis, and design and optimisation, all of which can be found in traditional engineering skills. Innovation in services focuses directly on appreciating
and meeting human needs and market demands; it requires greater emphasis on understanding and adapting systems made up of information, people and organisations. This is why we believe that innovation in services also requires engineers to have
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knowledge of business systems and processes. Service innovation also changes the culture and organisation of the innovation process itself. While conventional engineering draws on engineers working in isolation with a deep ‘vertical’ knowledge of specific disciplines – knowledge that is still crucial to the development of services – innovation in services also draws upon many different disciplines working together.
Collaboration Services are often highly interconnected. Innovations in the insurance industry, for example, are related to changes in the medical system, the design of safer buildings and the building of better roads. Understanding these connections requires knowledge of what happens at boundaries between disciplines and professions. Interdisciplinary and collaborative skills are therefore often critical. This is why we see the
Engineers must develop interdisciplinary and collaborative skills
> November 2010 CIBSE Journal 35
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